- 17 things to know before
driving in Los Angeles. I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions. I do travel guides that are
fun, informative, entertaining. And in this video, I'm
gonna to be telling you the ropes about how to drive in LA. This video is part of my
series on Los Angeles. You'll find more videos on Los Angeles in the description below or
at the end of this video, but I've got more neat
videos like Cheap Eats in LA. Things to Do in LA, What to
See in Downtown Los Angeles. So make sure to check those out after you've watched this video. But for many visitors
coming to Los Angeles, driving in LA can be overwhelming. Huge freeways, lots of traffic,
different rules of the road. Well, in this video, I'm
gonna teach you some things you need to know that might
not be readily apparent to help take that edge off. So when you get to LA and
you hop in your rental car, you're ready to hit the road. The first thing to know
about driving in Los Angeles is about traffic. And if you've spent any
length of time in Los Angeles, you will come understand
that there's traffic like all the time, at
every hour of the night. I mean maybe between
like 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. there's no traffic, but
there's traffic all the time. We typically don't measure
things in distance in LA, we typically measure things in time. Because the fact that
something is 10 miles away isn't particularly meaningful,
because the traffic is so bad we'll say things like,
that is about an hour away. 'Cause that's about how long
is gonna take you in traffic. People often quote times in, well, it takes 10 minutes
if there's no traffic but an hour if there is. People who live in Los
Angeles have learned to plan their life around traffic, as a visitor you should do the same. Morning rush hour is typically
Monday through Friday, from six to 9 a.m. And then evening rush hour
is typically four to 7 p.m. That's when traffic is gonna be the worst. That's not to say that there isn't traffic throughout the rest of the day. Fridays are a notoriously
bad day for traffic. In that case, the evening rush hour starts about 1 p.m and goes till about 8 p.m. If you're in Los Angeles
during the holidays, often the day before the
holiday is particularly awful. The worst day to drive in Los Angeles is the day before Thanksgiving. If you're in LA in November, the day before Thanksgiving, don't be planning to go anywhere quickly. In general, the traffic
pattern in Los Angeles is that traffic flows
into downtown Los Angeles in the morning and away
from downtown Los Angeles in the afternoon. It's not that simple
because not everything is in downtown LA. But you can sort of draw a 10 mile circle around downtown Los Angeles and say that's the general area
people are commuting into. The second thing to know is Los Angeles has a ton of freeways and we
typically call them by the, the five, the 10, the 110. Many other parts of the United States they put like I in front
of it like interstate 10 or route five, we don't we call it the 10, the five, the 110. Typically the left lanes are
the fastest driving lanes, the right lanes are the slowest lanes. Most exits off the
freeway or on the right. Sometimes there are exits on the left but they've been getting
rid of those left exits. The left lane or left lanes
may often be the diamond lanes. They're known as the HOV lanes, or the high occupancy vehicle lanes, sometimes known as carpool. Those are typically reserved for vehicles that have two or three passengers in them. Sometimes those lanes
can also be toll lanes, meaning that you can pay
to drive in those lanes. But you will need a fast track transponder in your car to drive in those
lanes on certain freeways. Even if you're carpooling and not paying on some roads like the 110, you'll still need that
fast track transponder that has a little switch
that tells the freeway they are carpooling. Otherwise, you'll get sent a nasty ticket. And yes, if you're renting a rental car and you don't have a
fast track transponder, and your rental car service
doesn't offer tolling, you might end up with a
nasty ticket sent in the mail sometime after your trip to LA. The third thing to know
is about speed limits. On freeways, the general speed
limit is 65 miles per hour. Sometimes the freeways go down to 55 in the center of the city. General residential streets,
the speed is 25 miles per hour. So if you're on some
street and it's unmarked, typically 25 miles per
hour is the unmarked limit. If you're on a road
that has multiple lanes, typically slower traffic is on the right and faster traffic is on the left. Probably the best thing to do is just go with the flow of traffic. If you're going with the flow of traffic, which is often slightly
higher than the speed limit. If there's no traffic, then
you're usually pretty okay. I mean, don't quote me, if you
get pulled over by the cops. They said, why were you going 80? And you say, well, I was just going with the flow of traffic. They might be like that is still too fast. But I will tell you don't be the person driving
exactly 65 miles an hour in the left most lane. You will get a lot of
angry people passing you as they rev their engine,
wondering why you're driving so slow all the way on the left. When you're off the freeway
and driving around the city pay extra attention to school
zones or senior center zones. These will be areas where
you might be on a road the speed limit is 50 miles per hour. But in front of the school,
it's 25 miles per hour. Police love to hang out in those areas and write tickets all day,
don't be one of those suckers. The fourth thing to know
is about changing lanes. If you are expecting to
put on your turn signal and have people cordially
wait for you to change lanes, you're out of your mind. That's not how it works in Los Angeles. If you're on the freeway, and
you put on your turn signal, what typically happens is people go, oh, I don't want this person
to get in front of me, and they speed up. The general etiquette, not very nice so I don't know why it's called etiquette. But the general practice
that most people do is they put on their turn signal just right before
they're going to come in. And so it's less of a,
hey, I'm putting this on so that everybody can
notice and I can come. It's more of the, I'm putting
this on and I'm coming. I'm letting you know
I am moving right now. The fifth thing to know is
about right turn on red. In Los Angeles if you're
at an intersection that has a traffic light,
and the light is red, if there are no cars coming, you can make a right turn from the right most lane on a red light. That is of course unless the intersection actually says no right turn on red. Some of them do say that. You can also if you're
on two one-way streets, you could make a left turn as well on red if you're going from a one-way street to another one-way street
that would be a left turn from the left most lane
to the left most lane. When you're doing this though, please pay special attention to people who are making U-turns because that's when a lot of accidents happen in LA. Somebody's making a right turn on red, somebody's making a U-turn,
they don't seen each other and they have some stupid
10 mile per hour accident. The sixth thing to know is
about red light cameras. Some cities within Los Angeles
have red light cameras. How do these work? Well, if you run a red light,
they send you a ticket. If you block an intersection
when the light turns red, they send you a ticket. But as I mentioned before,
this is only in certain cities, they're not all over Los Angeles. Typically, the intersections
that have the red light cameras will have a sign on the intersection that says it has a red light camera. It's also worthwhile to note that while LA has red light cameras, it
does not have speed cameras. The seventh thing to know
is about pedestrians. Pedestrians can cross the street legally at intersections and in crosswalks. Legally, if somebody is in the crosswalk in any part of it and you're a
car you are supposed to stop. The general behavior you find
is that when the pedestrian is sort of well away from
where you are, then cars go. If you wanna follow the
law, you should wait till they're completely
out of the crosswalk. But don't be surprised if
people are honking at you or driving around you
because they're like, dude, that pedestrian is like
halfway across the street, what are you doing? In Japan, people would
wait the whole time calmly, in Los Angeles, not so much. As a driver You should also pay attention for pedestrians illegally
crossing the street whenever and wherever they want to. At night wearing all black, pay attention. Just because there isn't an intersection or a crosswalk doesn't mean a pedestrian won't be lunging out in front
of you at any given time. The eighth thing to
know is about bicycles. Bicycles can legally
be ridden on any street in Los Angeles, except for freeways. Anywhere on any street, in the bike lane in the right lane in the
middle lane in the left lane. Typically bicycles, if they
have their head on correctly, they'll be riding to the
right in the bicycle lane. But you should pay attention for them. And you should give them plenty of space. You'll also find the Los Angeles has tons of these electric scooters. You'll find people
riding them on the street because technically, that's the only place that's legal to ride them. Electric scooters are not
legal to ride on sidewalks. So do expect electric scooters. And by that I don't mean
things like motorcycles. I mean, these things that
you put like two feet on and you got a handlebar
and they just kind of go, those things will be
riding in the street too. The ninth thing to know
is about motorcycles. Motorcycles in the state of California can legally split the lanes. What does that mean? It means they don't actually
have to drive in a lane it means they can drive between lanes. On the freeway, you will often find them driving between the HOV
lane and the fast lane. Why? 'Cause there's kind
of a lot of room there. Legally, the motorcycles
can only go 10 miles faster than the speed of the rest of the traffic. But you will often find
them going much faster. Pay attention for motorcycles
coming in between cars, particularly if there's a lot of traffic. The 10th thing to know is
about emergency vehicles. Emergency vehicles, police,
ambulance and fire engines will have lights and sirens. If you see lights and
sirens pull to your right, whether they're behind you or whether they're in
front of you the etiquette is you move to the right. The exception to this rule is
if you are on a divided street and they are on the
other side of the vider then you don't actually
have to do anything. Now if you keep moving to the right, and they continue to stay right behind you well, then they're probably
trying to get you to pull over. So at that point, pull
over where it's safe to do. But if you're on the freeway, always make sure to pull
over on the right hand side, not on the left hand side. You pull over on the left hand side, they're gonna give you another ticket for pulling over where
you're not supposed to. The 11th thing to know
is about stop signs. Stop signs are kind of a
first come, first serve thing. There is kind of this right of way concept where if you've arrived at the stop sign at the same time as one other person, then if a person is to your right, you're supposed to let them go. It doesn't really always
work out that way. There's sometimes a
little bit of jockeying. My perspective is I would
rather just kind of let them go. So I try to make eye contact with them if we got at the same time, kind of give them that
like, you go, you go. Because don't assume you
have the right of way. If you floor it and they floor then again, you're gonna have one of those really stupid accidents
in the intersection. Also be aware of the California stop, what do we call the California stop? That's basically a rolling stop or people who they don't actually stop, they just kind of slow down a little bit and then continue to accelerate
through the stop sign. The 12th thing to know
is about traffic lights. If you're ever at a traffic intersection where all the lights are flashing red, that means the intersection
is a four way stop. So come up to the intersection, stop, take your turn and then go through. Green means go, yellow means slow down, red is about to come. Yellow does not mean slam on your brakes. If you are one of those people who you see the yellow light
and you slam on your brakes, chances are the person behind you is gonna be trying to hurry through that intersection
before it turns red. And they're gonna rear end you. So yellow comes up, continue to proceed through the intersection,
assuming you can, before the light turns red. One thing I really hate
in downtown Los Angeles is most of the intersections
are left turn yield. What does that mean? That means that there will
be often a special lane for you to turn left from but
there's no arrow to turn left. It just means you need to turn
left when there's no traffic. But as I mentioned earlier,
there's traffic all the time. So on some of these roads,
how do you ever turn left? Well, what happened is
your light turns green, you can't go because cars coming
in the opposite direction. Sort of like two or three
cars kind of proceed out into the intersection and then wait for the light to turn yellow. Wait for the cars to stop
coming from the other direction. Wait for the light to turn red. Then two or three cars make that left turn and then the intersection continues to go. It's probably one of the most stressful and frustrating parts about
driving in Los Angeles. So it is good, I'd say
to make right turns. Make three, five, nine right turns and try to avoid those left turn yields. The 13th thing to know is about parking. Los Angeles is the home of pay parking. There's lots of parking in LA but don't expect it to
be free, pay for it. street parking can be super
confusing, it can be expensive. You can't park on the road
between this time til this time. You can't park on these days. You can't park if your
car is a certain color. My suggestion to you is find
some kind of parking lot or parking garage, park
in there, pay for it. You won't be worried about whether your car is there or
towed when you get back. If you are parking on the
street you should know about some of the colors of the curbs. A red curb means no parking. A green curb mean it's 20-minute parking. A yellow curb means commercial loading, a white curb, and by
that I mean painted white means three minute passenger loading. And a curb that has no color,
meaning it's just cement or something like that, that's
a place you can park in. I will say pay attention to how sketchy the neighborhood is too. There are a lot of car
robberies and break-ins in Los Angeles, so don't park
in a place that's too sketchy. There might be a reason why there's plenty of parking in that neighborhood. Because everybody's realized
their cars come back with broken windows when they park there. The 14th thing to know
is about gas stations. And this particularly applies if you are an international visitor. International credit
cards don't really work at the pumps at the gas station. In Los Angeles, the way you pay for gas is when you pull up you have to pre-pay. You can pre pay in one of
two ways, one at the pump. But if you prepay at the pump, you need to have a credit card that has a five digit zip code, because the pump will ask you
for the five digit zip code. If you don't have a five digit
zip code on your credit card, then you'll need to go inside the store and tell them how much money
you wanna put on that pump either on your credit card or from cash. The other option at the pump
is if you have a debit card, international debit cards
will typically work. In that case, you just
have to enter a PIN number. The 15th thing to know is about GPS, Google Maps, Waze, keep your
GPS app on all the time. Why? Traffic changes in an
instant with an accident or something like that. So you'll wanna have that
app up to be rerouted in the case of a significant
problem on the freeway, the 16th thing to know and
this is really important if you're an international visitor, we drive on the right in Los Angeles. In all of the US we drive on the right. If you're from a country
where you drive on the left, an easy way to remember is
tight right, loose left, that's how you'll remember
kind of how to make that turn. Because if you're making a right turn, you wanna turn tight to the right. And if you're making a left
turn, you want to be loose. Loose left, tight right. And by the way, that idea and
actually a lot of these ideas was submitted by Dave James on Facebook. He's from Australia, he
was actually the impetus for me creating this
video because he was like, "Chris, it is so frustrating
for an international visitor "to come to Los Angeles,
it would really help "if you could make a video
on driving tips in LA." So Dave, thank you for the tip. My final tip number 17
is that you should watch more videos on Los Angeles. That way you won't be
driving around aimlessly, you'll be knowing where to go. In particular, you'll wanna
know some things to do or perhaps some things
to eat in Los Angeles. You'll find the links description below to my full Los Angeles playlist. I won't say goodbye because I'll see you in one of these videos.
