No sooner had I penned the final word for my last piece in the Bali Advertiser, recounting my brush with the law on the Los Angeles freeway a decade ago, just about the time Rodney King had got himself stomped and savagely beaten by the LAPD, when history repeated itself and LA’s finest were at it again. Another African American, 36-year old Stanley Miller was video’d being kicked and beaten with a flashlight, having surrenderedto the police after a car chase in a stolen vehicle. It looked awful, a lone man with his hands raised being forced to the ground and then beaten by a squad of cops. It’s not a race thing you know.LAPD supporters were quick to point out. A month or so ago some white guy on a joy ride in a car tried to surrender after he’d had his fun and ended up in the morgue with five bullet holes in his chest. I guess you’d call that “equal-opportunity apprehension” or “non-bias bashing”. Made me count my blessings rather. A shakedown for Rp. 50,000 from a traffic cop in Bali, however unjustified, sure beats a good thrashing or worse in LA.
Mweep!
Los Angeles has been described as a suburb in search of a city and that would pretty much account for its symbiotic relationship with the automobile. Practically anywhere you go you can find a place to park on or off road. That’s really convenient, if aesthetically revolting. But try parking in London, Singapore or most other major cities, it’s hell. Breathe and you’d soon find yourself clamped and having to ransom back your wheels. Everything to do with driving works to a robotic degree here. Provided you know and follow the rules a child could do it. What a contrast with Bali, where you have to practice almost preternatural degrees of defensive driving. But that is the point, you have to know. If you are from out of town you’d better catch on fast and if you don’t, or are a bit slow, God help you. Tarry one nanosecond too long making a left turn across traffic, if you dawdle looking for your building, or in any way manifest hesitation or any other such automotive turpitude you will be “Mweeped”. Mweep! is the briefest touch of the horn. It is the automotive equivalent of an American “Excuse me”. That is to say, they don’t mean it. It isn’t in the least pleasant or polite, it really means “get out of my way, stupid!” . To be quickly followed by a full fledged blast on the horn if you don’t get the message quick enough. Angelenos tend not to yell insults at each other on the road, they like to preserve what they think of as their cool for that, but they are not above laconic hand gestures.
My partner and I had a great instance of this. We had lingered a split second too long before making a turn on Rodeo Drive and had got mweeped by a big silver Mercedes behind us and, as it whooshed past us, a tiny dyed blond Beverly Hills matron stuck a shrivelled lizard-tanned semitic hand covered in liver spots, sporting a disgracefully gross gold diamond ring out the car window and languidly yet sourly gave us the finger. We just cracked up, it was just too Beverly Hills.
Nice Motor.....!
And the cars, what cars they all drive! At least in the neck of the woods where we are holed up. All the very latest and snazziest SUVs, Aston Martins, Bentley Continentals, Jags, Mercs and BMW‚s, and not yer cheap stuff either, all the grandest marques. I’m not really into motors, but sometimes you can’t help it. I lusted after the latest Porsche Cayenne, which is a really powerful and graceful looking SUV. Go down a treat in Bali I thought, before my natural modesty and innate instinct to keep a low profile in the Isle of the Gods re-asserted itself.
And it’s not just matrons and old geezers, celebs and movie moguls driving them. As often as not it’s 18 year-old kids, often younger. It’s hard for a parent not to succumb to kiddy peer-pressure when a brand new Mercedes SUV leases for barely $300 a month. At these kind of rates anyone who’s employed at a decent whack gets to drive around in a smart car if they want. Of course there is a snag. There always is, and it’s called car insurance. In Southern California it’s heavy duty, particularly for anyone under 25 driving a powerful car. One thing I’ve found, whoever you are - you almost never want to make a claim unless it’s major. People here go in mortal fear of their insurance companies, who’ll hit them with massively hiked premiums for a lifetime soon as look at them.
When you rent a car in LA, or anywhere else in the US for that matter, unless it is on expenses, you don’t want to rent from majors like Hertz, Avis, Budget etc. Go to one of the independents. You can still get good cars but you pay one third the price, especially if you do it on a monthly basis. Quite apart from the actual car rental being less you don’t get swagged on insurance. The big car rental companies have a nasty little collusive game going on with their opposite numbers in car insurance. For all I know they are probably part of the same diversified holding companies, which would explain a lot. Unless you are very brave or foolhardy and prepared to risk all your worldly belongings you need to buy third party insurance and insure against damage to the car you rent. This can add an additional US$25.00 to $35.00 a day to your rental bill, on top of what you pay for the car. With the small independents, their own insurance will cover you in all eventualities. The only thing you may be liable for is the first $1,000’s worth of damage to the car you rent, and you can insure against that for a minimal amount. You may even be covered automatically by your VISA or Amex card. The big guys and their franchisees, on the other hand, get up to all kind of nasties, which you often only find out about months later on checking your credit card statements and their prices have escalated atrociously over the past five years. Give them a miss until they clean up their act, I say.
The Strangers‚ Edge
The high cost of insurance in a city like LA can work to your advantage if you’re a visitor. By and large Angelenos are not good drivers. They don’t need to be. There are seldom major accidents, except when it involves loonies, criminals or freeway pile-ups, and these are mercifully rare. But there are lots and lots of small shunts, many of them happening in parking lots, as I have found out.
In the last three weeks I have been hit twice in a parking lot. The first time I wasn’t even in the car, which was stationary. The second time I was backing out and was hit by another car also backing out. Clearly the first case was entirely the fault of the other driver and in the second case the other driver was 80% at fault I’d say. Honest.
In both cases the damage all round was minimal, a dent and paint job. Now with a Toyota this isn’t that big a deal, especially if it’s a rental car and you are covered. It is a different story altogether if you are are the proud owner of a spanking new RangeRover or Mercedes SUV, respectively in this case. In no time at all both owners were offering to pay for any repairs to my rental car if only I or my rental company would not involve their insurance company. One poor bastard had just had a shunt the week before and he knew his insurance would have his guts for garters. If I wasn’t such a nice guy I could’ve demanded a grand on top of the repairs “for my trouble” as it were and he’d have been as happy as Larry to pay it, in such a funk he was.
So now I’m really getting the hang of it here. On the road, drive like a robot and in the parking lot. drive like you were in Bali.
