Driving on San Diego Streets, Roads, and Highways

I drive my bronzy-orange German hot rod like it likes to be driven...fast and furious between the red lights. On San Diego's streets, roads, and highways-make that freeways-you go like a bat out of hell or you go nowhere at all.

As a transplant to California, my driving required 'west-coastification.' That means I needed to relearn how to drive an automobile the way they do it out here. Here's how they do it out here:

Rush hour driving - It's an overstatement to be calling this driving at all. First, it's not just an hour but hours. Morning rush hour goes on all morning; evening rush hour goes on from 2:30 p.m. into the night. Secondly, rush-hour driving is really rush-hour stopping. With all those cars trying to share the road, the only space that's yours is where you stop.

Freeways - California highways are the closest thing to a free-driving zone. Maybe that's why they call them freeways. Speed limits are posted, if only for the CHiPs to know how slow to go. (CHiPs is short for California Highway Patrol.) If you choose to obey the law, you'll be passed by everybody else on the freeway, including those passing you on the right.

Going slow is not an option. You're whisked into the flow of ongoing traffic, all of it going fast and furious after starting from a stop. A red light regulates entry onto the freeway, allowing exactly one-and-a-half cars to enter on the green. Make sure your car does zero to sixty in 5.2 or less. If you're the 'half,' you'll need the power to get on in your alotted time. Freeway on-ramps resemble what we know in the East as a drag strip.

Right of way - All rights of way yield to pedestrians. People on foot have it their way, everywhere and all of the time....as it should be. After all, you don't want to be picking off pedestrians on your way downtown.

But they do take advantage of their pedestrian advantage by stepping off curbs without looking, without regard for the fact that your car has nowhere else to go, and expecting both you and the line of cars behind you to stop on a dime. My cousin Stephie got a ticket seconds after a walker stepped into the crossing. Your wrong if you're the one with the wheels and a motor. Pedestrians have full command of local streets and roads.

Timed lights - One thing stands out as a San Diego street advantage and that's the timing of traffic lights. They've programmed the period of red and green lights to maximize flow. This is distinctly different from the East, where you're stopped by a red at every light on the highway. Whereas traffic lights maximize the flow of San Diego's zillion cars, the East does it's best to slow flow to a trickle.

Volume - Long ago, California realized that gridlock would freeze its people in place if highways weren't expanded to accommodate the huge influx of cars. (And Californians do love their cars. California women buy them in colors to match their shoes.) Not unusually, freeways span eight lanes across. Interchanges appear as giant strands of cement spaghetti. Special commuter lanes help the rushed get to work. And highway expansion propositions are always on the ballot...although that's now changing to protect the environment from all the cars already here.

I just love driving in San Diego. Despite that it's urban, that there are lots of other cars on the roads, despite the huge volume of traffic sometimes stopped solid with late arrivals common, there's nowhere I know of for better city driving than San Diego.

Somehow, I just know I'm going to get an argument here...