Drivin' in Las Vegas
Las Vegas is an unique place when it comes to the traffic and drivers. In my opinion, based on my experiences of driving in many different cities, I believe Las Vegas is the most challenging and dangerous city to be driving around, especially when you are navigating the main strip.
Most people from New York City and Los Angeles would usually say I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't live one of those places right now. I understand where they are coming from because they don't know me and where I lived or what I did for work in the past. Out of all those people, for some reasons unknown, many software engineers from SF thought the traffic in SF was way worse than any other cities in the USA and they knew everything because they made certain amount of salary with a certain job title. They were software engineers living in SF and not a janitor, so they had to know more. They had to be smarter and better than others who were not software engineers. At least, that's what I understood from interacting and talking with them.
So what makes Las Vegas the most challenging and dangerous city to be driving or ridesharing? Let me explain from my perspective.
After driving in Las Vegas for years now, I realized that there is this one conference that happens non-stop for 365 days in Las Vegas. This conference is called Stupid Drivers United. This conference or convention in Las Vegas attracts all types of stupid or bad drivers around the country. They will bring their vehicles from their home states for no good reasons to Las Vegas and cause all kinds of traffic jams and accidents. When all board of directors, president and VP of SDU along with their lifetime members are in town, navigating Las Vegas strip is like navigating Vietnam jungle during the war. Maybe that is why they decided to build underground tunnels.
Most of those out of state drivers don't know where they are going. And many of them are distracted by neon lights and buildings such as a statue of liberty replica and the Sphere while driving. I almost got side swiped by a lady with Texas plate because she was looking at NY NY while driving. Then there are wrong way drivers on one-way road. I've seen it with my own eyes countless times. I almost got hit 3 times, but I was able to dodge or stop them. I can still remember that one time when it was really close. It was by the airport exit near UNLV and if I didn't see and dodged it, it was going to be an head-on collision.
California plate drivers are notorious for double, triple, quadruple lane switch at last second for an exit or a turn while moving cars close all around them. They must believe that it is the end of the world if they miss an exit or turn and just go straight to find another route. Maybe they were just trying to save gas by doing this dangerous maneuver. I'm not too sure, but I've seen it countless times. Now that a horde of people are flocking from California to Nevada, I'm even more concerned. Moreover, exception of Oregon and Washington state drivers, west coast drivers go real slow when it drizzles in the desert. I'm used to driving under lake effect snow storms, so it can be frustrating at times.
Aside from bad or stupid drivers in general, Las Vegas is rampant with drunk drivers. I try my best to stay away from driving around 12 ~ 4AM. If the general public forgot already, a wide receiver of Las Vegas Raiders killed a girl and her dog because this kid with millions of dollars decided to drink and drive. The worst part of it was that someone tried to get her out of her burning car, but something got stuck and eventually she was burnt to death. I was so saddened by the story. I guess he couldn't afford to request rideshare/taxi/limo with all that money sitting in his bank account.
And then there was an incident where two state troopers were struck and killed by a drunk hit and run driver on a highway exit ramp. Two state troopers were checking up on a driver possibly sleeping behind the wheel on the side of highway. Then some asshole who drank more than a bottle of hard liquor decided to run away from the security and drive home. I can't even believe how this asshole was able to drive in that mind state for that long without crashing already. Some people say it was a mistake. I understand that we are only humans who were born to make mistakes. However, if he is not a memeber of Human League, that was simply stupidity and not a mistake. If you read the news and details for yourself, you would agree with me that this was not a mistake.
I was also a victim of drunk driving. I will never forget that night when it happened. It was the last day of BTS concert in Las Vegas. The weekend was full of BTS concert visitors from all over the world. I was truly shocked by the number of visitors who came to watch this concert. I was on the way to the airport to drop a passenger. When I was halfway through the tunnel connected to the airport, a drunk driver rear-ended my car and pushed my car forward. Upon the impact, my fuse got disconnected and cut the power of my main Tesla battery. My car was no longer accelerating. It was slowing down gradually and naturally. After crashing into the back of my car, the drunk driver slowly rolled and stopped about 10 ~ 15 yards in front of me.
As soon as I found out that my passenger and I didn't need an ambulance, I went over to to see if the other driver was OK. Once I saw the driver inside, I noticed all the symptoms of a drunk person. She looked at me through her windshield like she was just crash landed on the Planet of The Apes. Then, I realized she was not just drunk; she was completely wasted to the point that she probably didn't even know what had happened. I'm not even too sure how she was able to open the door and start the engine. I had a thought of grabbing this girl by her neck and choking the sh!t out of her. Instead, I walked back to my car and meditated until the police officer arrived.
Though it was not my fault, I thought about what kind of bullsh!t I was going to be dealing with when it came to insurance claim process. And they definitely didn't disappoint with all the bullsh!t they threw at me. They dragged as long as possible to not process my claim and pay. They said they needed to make sure that their client was drunk driving. How long does it take to find out that their client was in a drunk tank with her car impounded? What about the police incident report? I don't care if everyone is busy. It doesn't take weeks. That's for sure.
The worst part of it was that this drunk driver had a sh!t insurance coverage. I believe I was lucky because she had to be going at least 90 mph before she passed out. If we were seriously injured with more damages to my car, I would've been really upset. It happened around midnight. And due to my car being Tesla EV and what was going on that night, I didn't get home until 8AM. It was a long 8 hours.