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 the lady liberty on 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. It's very important to drive away from damaged or old cars with out of state plates in general because they can cause accidents and you dont want to be around for it regardless of who did what.
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.