Driving in America

[warlord 73]

I used to drive regularly on the 401 between Detroit and Toronto/Buffalo. One thing I will hand to my Canadian friends: passing lane discipline. People actually use the passing lane to pass in, not to set cruise control and stop the flow of traffic like they do all over America (except Colorado, which I have found to be Canadian-like in the their use of the passing lane).

That's exactly what I thought! SO much like Canada.

This thread has been educational! I feel better about driving in Colorado now.

We talk about Detroit, but what about getting lost in LA? My fiance and I were super late getting to the airport so we decided to follow the "shortcut" the GPS suggested and oh my... I have never seen anything like that in my life! There were massive groves of thuggy looking people standing along the street staring at you as you drive by. Maybe its because we were in a bright orange Mustang? Regardless I was terrified!

Yeah Inglewood is like that. And never used GPS before to find routes, but doesn't seem like they take demographics into play. I'd assume they'd take you through Compton or Lynwood etc if it looked like it was shorter at nighttime or something without any regards to you surviving the trip.

Thing is with LA is to first know what cities are ones to avoid and what ones are generally safe. Even safe towns have bad areas, but you learn to know which ones are heavily gang related territories (like the 710 corridor towns or Downtown fringe or many of the central Valley towns like North Hollywood etc). Once you get those you can still navigate through the freeway system no problems through these areas, but just be aware of where you are and not pull off the highways in bad areas...

[Krikit 1,165]

. Cairo and Mumbai are two I remember being the most insane I've ever seen.

Oh wow. That's super cool that you've been to Cairo and Mumbai.

We talk about Detroit, but what about getting lost in LA? My fiance and I were super late getting to the airport so we decided to follow the "shortcut" the GPS suggested and oh my... I have never seen anything like that in my life! There were massive groves of thuggy looking people standing along the street staring at you as you drive by. Maybe its because we were in a bright orange Mustang? Regardless I was terrified!

Massive groves.

OMG I just thought of something when you said LA. My girlfriend and I went to LA last year on vacay, we rented a car. We got lost and ended up in the ghetto, had to stop for gas. As she's pumping fuel, this scary looking guy walked up and asked her for change, he needed bus fare as he was just let out of prison and he had 0 dollars

But they give them bus fare!

[Hugglebuggles 60]

We talk about Detroit, but what about getting lost in LA? My fiance and I were super late getting to the airport so we decided to follow the "shortcut" the GPS suggested and oh my... I have never seen anything like that in my life! There were massive groves of thuggy looking people standing along the street staring at you as you drive by. Maybe its because we were in a bright orange Mustang? Regardless I was terrified!

Massive groves.

They were dancing!

HA! I believe the word I was looking for here is "groups."

Anyone ever been to Assisi in Italy? That's one city I would not want to drive my car in, wow.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Hugglebuggles

[Krikit 1,165]

Anyone ever been to Assisi in Italy? That's one city I would not want to drive my car in, wow.

Never been to Assissi. But I absolutely would not want to drive up to AnaCapri and along the Amalfi coast. Holy hannah. I thought I was going to pass out at the narrow winding roads and the sheer dropoffs right next to my shoulder.

[The_Dude 1,142]

I used to drive regularly on the 401 between Detroit and Toronto/Buffalo. One thing I will hand to my Canadian friends: passing lane discipline. People actually use the passing lane to pass in, not to set cruise control and stop the flow of traffic like they do all over America (except Colorado, which I have found to be Canadian-like in the their use of the passing lane).

That's exactly what I thought! SO much like Canada.

This thread has been educational! I feel better about driving in Colorado now.

We talk about Detroit, but what about getting lost in LA? My fiance and I were super late getting to the airport so we decided to follow the "shortcut" the GPS suggested and oh my... I have never seen anything like that in my life! There were massive groves of thuggy looking people standing along the street staring at you as you drive by. Maybe its because we were in a bright orange Mustang? Regardless I was terrified!

OMG I just thought of something when you said LA. My girlfriend and I went to LA last year on vacay, we rented a car. We got lost and ended up in the ghetto, had to stop for gas. As she's pumping fuel, this scary looking guy walked up and asked her for change, he needed bus fare as he was just let out of prison and he had 0 dollars

LoL, if he just asked for your spare change then that was the neighborhood teddy bear. A thug would have taken it and your car.

The worst neighborhoods here are along the 110, between the 105 and 10 freeways. There are some areas taht are bad, but the ones along that corridor are the only ones that are really bad and you have a legitimate fear for your life when the sun goes down.