A Presidental Traffic Jam

President Obama was here in town yesterday, kindly going about his business meeting with famous people and addressing the concerns of the Nation without thought to his Secret Service men and the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department making it their duty to keep almost all people out of his way by a radius of several miles. This included closing/blocking off various main thoroughfares that most LA-ians use to commute to and from their multiple locations.

LA is not a grid city and therefore, very few streets actually transverse great distances across the city. Mostly streets go a few miles and then end at someone's driveway or a business. If you're a tourist, you stick to the the four or five main roads that manage to lead drivers across great distances of the city, but at the cost of sitting in traffic during random hours of the day. If you're a local (or someone who's lived here long enough to understand the traffic flow) you usually know back streets that bypass major traffic intersections and get you where you need to be with minimal horn honking and aggravation.

Obama's visit changed up the scenery for all commuters in the Hollywood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, and Century City areas by diverting main street traffic to little slivers of roads that pass by mansions and cute little hidey-hole shops that locals like to keep to themselves. This included closing off all streets east of Highland in Hollywood, the very street that I needed to drive down to get home after a long, hard day of sitting in my office watching the clock inch by. There's nothing like a 1 mile per hour traffic jam to put you in a happy, "end of work finally!" mood.

I can understand blocking off streets near where the President is going to be, but destroying home-bound commutes for numerous miles, nowhere near where the President is going to be, is a bit much. I guess the traffic problems wouldn't have been so bad if people in LA knew how to drive, but somehow there will always be morons that think they are special and if they manage to smile just right, they will somehow be allowed to drive around the police barricades while everyone else has to follow the natural flow of a detour.

This, in itself, caused the most bummer to bummer jams. I'd be following a person and all of a sudden they'd put on their blinker to turn Right, slow to a practically non-existent crawl, and attempt to maneuver past the flashing police car parked diagonal across several lines of the road. As if they didn't see the police car and its glorious blue and red blinking lights, they'd try to snail pace mow down the officer standing in the middle of the blocked street. Once the officer managed to get the diverted imbecile's attention, who attempted to flash apologetic puppy dog eyes at the unamused officer, the moron would swerve back in front of me just as I had finally managed to cross a particular intersection after 30 minutes of lagging, which left me blocking said intersection. A fine-able offense in most cities.

Needless-to-say, it was a frustrating hour and a half journey home with a heavy case of road rage bubbling to the surface. I use to be such a calm and respectful driver, now I all want to do is honk if someone sits at a green light longer than 1.2 seconds. It's not like the extra 5 minutes I'll gain from driving a few miles over the speed limit will help me much, it's just the fact that I want to maintain moving, no matter what direction. The gas, brake, gas, brake just doesn't work for my A.D.D. brain. Too much disruption and annoyance. Maybe I should take up yoga or meditation... probably not, idle minds might lead to the same thing as idle hands.