This Just In: It’s Raining in Los Angeles. Get Off the Road!

Yesterday the first rain drop descended from the sky (after all, it IS fall), and just like that, a rash of traffic accidents began in Los Angeles.   Oh, did you not know this fun fact?  NO ONE IN L.A. KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE IN THE RAIN.  For some reason, the moment the streets are wet, it’s like a signal for everyone to crash into each other. 

This is no lie—on the news last night (as we were flipping from “The Daily Show” to a DVR’d version of “Bored to Death,” just to emphasize that we don’t actually sit around watching the news), they were reporting that since the rain started, there had been 725 additional traffic accidents around the Los Angeles area.   

So, it’s not racist, or sexist, or city-ist, or whatever you might want to call it.  Drivers in Los Angeles really ARE stupid when it rains.  I’m not exactly why this is, aside from the possibility that your brain just gets lazy from all the nice weather, and when there’s an actual reason to be careful, the brain is all “wait a second, I can’t switch gears that fast, man”—and then you’ve rear-ended someone because the slight change in temperature and weather condition has caused you to lose your head and slam on your brakes for no reason.  Look out!  Water falling from the sky!

I happen to like the rain (I know, Brandi, I am the only one), and I am a conservative driver anyway, so I don’t have this problem, but I will tell you it took me a whole hour to get to Costco last night, during which time I witnessed two rain-related accidents where the people involved in them kind of just sighed and pulled over like “Yeah……what are you gonna do?”

Comments

[Michelle Moran Machado]

It's not just LA, it's San Diego too.
80-something accidents for 1/100th of an inch of rain. God forbid it ever snows here. BTW, I like the rain too.

[Cyndi]

I love the rain...please send some to the desert. :)

[Rachel]

I'm enjoying this rain. I think one of the problems though, is that since we never get any rain, the streets kind of pile up with oil and grease and when it rains it gets super slick. I actually saw a car lose control the other day as it slipped on some wet grease. I had to drive my scooter home in the rain the other day and I can tell you when I put my feet down the road was definitely slicker.

All this is NOT to give Angelenos an excuse for their bad driving. They are, indeed, bad drivers when it rains. Slippery roads are something most of the rest of the world has to deal with and they all handle it pretty well. I've driven in blizzards so bad you can't see the highway and still didn't have an accident.