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My other lives 14 April 2003 Several months ago I wrote a column arguing that private car ownership in the UK should be banned. Our country is too small for half the population to own a car and to insist on driving it at the same time as everyone else. That does not mean forcing everyone onto public transport - car hire should be made easier and cheaper - but banning private ownership would considerably reduce the number of car journeys made. That in turn would reduce congestion for buses and taxis, reduce pollution and improve people's health as they walked and cycled more. (If you insist on reading that piece again, click here.) So it is with an almost clear conscience that I can report that I have spent the last fortnight - two weeks in US-speak - indulging in one of my favourite pastimes: driving in California. In a rented car, of course, a practically new bright red Suzuki with a spoiler, six-pack CD player and a trunk - boot in UK-speak - that carries all the paraphernalia I don't need but feel nevertheless I have to take with me. The first week was spent in Los Angeles, where I lived in the mid-1990s. I stayed in Canoga Park, with the ex's family, who have long drawn me to their collective bosom. It's one of those households where you're not quite sure when you go to bed at night who's going to greet you in the morning, as various members of the extended family and their friends come and go. It's also one of those households where something is always happening or being done or needing to be done - whether it is dinner being cooked, a rabbit costume being delivered to a cousin and his partner for a children's Easter party or a vacuum cleaner needing to be repaired. With so much happening, it's sometimes difficult to escape to get time alone. But when I did escape, it was to get in the car and drive. I headed towards the 101, the freeway that takes you to Hollywood and that most vacant of city centres, downtown Los Angeles, or towards Topanga Canyon and its winding road through the Santa Monica Mountains before it deposits you at the Pacific Ocean, forcing you to choose between Malibu and Santa Monica. The choice was random and almost irrelevant. It was the drive that was important, not the destination. And so I rode - strolled would be a better word - for mile after leisurely mile along the broad boulevards in the San Fernando Valley, watching vast shopping malls give way to bungalows and their manicured lawns, which in turn gave way to car lots and gas stations and Seven Elevens and then to small businesses huddled in mini-malls offering pet care or hairdressing or tarot card reading. When tired of the suburbs, I took to the eight, ten and occasionally twelve lane freeways. The 405 first sweeps over the Sepulveda pass under the disdainful eye of the Getty Museum then past Los Angeles International Airport. At most times of day traffic moves at a snail's pace, held up by a minor accident or too many cars interchanging at the 101 or the 10, but once LAX is behind you, the drive quickens, past Long Beach and into Orange County where it rejoins its parent, the 5. The scenery is uninteresting, suburbia usually hidden by the bushes and trees which line the road; better views can be seen on the 118 and the 210 as they skirt the northern edge of the Valley, even in mid April, snow could be seen on the mountains of the Angeles National Forest, less than an hour's drive away. Another favourite is the homeward drive at dusk on the 5, at the point at which the 101 begins and dives under the skyscrapers of downtown LA. For a few seconds modernity and nature are in harmony, as the column of lights twinkle against the pinks and dark blues of the sunset sky. In LA, alone in air-conditioned comfort, listening to the radio or a favourite CD (of which more anon), I am merely one bubble in a current rushing along an endless river which comes together, divides and comes together again. At night, when the thousands of cars have shrunk to the hundreds and speeds are faster, there is a sense of eternity, the red lights sweeping down and round and into the distance, all apparently moving at the same speed, on an endless journey, with the white lights rushing by on the left escapees from whatever destination lies ahead. Day or night, Los Angeles has the fascination of the Twilight Zone, where everything, from the mile after mile of pastel-coloured bungalows to the distant mountains rearing up from the valley floor, from the ubiquitous palms and billboards to the endless vistas that suddenly appear, from the half-hidden houses on the twisting roads of Laurel Canyon to the patiently pumping oil wells on the southern reaches of La Cienega, exists in a dimension that I can see and hear but which is nonetheless forever out of my grasp. I would not, could not, drive like this in the UK. While London drivers are angry, impatient, impolite and dangerous, Californians are, with few exceptions, careful, considerate and polite. On the freeway we all drive at similar speeds, with only the odd hothead weaving in out of lanes. And on city roads and suburban streets we drive within 5 mph of the speed limit, slowing down gently at traffic lights and waiting patiently at stop signs for others to go first. It is a partly a factor of US politeness, but even more, I suspect, the result of the ubiquitous automatic gearbox and cruise control. It's difficult to speed away from traffic lights in a burst of macho noise or to overtake at random when it is the car, not the driver, which decides when to shift gears. With much of the effort taken out of driving, the man or woman behind the wheel can relax, pay more attention to the sights that surround them or to the music they bring with them. I spent my second week driving to Yosemite, San Francisco and back to Los Angeles. I began by following the 5, the broad ribbon of tarmac rising 4,000 feet up into the Angeles Mountains, passing trucks crawling on my right, before we both eased slowly down into the Central Valley. There I took the 99, which stretched in a straight line as far as Bakersfield, before taking a half-left and making for Fresno. Vast fields of maize and vines line the road, nourished by irrigation systems that draw water from hundreds of miles away. Only at Fresno, four hours from Los Angeles, did I leave the plain, as the 41 led into the mountains. By the end of the day, the sky was grey and scenery was Alpine, with conifers not palms, and granite boulders scattering the landscape. Three days of hiking and two aching legs later, I meandered from Yosemite to Mariposa, from Mariposa to Coulterville, from Coulterville to Chinese Camp and Angels Camp and eventually to Stockton where I rejoined the interstate system. In my self-contained bubble I climbed hills and descended into valleys on all but deserted roads. I stopped to photograph landscapes and old buildings (the Hotel Jeffrey below, in Coulterville lost most of its trade and reason for existence after Nine Eleven) and visit country museums and antique shops. In between, I drove, switching from radio to CD and back to radio. Six thousand feet above sea level, surrounded by a sea of impenetrable pines, I listened to Christian radio and country music; the former depresses me and the latter I love, except when it strays into blind patriotism. Nearer sea level I had the options of rant radio and soft rock; both are fun for a while, although Rush Limbaugh soon loses his attraction and it amazes me how Laura Schlesinger, a woman of little intelligence who does not even understand the questions put to her, has achieved national distribution. But for long stretches of the road I preferred my own selection - the romanticism of the Pet Shop Boys and the otherworldliness of ambient music, particularly combinations that I have picked up in sales bins, secondhand shops and once, to my shame, among the bootlegs sold in the streets of Bangkok. A fortnight, as I said, of pure pleasure, but also a fortnight of destruction. I contributed in no little way to the pollution of the planet by pouring poisoning chemicals into the atmosphere (much fewer chemicals than ten or twenty years ago but poisonous nonetheless). The plastic bottles of water I bought were mostly, but not all, recycled. I added to the numbers visiting a "wilderness" which then becomes a contradiction in terms. My presence contributed to the burden of the disposal of human waste and in its own small way encouraged all the paraphernalia of tourism, whereby hundreds of millions of us rush around the planet visiting sanitised versions of a history that never existed. And because I am human and prioritise my own pleasures, of course I have no regrets.  Back to Opinion |
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