California's a car culture. You won't survive for long without a car in California -- California was designed for cars. Californian urban and suburban planning nearly always assumes that every person owns a car, and nearly all tourist facilities, shopping centers, and workplaces are built with the assumption that everyone at least has access to a car. Without such access, at best you'll be a little disadvantaged, at worst unwelcome or even in danger. In an increasingly large part of suburbia, streets are deliberately built without sidewalks to discourage pedestrians; in other areas just walking around outside can be sufficient grounds for the police to stop and question you.
California is nearly inaccessible without a car -- by European or British standards, California has almost no convenient or safe public transport. Except for small parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, where public transport can be fairly convenient and safe (and sometimes the best way to get around), most tourist areas or naturally-beautiful places are only realistically accessible by car or crowded tourist bus. Most people who fly into California, whether for business or for vacation, will rent a car when they get here -- there's simply no cheaper or more convenient and safe way to get to and from the airport and your other destinations. In nearly every part of the state, it is always quicker, cheaper, more convenient, and safer to take a car rather than use public transport -- assuming public transport exists at all. Similarly, if you've just moved to California (or are thinking of doing this), you're almost certainly going to need a car to get to work, do the shopping, and generally survive.
Unfortunately, being a car culture, everyone drives -- with the result that there's a lot of bad and dangerous driving out there. Respect for common sense and the law is rarer than in places where driving is considered a privilege rather than a natural right. Also, if you're a tourist, things Californians take for granted -- how to use the phone system here, how much and who to tip, how to order food, how to decode quintessentially American addresses such as "10511 E. 12th St.", or how to pronounce "Nikon" the uniquely American way -- can be bewildering or intimidating.
This site is an informal guide to how to survive -- and ultimately enjoy -- driving in California. It is aimed mostly at tourists and foreigners who are traveling or moving to California; it could also be useful to non-Californian Americans contemplating driving in California.
The site's emphasis is not so much on what to see or do, or the various driving laws and regulations (although it touches on all of those things), but on idiosyncrasies and unexpected or little-known things. It focuses on the sort of information, tips, warnings, etc., about driving in California that I would have found useful when I moved here from London many years ago. For example, if you're not used to it, the fact that few Californians bother with turn signals ("blinkers" for the Britons and Australians) when turning or changing lanes can be distressing; knowing this before you encounter it can be helpful. The Guide also touches on a number of related topics such as tipping, sales tax, how to order food, and how to use the phones here, that while not strictly to do with driving, would also have been useful to know when I started driving around California and the rest of the western United States.
The terms I use are mostly American or at least Californian; there's a short guide to California-Speak below for translating these to and from the British or Australian equivalents. The guide is also somewhat biased towards Northern California and the San Francisco Bay area, mostly because that's where I live.
Please bear in mind that this guide is aimed mostly at non-Americans -- some of the information here will be very basic if you're American or used to American ways. It's also a survival guide, not a fully-fledged guide to all the places you can drive to in California, or a lengthy dissertation on Californian culture and mores. Please also bear in mind that it's one person's rather idiosyncratic take on things -- and it might not quite agree with you... (but I'd still like to hear about any factual errors or inaccuracies...).
Disclaimer: this guide is not a legal document -- take any recommendations or advice here with at least a grain of salt. I am not responsible for your misuse or abuse of the law!
If you haven't been here before, the best way to start is probably just to browse the site serially, using the "Next" buttons at the foot of each page. These will take you on a fairly logical tour of the site. If you're after the juicy bits, jump straight to the "California Driving Habits & Quirks", the "California Primer", the "Absolute Basics", or the "Californiaspeak" pages; the "Law" page is also probably immediately useful. Otherwise, you might want to start with the Guide's main table of contents and skip the following sections the first time; come back to them (especially the FAQs) after you're more familiar with the site.
This site is organized into the following main areas:
I welcome feedback -- suggestions, comments, corrections, etc. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email me through the get in touch page. Please note, though, that sometime in the (ever-receding) future I may try to publish this as a book or a book chapter, so if you don't want your suggestions to end up in such a book, please don't send 'em in (or at least tell me explicitly that they're not for publication)....
I make minor cosmetic or spelling (etc.) changes to this site every few weeks; major revisions of the guide usually appear every six months or so. One day I'll get around to having a separate "What's New" page.
Some answers to the most frequently asked questions I get about the California Driving guide and site over the years:
Thanks to Atanu Ghosh for originally suggesting I write it all down instead of repeating it for every visiting UniSoft Gnome; to Nancy Blachman, Peter Wisnovsky, Jenny Schaffer, Jan Dreisbach, Michael Schippling, Dan Debrunner, Garrett Cheng, Jon Bright, Yvonne Zhou, Robyn Chan, Jeff Lichtman, David Comfort, Tish Davidson, Loren Seibold, Tom Tilley, John Tranter, Wayne Johnson, Drake Christensen, Andy Stone, and a cast of hundreds from all over the Web and the Usenet newsgroups ca.driving and rec.travel.usa-canada for proof-reading and helpful suggestions; and thanks to Brad White for the life-saving "big turn" / "little turn" advice billions of years ago in Oxford (or was it Sydney?).
All text and images here and on the caldrive.com site are Copyright 1989-2002 Hamish Reid unless otherwise noted; all rights reserved. If you want to use any images or text from this site for commercial reasons, please get in touch.
