Living in California

---

I’ve lived in California for a little over a year now, and so it’s time to share what makes living in California very different than anywhere else!

1) Traffic/Driving

Okay, so you’ve all heard of the “California roll” and the unbearable traffic, but driving around here is something I am STILL not used to yet.  They have the strangest traffic laws here, but whenever I see a fellow car driver doing something stupid (talking on the phone, texting, cutting into lanes, not letting people merge when the merge lane is ending, etc.), there’s never a cop nearby.  Yep, those are my California tax dollars at work, people.  While there are several things that bug me about driving here, these are my top three annoyances:

- Merge lane traffic lights

Yes, here in California, there are almost always (at least where I commute and usually drive) merge lane traffic lights.  To me, making each vehicle stop before merging kind of defeats the purpose of merging, but I guess California legislators feel differently.  It. Drives. Me. Crazy!!  I hate having to stop and then speed up immediately so I can merge into the traffic.  I don’t see the purpose.

- Left turn arrows

        

    Normal left turn arrow                                 California left turn arrow

On practically all intersections (again, at least where I usually drive), there is a left turn arrow.  And sure, these are usually helpful when you are trying to turn left and there is a constant steam of cars coming the other way.  HOWEVER, here in California, the light is ALWAYS green, yellow, or red (nope, no green & yellow only left turn arrows, left side image above).  Still sounds like a good idea?  Okay, what about when you are sitting in the left turn lane, the left turn arrow is red, and there’s NO ONE coming the other way?  Here the “Left turn yield on green” would be a nice alternative.  But instead, I just waste lots of time sitting starting at the red arrow in left turn lanes when NO ONE is coming.

- No right turn on red

Now this sign is not a very frequent occurrence in my area, but I see it just enough that it peeves me.  I really don’t see the purpose of these signs.  No right turn on red?  Again, if no one is coming and I can reasonably assume it’s okay to go ahead and turn, why can I not turn?  Basically, I think California legislators have no trust in California drivers to use their own judgment in driving decisions (When can I turn left?  When can I turn right?).

Interesting random fact:  I finally got my CA license, title, and registration.  Guess what – my new CA drivers license expires BEFORE my old Georgia drivers license would have!  Really?!

2) Politics

Let me first state that Orange County (where we live) is actually a pretty conservative area.  Most of my friends and co-workers here are conservative, and it generally goes Republican in elections.  However, the state overall, is a different story. 

Let me share some fun (but mostly shocking and disappointing) California state facts:

- Did you know that you are charged CRV (California Redemption Value) when you buy beverage cans, bottles, etc., and you only get that money back if you return the bottle to a recycling center?!  Granted, it’s only 5 or 10 cents per container, but if you drink lots of soda, that can add up.  And it’s still money they are TAKING from me for no reason except to incentivize me to recycle.  The people we are living with do recycle, so I keep my cans for them, but if it were just me, I would not do it.

- Did you hear about the babysitting regulation they wanted to pass?  It’s true, they wanted to require parents to provide worker’s comp, meal and rest breaks, and overtime pay (which would require meticulous tracking of hours worked with a time card of course) FOR BABYSITTERS.  I’m pretty sure the bill got stopped (at least, it hasn’t been passed yet), but just the fact that it was proposed is pretty telling in and of itself.

Make sure you clock your child care hours!

- High speed rail!  They wanted to build this fancy high speed rail to relieve California traffic and the voters AGREED to contribute $10 billion to the project.  However, it’s all up in the air now because it’s going to cost about 10x as much as the originally anticipated, and the type of rail they want to build doesn’t qualify based on what the voters agreed to.  And it won’t alleviate the daily commuter traffic because the rail routes are between cities that are hours away from each other, not cities that people travel to and from everyday to get to work.  Hopefully this whole idea will go away.

- Californians pay the highest taxes in the nation, and what’s on the November ballot?  Two more tax increase initiatives!!  One includes a quarter percent sales tax increase and an income tax increase on those making over $250k, and the other proposes to raise income taxes on ALL Californians.  Can’t wait til I can cast my vote for those proposals!

Note: This is a small sample of the lovely political actions that I have to live with here in California.

3) Weather

Let’s end on a happy note – you CANNOT beat the weather here!  After living in Utah for 5.5 years, living in Southern California is like living in heaven.  It never snows, it hardly rains, and it’s generally always sunny and warm outside.  We love taking walks and getting outside just to enjoy the beautiful weather we have here!

 

Now this post has been mostly negative, but don’t get me wrong. While there are aspects of living here that really bug me, I really have enjoyed living here so far.  What’s the best part?

Living near (and working at and frequently visiting) Disneyland, of course! :)