Palmdale Resident Masters the Art of the Drive

Hours before dawn, Beverly Bell is readying for The Trek.

Since the Northridge quake, it has taken her as long as four hours to wend her way from Palmdale to her job Downtown, a 60-mile journey that once required no more than 90 minutes.

Her choice is clear. With portions of her freeways snapped like bread sticks, she either rises at 4 a.m. and beats every other motorist to those precious few moving stretches of roadway or sleeps in and gets stuck. The issue is no longer quality of life, it’s quality of drive.

So Bell, 53, sets two clocks, an old-fashioned battery-operated one and a clock radio.

In an effort to dodge traffic, she leaves her home at 5:15 a.m. and stays at work longer than she has to, until about 7 p.m. This gives her an hour or so at home before bedtime.

“I’d rather sit at work than sit in freeway traffic,” says Bell, a secretary with the Automobile Assn. of Southern California.

Her grown sons do worry. She is hardly ever home anymore. It’s OK, really, she insists. After all, she lives alone and she does not like to watch TV except for the Saturday night soap opera, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” and the Rev. Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power” on Sunday mornings. It’s not too bad.

*

Bell follows certain rituals on these cold, dark mornings. She bought a used car last week and reread the owner’s manual to make sure there would be no fumbling to find the headlights.

She packs snacks: a can of juice and a washed apple, encased in a paper towel and a plastic bag. Aware that each drive is for an unknown duration, she dresses in layered clothing. For entertainment she brings tapes but prepares to switch to the radio once she reaches the 210 Freeway, in case there is a traffic report that could save her anguish.

On this day it is 5:12 a.m. when she pulls out of her driveway.

“This early in the morning, I avoid traffic,” she says. “In another half-hour, you can’t get on the freeway.”

She makes a caffeine stop at a particular fast-food restaurant because a competing franchise’s coffee tastes soapy. This is what it’s about, she explains as the drive progresses: Know your options. Understand the consequences of your actions. Take Interstate 5 and realize you have consciously selected a route with potholes and rude drivers. Take Sand Canyon Road and recognize that you have picked a twisty-turny road occasionally pelted by beachball-size boulders. Take the 210 southbound instead of Interstate 5 even though the 5 is a straight shot, because the 210--although five miles longer--is 20 minutes faster southbound at rush hour and the drivers let you change lanes. ( Must you print that secret? she asks.)

Bell is strictly a speed limit driver. She knows there are only seven Highway Patrol officers in her area, and she even has a pretty good hunch about where they park. But even at the rare momentary discovery of a completely empty freeway she travels 55 m.p.h., no more, no less, her shoulders slightly rounded, two hands squarely on the wheel, usually in the slow lane.

“I anticipate. I watch brake lights three cars ahead,” she says. “So if I have to stop quickly I am not going to eat the next guy’s bumper.”

*

Open Bell’s trunk and you will find an extra pair of shoes, a flare, a first-aid kit, bottles of water, extra motor oil and antifreeze, a spare headlight, a new set of windshield wipers, a roll of paper towels, an address book and a radio.

Yet for all her preparation, traffic patterns remain maddeningly random, a function of tens of thousands of drivers still searching for that magic route. It is like hunting squirrels. Sometimes, the cars are there, sometimes not, and you do not always understand why. Bell figures Mondays are usually pretty heavy but not as bad as Thursdays; Tuesdays and Wednesdays, on the other hand, are much worse than Fridays, which is pretty easy. Go figure.

Today, a Wednesday, the traffic is surprisingly light. A steady stream of lights ahead but all moving. As she drives, she sizes it up with the relish of an aficionado, a player. “I can’t believe it’s so deserted,” she sighs.

Is it a national holiday? Ash Wednesday? Where is everyone? There is no need for the standard alternatives. (Even though Bell is carrying a passenger today she is honor-bound to duplicate her usual drive, so she is staying out of the car-pool lane.) Although tempted, she maintains the proper 55 m.p.h.

Does this mean she will be able to leave later for work the next morning? For the first time, Bell giggles.

“I don’t know that it will happen two days in a row,” she says.

At 6:50 a.m., she and her rider pull into the parking lot of Bell’s office at Adams Boulevard and Figueroa Street. They are an hour earlier than Bell had figured.

“I enjoy driving, I really do. I’ve always loved to drive,” she says to her passenger. “Let me drive you to your office.”