How to drive in any city....

How to Drive in Any City

A guide on how to "drive like a local" in any city across the nation, and maybe even a few international locations
Disclaimer:  Based entirely on anectdotal evidence, and I have definitively not let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Norman, OK

This is the town where I first learned about "big city traffic."  Near and dear to my heart.

Left turns:  There are many intersections in Norman where there is no "green arrow" to facilitate your turning left, and enough traffic that there's no safe way to turn while the light is green.  The appropriate way to accomplish this maneuver is therefore to watch the cross-traffic lights and start turning one millisecond before the light turns green.  In this town, only one car gets to turn left per green light.  This holds true for all of New England, and I like to call it the "New England Left Turn."

"Jumping the gun:" I.E. where you watch the lights and start moving a second or two before the light turns green is acceptable in this town.

Yellow lights:  You probably don't want to run one of these, because of the way left turns and "jumping the gun" is approached.

Driving in inclement weather:
Winter wonderland
Norman doesn't have normal winters, with snow and stuff.  Either it's all clear, or there is a layer of ice 10 inches thick from an ice storm, and then there are all kinds of things on the road that make you want to go wicked slow anyway, like branches, entire trees, power lines, etc...  Just assume that everyone around you is just as freaked out as you are and has about as much control over their vehicle as you do.
Rain
Normal rain is nothing to Norman folk, turn on your windshield wipers and proceed as usual.  However, rain could mean tornadoes, and if these happen, expect lots of people driving kind of slowly rubbernecking for the twister.  If you see one, I would highly recommend not driving into it.

Boston, CA

Left turns:  Boston is even worse than Norman for the lack of the "green arrow" and lots of traffic.  Here the appropriate thing to do is pull WAY out into the intersection until you're blocking cross traffic, wait for the light to turn red, wait for all the people running the red light to get through the intersection, and then turn.  In Boston it's perfectly appropriate for two or three cars to get to turn left on a single light.  The max I think I've seen is about five.

Yellow lights:  Typically look more like an orange-ish pink to a native Boston driver.

"Jumping the gun:"  Highly recommend against doing this.  It's a good way to die given the way Bostoners will run "well, it was almost still yellow" lights.

Round-abouts:  Are EVERYWHERE.  These are pretty straight-forward:  You enter one by turning right into it and going around and around until someone lets you over so you can exit it.  You might be there a while.  Therefore, directions may say something like "left turn on Washington St." but what it really means is "turn right into the round-about, get stuck going around and around for 20 minutes trying to figure out which Washington St is the one you want to exit on (there are 5 of them), finally pick one, then spend the rest of the day trying to find your way back to civilization on a maze of round-abouts, one-way streets, and no-left-turn intersections."

Turns / directions / street signs:  Boston, the international hub it was at the time of the Revolutionary War, was obviously designed to discourage British tourism trying to prevent us from becoming our own nation instead of a British colony.  Obviously.  Take for example the 6-way intersections between three streets with nearly the same name.  This would be fine, if any of the three streets were actually labeled, or I suppose if you have a GPS with the cute little map that helps you distinguish between a 30 degree left and a 60 degree left.  Unfortunately, your GPS will undoubtedly be unaware that Mem. Dr. is closed for the Boston Marathon and be unable to help you actually find your way around town.  Additionally, if you ask for directions, don't be too surprised if you get an answer like, "Well, you can't really get there from here... maybe if you go into Medford and come back on that one street... honey, what's the name of that street they can come in on from Medford to get where these kids are going?"

Medford:  Looks like it's close to Cambridge on a map.  Has a TGIF's, a Costco, and a Krispy Kreme, so it looks like an attractive destination to someone from a less-urban environment as a little taste of home.  Google maps will tell you it's only 10 minutes to Costco.  Your GPS will agree.  You'll start off on your journey, and 10 minutes later you will look off to your right and see a TGIF sign and a Costco sign, and start heading towards them.  Every time you get close a one-way street will put you on an elevated highway and whisk you away from the mythical mecca of suburban delights.  Two hours later you will settle for a 7-11 donut and a route back home.

Parking:  Before you go to Boston, I would highly recommend practicing parallel parking.  The way it's done in Boston is you drive down Mem. Dr., that is nearly a true highway complete with exit and entrance ramps at 40-50 mph, see a spot 6 inches longer than your car, and get into it with 3 inches between your tires and the curb in less than 5 seconds so you don't get hit by the guy behind you also going 40-50 mph.  Yes, you do actually get good at this.  I once measured the parking space I had crammed my ancient Chevy Lumina into, and it was only 5.5 inches longer than my car.  Total.

Driving in Inclement Weather:

Winter Wonderland:  Boston really has a handle on winter weather.  The snow plows will be out with a vengeance at the first sign of snow.  If you parallel parked your car on Mem. Dr., either wait for summer to thaw it out of the six feet it is now buried in, or remember to keep your emergency snow shovel in your dorm room, not in your car.  Fortunately, if you can get your car out of its parking space, driving in snowy weather is pretty blase.  Additionally, if you have a Jeep with 4-wheel drive with lots of undercarriage clearance, you can actually park on top of the drift of snow that gets piled up in one parking space of a busy parking lot.  Useful for Sunday Indian buffet on Mass. Ave.

Rain:  Boston gets a lot of rain.  One January it started raining and didn't let up until March.  It was more days of rain than the 40-day and 40-night episode that Noah rode out in his ark.  The streets are well-drained, so there's no issues with driving in the rain, even if it's a rain storm of biblical proportions.  If you do find a puddle, it's extra points if you can hit it at high speed and spray the pedestrians.

Red Sox:  Don't even try.  I warned you.

Getting to the Providence Airport:  The airport in Providence, RI is much cheaper to fly into or out of and is only 60 miles away, which is really close for a country girl.  This looks really straight-forward on google maps, you get on 93S, merge with 95S, and follow signs for the airport.  What no one tells you is that of the 4 lanes of 93S, ALL FOUR merge with 95N and you have to take an exit to merge with 95S.  I found this out one day when I was heading along my merry way to the airport to fly to Oklahoma and was like, "Huh, that rock climbing gym over there looks a lot like the one I go to in New Hampshire."  Yes, I was trying to go south of Boston to Rhode Island, and didn't realize I was off course until I got to New Hampshire.  Totally missed that flight.

San Fransisco Bay Area

It's not too bad in this city, in all reality.  The people are generally nice, there are multiple 7-11s, and the area is, for the most part, laid out more like a blind person constructed it and less like an evil civil engineer that hates cars designed it (Boston would be a good example of the latter).  There are a few things you should be aware of, however.

Tolls:  If you want to cross a bridge, you will have to fork over some dough (~$6 or so, maybe more).  None of the bridges (as of this writing) take plastic money, they require their extraction in the paper or metallic form.  Some exits are labeled "last exit before toll bridge," but in general you have little to no warning that you're about to be extorted.  Keep a couple $20s in your ashtray, it will save you in those random times when you get lost and wind up having to cross a bridge twice in order to find your way home.

Emeryville:  Much like Medford, this place has not only a Costco and a TGIFs, but it also has an Ikea and a GAP outlet!  Additionally, it looks like it's only 10 minutes from Berkeley.  Are you noticing a trend of similarity with Medford here?  Well, I should have.  I don't recommend trying to find the elusive Emeryville and its seductive establishments.

Berkeley:  This place is a student town, and apparently the students don't know the meaning of "jay walking."  Stay alert at all times, you never know when some girl in 80s attire that is apparently back in style will jump out in front of you while texting on her phone "OMG, isn't he so HOT!?! :-)"  It's like running the gauntlet, I swear.

Hills:  Everything is on a hill in this region.  If you drive a stick-shift, then get really good at starting from a dead-stop with someone 3 inches behind you on a 45 degree incline.  Also get good at parallel parking on a hill, and expect that other people will give you the same 5.5 inches of extra space that you got with your Boston parking job.  At least here traffic will not be whizzing by at 50 mph.  (But a student my decide to walk in front of or behind your car while you're trying to pull out.)

Pull-outs:  There are lots of windy, narrow roads up into and out of the hills.  If you notice there is someone behind you who would like to go faster than you, you are supposed to look for a "pull-out," pull into it, let the other faster people pass, and then proceed at a speed you find safe and comfortable.  It's California state law that you can't let traffic pile up behind you more than 3 cars.  However, there's always someone who doesn't know about pull-outs and is obviously quite new to the whole thing of driving-a-car-at-high-speed around gut-wrenching curves with 90-degree  (or worse) drop-offs without even a guard-rail or a bush or two to break your fall.  I'm usually the slow person, but at least I've heard of pull-offs.  USE THEM!  Can I just say that a guard rail would be nice?

Driving in Inclement Weather:  The only weather the SF bay area gets, really, is sun.  It's always foggy, and everyone drives as if fog were normal and the speed limit still applies even when you have only 10 feet visibility.  Everyone actually slows down a little when it's sunny, and you can nearly audibly hear the chorus of people emerging from the fog, "Wow, I didn't know there were so many pretty hills around here!  Look, I can see the bay!  Honey, is that the bridge?  I didn't realize it would be so pretty from a distance!"  It is really pretty.

Los Angeles Area

This city... man, this city.  And it's drivers.  It's where I live now, and I'll keep it brief because I know my sense of humor develops with distance and time.

Los Angeles Freeways:  

Freeways: First in your education as a LA person:  they are "freeways," not "highways."  I'm not sure why, but that's what they're called.  Also, it's not "highway 2," it's "THE 2."  If you are asked for directions, the best way to show that you're not from LA is to say, "Well, you take highway 210 west, then highway 2 south, then 134 west, then exit on Burbank St. and take a right."  The correct way to give directions is, "Well, you take the 210 to the 2 to the 134, and it's right there."

Freeways....:  When you look at a map of LA, you just have to think, "Some frustrated engineer built this."  It's like the city was first "organically built," like Boston was, where you want to get from point A to point B so you build a road between them.  Rinse, lather, repeat, until there are many roads between many interesting places.  What is this square grid, and why do we need it when our points of interest aren't on a square grid?  Freeways then happened.  Now there are so many freeways that you can't go 5 miles in LA without a major intersection of freeways.  This would be fine if it weren't for the fact that at every intersection, there are 4 lanes of traffic to the right that want to be in one of the left 4 lanes, and 4 lanes of traffic on the left that want to be in one of the right 4 lanes.  Every intersection is a slow-down because that frustrated engineer wasn't given enough space for there to be more than maybe 1000 feet between intersecting with the other freeway and diverging from it.  And this brings me to the....

California Lane Change:  When you're in the most right hand lane of a freeway that then merges with a further 4 lanes of traffic off to the right, and need to exit within 500 feet, you have to do something I like to call the "California Lane Change," or crossing 3-5 lanes of traffic in one smooth, fluid movement and exiting the freeway while going 65 mph.  It sounds like something some jerk would do if you life in any other state (including denial), but it's a fact of life here.  Just today I wanted to turn right on Lake after exiting the 210, and there's no way to do that except plow across 3 lanes of traffic in less than a block.  I would say practice this, but if you practice that maneuver in Dallas you're probably going to be in trouble with the locals.

Blind Spot:  You have one, the driver the lane over has one.  The driver the lane over wants to get in your lane, and puts on her turn signal.  The appropriate thing to do is to decrease or increase your speed such that you are riding right in her blind spot.  If she slows down, you slow down to remain in her blind spot.  If she speeds up, you do too.  She knows you are there, and therefore can't move into the lane she wants to be in, but she can't see you.  Hahaha!  You've got her trapped!  ...Apparently, even with all the fun things to do in LA, this is the most fun some LA drivers have had all week, and they do it all the time.  To fit in, you should attempt the same from time to time.

Driving in Inclement Weather:  Inclement weather means anything less than full sun.  If clouds appear, people are like, "what are those fluffy white things up in the sky?"  and traffic will slow down.  If it rains, people slow down to 25 mph on the freeway because they can't understand why wet stuff is falling from the sky.  (Digression:  Actually, it's really dangerous in LA after a rain, because the drainage systems are inadequate, there's lots of oil build-up on the roads that gets suspended by heavier water, and it's really easy to hydroplane lose control of your vehicle like if you were driving on ice.  End digression.)

The 405:  Carmageddon.  Enough said.

Other Cities / Countries

I could include many more cities, towns, countries, etc.... but I think I'll leave that up to you.  Please comment with your humorous guides to driving in other places!