I live in San Francisco and work in San Jose. That means I get to drive down Interstate 280 (aka the Silicon Valley Highway of Death). It’s about 55 minutes each way. It’s not too bad, actually. When I started doing this commute I bought a kickass car stereo that plays MP3 and WMA files, so I just load up a CD with about 200 songs and keep the one CD in the car. Each month I burn a new CD with different songs. Sitting in a little room all by myself listening to music and thinking about random stuff is pretty much my idea of heaven, so it all works out. As long as the other idiots on the road stay out of my way, of course.
I have long held the opinion that Bay Area drivers are among the worst in America. (Worse than Boston drivers, even, and Boston is a notoriously toxic driving environment.) I’m seeing more traffic and wrecks on 280 since I started doing the commute in May, and in the past few days the drive has started taking an hour or more. Is this a sign that the Silicon Valley tech economy is coming back, or a sign that Bay Area drivers are getting dumber, or both?
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I moved from Los Angeles when the one-way commute stayed over an hour on a consistent basis.
Were you considering international drivers in your “worst driver” assessment??
BTW when’s your next book coming out??
JP
I also live in Los Angeles, and there is no way you can compare people driving on the 405 to anything else. There are SIG alerts for a car accident every half hour. And the 101 is now officially ‘The New 405′ so it’s even worse.
So when you make these cool CDs, do you ever put random songs on it like “Cool Places” from The Sparks and Jane Wiedlen? What about Howard Jones’ “New Song”? Or even The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour?” – I find those to be most upbeat when driving around the San Fernando Valley area.
Please reply if you have time.
I have many 80s classics on my 280 commute CD! Driving home from work today, in fact, I listened to Big Country’s “Wonderland” and Modern English’s “I Melt With You.” Totally tubular.