Angelika Driving in San Francisco and the surrounding area can often drive you to despair. It's not just the heavy traffic that's to blame, but also the many drivers who seemingly won their driver's license in a lottery or drive as if they don't have one at all. Which, by the way, is not so uncommon in California.

Short-term double parking is a part of everyday life, and I especially love it when the driver cheekily sits in the car in front of an exit but doesn't pull into the exit. No, they prefer to block an entire lane. As if they were the only person in the world. Most people also use their turn signals only when they feel like it, a Californian habit that Michael has also adopted.

The most annoying thing, however, is the constant chatting on the phone while driving. According to my own observations, this applied to every third driver until recently. Even before the first visual contact with the phone at the ear, the chatterers stand out: the unorthodox driving style, abrupt braking, long unnecessary stops at stop signs, running red lights, and overlooking pedestrians at crosswalks give them away.

I can sing a song about near-accidents due to the cell phone plague. And although it has long been known that using a cell phone while driving leads to many traffic fatalities, California has only been one of the five American states since July 1, 2008, where drivers are only allowed to make calls while driving using a built-in hands-free system or an earpiece (hence the slogan "Hands free").

California drivers under the age of 18 (licenses are available from age 16) are no longer even allowed to do that. Interestingly, however, the lawmakers forgot to explicitly include sending SMS messages in the law, as this practice was not as popular at the time the law was drafted. One would think that common sense would prohibit typing away on a tiny keyboard while sitting behind the wheel, but nothing really surprises me anymore. After all, I don't read a book while driving either.

It costs 20 dollars the first time a driver is caught with a phone to their ear, and 50 dollars the second time. I think that's too low, but supposedly the 20 dollars actually amount to 76 dollars because of the fees that are added on top, and the 50 dollars shoot up to 190 dollars because of this. However, there are no points added to the California driver's record for this offense. By the way, some comedians have made fun of the hands-free motto and demonstrated, The translation of theGerman phrase "was die Autofahrer jetzt alles anstellen können" toEnglish is "what drivers can do now. ...because they no longer have to hold the phone to their ear: they can tinker on the laptop, eat, write cards. But it is really funny what Californian drivers do in their cars. Recently, Michael and I saw someone brushing their teeth with an electric toothbrush while behind the wheel. The question that plagued me was where he intended to rinse his mouth.

And one more addendum to the last newsletter: We had asked if you knew the answer to a question from Michael's traffic ticket exam, specifically how many traffic fatalities in 2005 in the USA were due to drunk driving. The options were (a) 16,000, (b) 25,000, (c) 5,000, or (d) 10,000. The correct answer was 16,000.

And what should you pay attention to if your car breaks down and you have to park it on the side of the road? Possible answers were (a) Watch out for tall grass, (b) open the trunk, (c) park the car facing oncoming traffic, or (d) turn on the high beams. The correct answer was (a). Because if the grass is tall and dry and the engine is quite hot, it can cause a grass fire. No kidding, that was the correct answer!

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	California is still burning!
  	Pearl Harbor" is already in English. It refers to a harbor on the
  	Same-sex marriage in California
  	The translation of "Wie man sich beschwert" to English is "How to
  	Cheap gasoline when buying a car
  	Benzinsparen
  	Homestory about Michael
  	San Francisco Views: Kirby Cove