Congrats on the pass. 👍
Here's a tip that I've learned from travelling to, and driving in many strange cities over the years. If you can memorise the names or numbers of 4 major streets or freeways around your starting point, then you should be able to find your way back to your starting point to try again if you get lost, once you hit one of the roads you're familiar with. Don't begin to panic if you drive more than a couple of miles on a road you're unfamiliar with. Eventually you'll hit something you'll recognise, and it'll either indicate you're close to where you thought you were, or a little further away than you expected, but you'll then know where to go.
(
V1P3R is going to laugh his head off at this, since I did manage to get lost in his neighbourhood
whilst trying to return his PS2 to him that he'd generously allowed us to use for Day 2 of SFGTP2 even though he wasn't able to attend himself! :tup:Top bloke!
)
Also I'd advise taking care to make sure you're always aware of the direction you're heading in, and the direction that a turn will take you. For example: If you're heading South on 880, you exit and make a right turn, then you're headed West. If it's a left, you're headed East. Beware of confusing junctions though, such as those that take you under the exit and back to the road though. If you're heading away from the freeway you were heading South on, you're still heading West, if you were made to cross it then you're heading East. (And the opposite for heading North, etc., etc.)
Being a Bay Area resident too, I'd also strongly suggest you use 511.org or call 511 from your cellphone before embarking on any freeway journey, Bay Area traffic can back up in the most absurd spots imaginable at any time of day, and either of these services will give you up to date info on what is causing delays and where.
I've certainly found that the more you drive, the more you pay attention to where you're going, to the point that, if I drive somewhere once, I'm 99% certain to remember how to get there again, your brain begins to pick out the important turns and Landmarks for you.
Anyway, I hope now that you're mobile, you'll consider being a part of SFGTP3 when I finally get round to arranging it, which is going to be highly dependant on when the snow disappears in the Sierras!
Please feel free to PM me if you'd like any tips on driving or directions in the Bay Area, I'm well used to finding my way around anywhere from Gilroy to Novato, to South San Francisco or as far away as Modesto, due to the nature of my work.
I'm also I good resource as far as the best wiggly winding roads in the Bay Area too, but I suggest you don't ask about them until you've a couple of years and a lot more confidence behind the wheel!
My late Grandad, who passed away at Xmas time of last year gave me the best driving advice ever though: "
Treat everyone on the road as an idiot!", in other words, try to look ahead and anticipate the moves of every driver around you before you manouever, this ran true in Britain where I learned to drive, but is especially true in CA, where lane discipline is appalling, and signalling seems to be an option that is left behind once you've passed your driving test, not as it should be, a useful indication to other road users of the suicidal 5-lane cut that you're about to undertake when you realise you're travelling at 55mph in the outside lane of the 5-lane freeway, and need to take the exit that's just 200 yards ahead!
Honestly, if you use this advice and look at every driver like they're about to switch lanes without signalling, or make a left turn while they're actually signalling right, it helps just to hang back a little and anticipate this behaviour and this avoid accidents.
Hope this helps, and I suggest you start memorising your route to Emeryville now!
But I think i'll get it eventually. I know where i'm going in a certain distance. Like if it's around my school or around stores that my family frequently goes to I usually know how to get home from there.
I guess I'd recommend you stick to places that you know. I can't remember what I did when I first started but I think my parents rule ( and for myself) was no freeway and night driving. I still think night driving is a lot safer than day driving... Idiots don't realize they're in your blind spot.
