If I die from a brain aneurysm or a heart attack, here is why...

I love California. I'm happy I moved. I know it was the right choice. However, there is one part of California that I can absolutely not stand... not even a little. It drives me absolutely nuts. CALIFORNIANS CANNOT DRIVE. It's a fact. I've informally conducted research and it's unanimous. Worst drivers ever. Everyone is in their own world and completely unaware of the fact that anyone else might be on the road. No one signals, and cars just magically float into the next lane-- almost seemingly as if the driver was unaware that he/she switched lanes. Also, California drivers have no concept of when they have to let someone by... they don't get that when I have to get over the 4 lanes to get to the highway I need to be on, and I have my signal on to let you know this is where I need to go, you need to move over, slow down, or speed up. They're all so oblivious. I have seriously never experienced so much frustration and anxiety while driving. Also, back to the point that Californians are in complete La La Land while driving is that they all make sudden decisions- like NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THEY'RE GOING... ever! All of a sudden, you're cut off without signal by someone driving 20mph less than you, and then they just turn, also without a signal. I seriously don't get it. I don't know how any of these people passed their road tests.

I think what bothers me a lot about this is that any Californian I have spoken to about this issue, is 100% aware of how bad they are at driving... and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it. They're just all like, "yeah Californians are terrible drivers." And that's that. They have accepted it and moved on.

Other than innately recognizing Californians' inability to signal when doing anything, this one driving incident had me so scared to drive here. It was dark, yes. And, yes, the driver was a very old woman, in a car filled with equally as old people. She probably could barely see over the steering wheel. Upon making a left turn on to a two-way street split by an island (making it 2 one way streets in opposite directions), the car in front of me turned on to the wrong side of the island! Yes. Driving down a very long stretch of road on the wrong side of the road. I was frightened for this driver. So scared that a car would come speeding down the road and just collide with her. So I drove with her, so to speak. Dropped my speed down to 15mph, and drove along the right side of the road next to her... making sure she was aware she was on the wrong side of the road and that she needed to be really, super cautious. Luckily, the one car that did come driving down her side of the road, saw her, and drove in the other lane. Then we were stopped at a red light. Super nervous me. However, everyone else recognized she was on the wrong side of the road, and when the light turned green, everyone just let her go.

I have driven with aggressively speeding New Yorkers (the true assholes on the road). I have driven in snow in Maryland (where they don't know what the fuck to do when that happens). I have driven in snow and rain in Michigan (who also have no idea how to drive when the weather is a little messy- yes, even in the snow. Every snow, there'd be at least one car in the ditch on the side of the highway). But this. This is the worst I have ever experienced.

I was doing some interwebs research about this topic, and consistently found that based on people's opinions of either those who have visited and driven in California, or those who live in California, pretty much agree that Californians are pretty terrible drivers... maybe the worst. However, there's some test that some company gives to the states or something to see who are the worst drivers. California ranked 4, with New Jersey and New York as 2 and 1, respectively. However, this is simply based on whether people know technical rules of driving, not if they are actually capable of driving. So yeah, maybe New Yorkers don't follow all the rules and are very aggressive. BUT, they know how to drive in various weather conditions and can manage to speed and weave throughout traffic without getting into accidents. In fact, New Yorkers have the tendency to actually signal when they are going to switch lanes or turn.

Well. That's my rant.