the 405
This is the site that I visit before I leave for work every morning:
Here’s what usually happens at least once a week:
This traffic jam after work was from Halloween, 2007:
Moving away from Long Beach will suck, but it’s better than chronic, tense lower legs, nervous breakdowns, and fear of being hit on the 405 freeway.
It’s really not worth it living 28 miles away from work.
What I don’t like the most is, when people at work think I’m just late because I’m lazy.
Not true at all.
The 405 freeway, coming from Long Beach, upwards north to the 110 intersection, the 91 intersection, the 105 intersection, and the La Cienega Boulevard exit are four BIG reasons why I can’t exactly predict what time I’ll arrive at work.
Here’s a typical scenario:
This morning, I went into the Bellflower ramp to go into the north-bound 405 freeway, headed for Culver City. I breezed it all the way to the Avalon exit, in Carson (it tooks me 7 minutes to get there from my home in Long Beach), and by the time I was nearing the 110 junction, all lanes halted, literally.
After about 40 minutes of stop-and-go traffic from the 110 junction, I was able to exit on La Cienega Boulevard, which is the only straightforward road that I can take to work.
However, the traffic, peoples’ driving habits, and mishaps on that boulevard are nothing BUT easygoing or straightforward.
This may be a paranoia of mine, but I will encounter at least 8 people tail-gating me on the way to work. This young woman in a new Jeep harassed me on the SLOWEST lane, and kept on trying to force me to speed up.
I then changed lanes to the right lane while she blew past everybody else.
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I encounter this every fricking day, every work day, and week night.
Physically, my lower legs are chronically fatigued. On top of this, I am nervous all the time when I’m on the 405, even though I never have any caffeine in the morning.
If I do have green tea in the morning, I usually don’t hop on the 405 freeway.
The 10 freeway must be worse than the 405…
