Remember the Map Guide and Forget the 405

My mother is coming to Los Angeles to live. For a year, or permanently, depending on how the city, and such sudden proximity to her children, suits her. She is a tiny bit nervous about several things--after a recent monthlong trip, she wonders if the sun ever shines in the morning in L.A., and when will it get warm enough for her to abandon the Universal City sweatshirt my brother had to give her because she didn’t pack any heavy clothes because she had thought she was coming to California forcryingoutloud.

But, mostly, she worries about driving. I try to tell her that compared with the driving in Las Cruces, N.M., where even the busiest intersections are often devoid of stoplights, much less arrows, where the street signs are too small and oddly shaped for even a relatively young person to read, where tailgating seems to be a city-endorsed sport and honking the preferred method of communication, compared with that, driving along the regulated corridors of L.A. will be a breeze.

She isn’t buying it.

“How do you drive here?” she asks, as I take her to an outing in La Canada Flintridge via the 5, the 134 and the 2 freeways. It is a rhetorical question, but when I think about it, I realize I have a few answers. A few personal rules of the road that allow me to enjoy driving in Los Angeles more than most people:

* Never get on the 405 no matter what. Likewise, never take the 5 south to the 110 south unless you have a really good audio book you’ve been meaning to listen to.

* You are either a lane-changer or you are not. If you choose to be a lane-changer, then you must devote yourself to your craft, must learn to move ever forward as you change lanes, seamlessly and relentlessly, sort of like a shark. If you are not genetically predisposed to this talent, and most of us are not, then you should confine the number of times you change lanes to once per 20 minutes of travel. Otherwise, you’re not changing lanes so much as dithering, and you’re just slowing the rest of us down.

* No matter how tempting, never travel any distance in the left-hand lane of any surface street unless you intend to make a left. You absolutely will get stuck behind someone who is.

* If you are lost, or looking for a street address, peer at the Thomas Guide and/or street numbers from the safety of the curb. Slowing and stopping inexplicably in traffic spells social, and oftentimes literal, suicide.

* Always have at least one spare pair of sunglasses in your car. The first time you have to drive due west in the hour before sundown will make the reason very clear.

* In Los Angeles, no one really knows where anything is, so asking directions from a passerby is an absolute crapshoot. Get directions before you start out--everyone can tell you how to get to their house/office/photo shoot with a telephone in their hand--and get a Thomas Guide. Some people think they can live in L.A. without a Thomas Guide. They are wrong.

* To find parking, you have to pretend you don’t need parking. It’s a very Zen kind of thing, and it works every time.

* In downtown Los Angeles, some of the streets go only one way. This is confusing to many people who think they somehow made a wrong turn and are now in Philadelphia. Take a deep breath and just watch the signs.

* The traffic gods in this city are cleareyed and just. Remember this as you nastily refuse to let someone in or make a left on what is clearly a red or contemplate stealing a parking space. You will regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

* Never take the 405. I really mean it.