Driving in this city has gradually stopped being my living nightmare. Everyone I spoke to before I came out said driving in LA was "a piece of piss". Well if it's a "piece of piss" I definitely have cystitis.
I guess the fact that I haven't driven on either side of the road for about five years hasn't helped.
Firstly, I don't know which way to look for impending peril so I kind of freeze, waiting for the road to clear - entirely. I'm waiting on Marathon type conditions. This nervousness and hesitancy is proving particularly popular amongst my fellow drivers who expressive their annoyance at me through the international language of Swerving Past You and Staring.
Yesterday, after an early meeting where I'd successfully navigated the mid-morning traffic, I awarded myself a car-free afternoon. I wanted to guarantee having at least one day where I hadn't hit anything.
For the first three days on the road I must have yelled "sorry!" over my shoulder at other drivers about thirty or forty times. And every time I heard a car horn I screamed "What did I do now??", even if the sound was clearly coming from miles away.
I know I'm driving way too slow for the native Los Angelenos but even with their fairly well marked roads and good signage, I still struggle to make an entire journey without, at some point, descending into a screaming flap.
After a week of negotiating the auto-hell I got a piece of advice that made me laugh. My manager said, 'don't make left turns. It'll be so much easier. Left turns are hard'.
In London or any British town or city for that matter, no left turns would make no sense what with our avent garde road layout. Just trying to get to your local supermarket would probably leave you stranded North of the Watford Gap but here, with it's elementary grid system, it is absolutely possible.
When I'm feeling more comfortable, I'll definitely challenge myself to take on more left turns, along with multistorey carparks, drive-thrus and perhaps, when I'm really confident, a high speed car chase near the 405.
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