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driving / Los Angeles / rants / Santa Monica
January 21st, 2009 @ 9:44 am PDT
In keeping with Obama’s new “Era of Responsibility”, I’m going to start a new recurring feature here at davidgagne.net. I was thinking of naming it “Assholes Who Refuse to Pay Attention to Traffic Signs”, but I think instead I’ll just go with the name of the intersection. Since I am forced to take the same route to work every day, and since I am almost always stuck with plenty of time on my hands to snap an iPhone photo, I’ve decided to start publishing this feature.
If you’re traveling north on Cotner Avenue in Los Angeles and you get to the Santa Monica intersection, you will find yourself merging alongside people from the left who are exiting the 405N onto Santa Monica. At this point all of you have five — five! choices:
- You can make a left turn onto westbound Santa Monica.
- You can make a left turn onto westbound Santa Monica or merge onto the 405N.
- You can go directly to the 405N.
- You can make a right turn onto eastbound Santa Monica or continue north on Cotner.
- You can make a right turn onto eastbound Santa Monica.
Technically that’s really seven choices. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. (Click the photo for a better view.) The vast majority of people arriving at this intersection are the ones who have just exited the 405N. These people all want to turn left or right onto Santa Monica. There are very, very few people who want to go straight onto the 405N from here. (The only ones that do are the ones who are approaching from northbound Cotner or who have, I assume, inexplicably accidentally just exited the 405N and now want to get back on the highway.)
I am one of the unlucky people who needs to go directly from northbound Cotner to the 405N. I say “unlucky” because — unless I am fortuitous enough to be the only person stopped at the light, which is rare in a city of 14 million people — there is always some asshole who is sitting in the “Option 3: Straight Only” lane but wants to continue north on Cotner (Option 4) instead. This person will invariably not be able to do this because there is always a wait to get to the other side of Santa Monica. So this asshole will inch forward at a snail’s pace attempting to move into the lane on the right, usually forcing anyone following to miss the traffic light.
Today that asshole was a middle-aged African-American woman, driving what I think was a cherry red Dodge Charger, California license plate 5TKX955. Congratulations, ma’am. You are the inaugural jerk.
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so, Sarah and I spent more than fifteen minutes discussing this and we are uncertain on a some points:
1) how do you know she wanted to go straight on Cotner and not turn right on Santa Monica…I’m presuming at some point she finally made it over to lane 4 and you were able to pass her (you in your lane 3, presumably with a stink-eye in her direction), and her actions thereafter are unbeknownst to you. Do cars actually wait in lane 4 to go straight? I would have thought they’d stay in lane 3 and cut over after they pass the folks turning right on Santa Monica.
2) what about taking Sepulveda up to Wilshire or Sunset?
3) what about moving? perhaps to somewhere there isn’t as much traffic, and where people might, you know, like you?
1. No, that is exactly the problem. I *know* she wanted to go straight on Cotner because she sat blocking me until she could merge into the lane immediately to our right (option 4). By that point the light had changed so I was stuck to sit through another cycle, and I could clearly see where she went. (Also, you would have to be a tragically incompetent driver to be in the center lane if your goal is to turn right.)
2. There are way too many lights and much more traffic on Sepulveda. And, besides, the left-turn from Sepulveda onto Wilshire is an awful light, and then you have to get all the way to the right to get on the 405N. That’s a horrible option. (Have you ever actually driven in Westwood?)
3. There is no such magical place.
1) I figured she was “stuck” in lane 3 because she wanted to get into lane 4 so that she could turn right…no one let her in, so she was stuck to wait for an opening, thus creating frustration for you. If she wanted to go straight on Cotner, she could stay in lane 3, then while in the intersection, or just past the intersection, she can get over to the then phantom lane 4 to go straight on Cotner (as all the traffic that was in the lane 4 prior to Santa Monica would be gone as those cars mostly turned right on Santa Monica). Are you “forced” to get on the freeway from lane 3, or is there “room” just past the intersection to scooch over to the right to stay on Cotner? I’m going to need more and better pictures please.
2) Why would you turn left onto Wilshire from Sepulveda to go to 405N (doesn’t that take you to South?)…can’t you just turn right onto Wilshire from Sepulveda and get onto the freeway immediately?
3) I’d even help you pack if you do find such a place.
4) I hate you for this.
1. No! That is *exactly* the problem. People sit in lane 3 thinking that they can cut into lane 4 *in the middle of the intersection*, which they can almost never do because Cotner gets congested and moves too slowly and nobody lets them merge into that lane. And, no, I cannot get to the 405N from lane 2 because those people are almost all turning left on Santa Monica and get stuck because Santa Monica is backed up.
2. Actually you are right about that. I could turn right no Wilshire to get on 405N. It’s irrelevant, though, because there are too many lights on Sepulveda — including at Santa Monica! — to make that more efficient.
3. There is no such place.
4. Wow.
Oh, and by the way, I was stuck today at this intersection behind an **** in a white minivan with New Jersey plates. As usual, he was trying to go straight on Cotner from the “405N only” lane. I just couldn’t get to my iPhone because I was eating a Starbucks egg and sausage muffin.
I hate the Starbucks egg and sausage muffins. They smell like crap while they’re being cooked.
So there is this compelling article in this month’s Scientific American (February 2009, pgs. 20-22) on reducing traffic lights and closing streets in order to speed up commuter traffic. The idea is that fewer choices force more homogeneous and altruistic driving patterns. It’s an incredibly interesting argument, to say the least, but it does little to help your current situation. Unless of course the plan called for the immediate annihilation of moronic drivers in this country…which would, in a classic double-whammy, solve the current unemployment crisis as well.
I have this problem everyday as I’m trying to make the right turn into the 405 North car’s come right and cut you off. I called D.O.T to let know that they should have someone there to direct traffic and when they’re there it works great they don’t allow anyone from the lane So call the D O T office at 310 289 0353 and tell to do there job instead of drinking coffee and donuts