Commute: A contemporary form of gauntlet-running.
Death Left: A left turn you could make if you were interested in making only one more decision in your life.
“Freeway Entrance”: Updated copy for Dante’s ABANDON HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE sign.
Hands-free: A tool allowing you to talk on your cell phone without holding it in your hands; also a common technique drivers apply to their steering wheels while eating breakfast, reading books, applying make up, shaving, binge watching Netflix, and rummaging around for that Urth Café scone they just dropped.
Hasty Restreet, To Bid a: To give up on a potential better path and rush back the way you came because you were wrong, very wrong.
Interstate 10: Free parking from 3 PM – 7 PM Monday through Friday; place where historians believe the Donner Party was stranded and forced to commit acts of cannibalism. Also known as “the 10.”
La Cienega Boulevard: Route for drivers in training for Disneyland’s three-mile-per-hour Electric Light Parade, after 4 PM.
Mercedes Benz S-Class: Indicates an unsupervised teen driver with a learner’s permit, or adult driver equivalent.
Mirrors, rear view: Where you check your make up application and/or to ensure your nose is free of boogers when you get to work.
Mirrors, side: A self-defense device you can aim at the car behind you with high beams on in order to temporarily blind the driver, giving you enough time to escape.
Rerighting: Opting to make three right turns when you encounter a Death Left.
Safe Left Turn: See also “Act of God.”
Off-Waze-ing: Ignoring the sage advice of Waze because either you think you know better or because the route has become impassable.
Off-streeting: Popping up onto an empty sidewalk, often to complete a desperate right turn before the light changes and the intersection locks.
Santa Monica: The Roach Motel equivalent of a city, which you can never leave by car once you park there.
Sepulveda Pass: Actual place Gandolf stood and shouted “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” to everyone trying to drive home in a deleted scene from The Lord of the Rings.
Sunset Boulevard: Named for the time of day you will arrive at work if you take this street in the morning.
Waze-y Chain: A line of multiple cars conspicuously driving the same unlikely meandering path through a series of side streets in the Fairfax/Melrose districts.
West Hollywood: A special pedestrian safety zone where pedestrians are encouraged to step into rush hour traffic at un-signaled crosswalks up and down Santa Monica Boulevard.