L.A. was blessed with another high speed chase this morning! Seriously, why do people do that? Haven't we all seen enough of these debacles on TV to know how it's going to turn out? Spike strip, crash, arrest...For all you would-be high speed chasees (because I'm sure a good portion of you reading my blog will end up on the wrong end of the highway patrol one of these days...) you cannot outrun a helicopter. Unless you live in the High Sierras or frickin' Yellowstone, the probability of your 1998 Chevy Tahoe outrunning the LAPD Air Squadron is slim to none. Eventually you'll either (a) run out of gas, (b) hit a spike strip, (c) get wedged in by a pair of big rig drivers acting out a scene from Smokey and the Bandit or (d) crash headlong into some sort of stationary object which may or may not ensure that the jaws of life will be needed to extract you from the mangled wreck of your crappy car.
But of course the real tragedy is what this morning's chase did to commuter traffic. The northbound I-5 approaching downtown was all but shut down by 7:30am and for those of you non-SoCalers, the East L.A. interchange looks a little something like this...
And that's only PART of it.
And that's only PART of it.
Thankfully, I have a 5 mile commute on the other side of town, but I feel for the poor schlep who had to spend an extra hour in his car this morning because some douchebag got depressed on his birthday and felt like a little local T.V. coverage might spruce up his week. Congrats, dillhole. Lemme know how County treats you.
Seriously! We're lucky in Michigan not to have too many of these high speed chases. I've only ever seen one a few years ago when my mom picked me up from school. We were at a stop sign when the guy nearly hit us trying to get around and then a bunch of cops were right behind him. That's about as exciting as my town gets! :-D
ReplyDeleteOne of the few things truly pleasant about living in the great state of Maine. A high speed chase up here would probably be the good ole boys charging the Canadian border on their four-wheelers...
ReplyDeleteWhere on earth IS THAT interchange? I'll make a note never to go that way.
ReplyDeleteActually, that is not the East L.A. Interchange but rather the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange (although no one I know calls it that). It's located near LAX and connects the Century Freeway (I-105) and the Harbor Freeway (I-110) as well as allowing local access to and from the same. It looks daunting from the air, but when you drive it it's not too bad, except during commute hours. Maybe bad the first few times, but after you know what lane to be in to make your exits and transitions, it goes fairly well. Some may recognize it from the movie "Speed" where Sandra Bullock jumps the bus across a gap in a transition ramp.
ReplyDeleteInterchange guy here again. I see you're from Millbrae; Bay Area represent!
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