“So, I took these beauties this weekend during a visit to the Santa Barbara Zoo.  More proof that some people should take the bus!  [Regarding Exhibit A and B] I don’t know who parked first, but WTF?  And looks like the guy in the Tribeca (on the left in Exhibit C) was trying to get way over, but asswipe in the Honda still can’t stay in his own clearly marked parking space.”

Yes, I know that these were taken in Santa Barbara County, but you would be in serious denial if you said this kind of crap doesn’t happen in Los Angeles all the bloody time.  I’d also like to point out that both the Chevy and the Honda have license plates that start with a 4–read: native driver.  Hell, just this morning I was at the gym (Burbank Athletic Club), and the guy right next to me parked more or less the same way.   Honestly, are we so lazy in this town that it takes too much effort for us to adjust our vehicles properly into a parking space?

Speaking of congestion, we often complain of the lack of reliable, extensive public transit in Los Angeles.  A thorough bus, taxi, and subway network is exactly what this town needs to get things moving in the right direction.  However, we can certainly do without the price gouging that occurred in my hometown NYC.  In case you haven’t heard, about 3,000 cabbies overcharged riders over 2 years involving approximately 1.8 million fares and a total of about $8.3 million.  Granted, that’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things by New York City standards, but it’s still pretty fracked up.  Check your meters, people; however, if you live in Boston, don’t freak out–the fares really do increase that drastically with each fraction of a mile…damn Beantowners.

Anyway, I witnessed something really gross today that has nothing to do with driving, but I have to share.  I was at my day job, using the restroom, and a guy is in the stall next to the urinals.  While he was shifting on the toilet seat, a huge tube of toothpaste fell out of what I can only imagine to be his pants pocket–onto the floor, next to the toilet bowl.  Dude, seriously, ever heard of travel size?  But wait…there’s more.  About 10 seconds later his toothbrush falls out of his pocket (the same pocket, perhaps?)–onto the floor, next to the toilet bowl.  I gotta tell you, if there ever was a toothbrush that looked like it belonged on the floor, it was this toothbrush….simple, nondescript handle, straight edges, buzz cut bristles.  Even your dentist gives you free toothbrushes with at least a soft grip.  Nope, not this one–this is the kind of brush you see people polishing shoes with.  But wait…there’s more.  As I’m washing my hands, this guy finishes his business (with audibly excessive force, I might add), exits the stall, and then proceeds to brush his teeth with his toothbrush.  I think it’s important for me to add that I am not skipping any details here….he did not wash his hands or his toothbrush before commencing to insert his e. coli-infested hygiene(?) stick into his mouth and proceeding to brush with–again–excessive force.  And this guy actually looked like someone who would do this–big, burly, straight shoulder-length hair, hunched shoulders, looked like a prototypical peasant servant during medieval times.  I thought that the fat, smelly turd on my floor who comes in, uses the urinal, grunts and moans the entire time, and then leaves without washing his hands–all within a minute–was bad.  But Igor here took grossness down to a whole other level.

OK, sorry, had to share.  I suppose the only relevance is that I see a correlation between something so basic as washing your hands after you use the bathroom to not viciously tailgating in bumper-to-bumper traffic or in single-laned canyon roads.  Anyway, here’s today’s auto-related post:

Idiocy Meter

Asshole Meter

That old GMC truck you see behind the white SUV was already moving by the time this photo was taken.  However, these two morons were stuck in this intersection of Magnolia and Lankershim about 10 feet farther back for a good minute.  This wasn’t a case of heavy rush hour traffic, either.  This photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon, and these guys had plenty of visibility to see that they did not have room to clear the intersection before the light turned red due to stopped traffic ahead of them.  Hell, even the white SUV was blocking the entire crosswalk.  Were these guys just not paying attention?  Or did they just not care?  This being N. Hollywood, the odds of either or both postulations being true are quite good.  Needless to say, the asshole meter would’ve been higher if there were more congestion on the road, making it more difficult (or impossible) for other drivers to move around this decrepit roadblock.

“Last Saturday my husband and I took part in a walkability survey of Hollywood.  We brought cameras.  We walked to the meeting site, about 2.5 miles.  Since we do this often, it wasn’t a surprise that vehicles failed to yield to us and other pedestrians at almost every intersection.  Not to bore you with too many pictures of cars and tanks in crosswalks, here are just 2.  The white SUV driver (Exhibit A) insisted on continuing past the crosswalk in front of this woman, even though there was no chance that he was going to be able to pop out on Sunset at that moment.  The second picture (Exhibit B) shows  the black SUV continuing past the crosswalk.  The light for us was green and the walk sign was on and we were right there ready to cross, but it’s “me first” for the SUV which made a right turn and never stopped or slowed down.

The rule seems to be that vehicles have the right to make a right turn anytime they feel like it without stopping first, regardless if the light is red, green, or there is a stop sign.  It is such a struggle to just walk!  A few weeks ago, we brought an 8 year old relative with us to the Cinerama Dome for Avatar. We walked and I nearly had a breakdown trying to keep him from getting run over.”

I can especially relate to the aspect of escorting young children across the street.  Personally, I’m just thankful that the majority of people in L.A. don’t want bad “baby Karma” and tend to notice me with a stroller in a crosswalk and yield the right-of-way.  But even then, there have been a couple instances of close calls that were too close for comfort.  L.A. is stereotypically filled with drivers with a sense of entitlement, but you certainly graduate to a whole new level of stupidity when you’re endangering the safety of people who aren’t even in their vehicles.