Commute was a concern then too
Traffic remains a top concern of Los Angeles County residents, according to a new USC Dornsife/ California Community Foundation/Los Angeles Times poll.
And that’s no surprise. Polls have long found miserable commutes to be a top concern of residents in the region. In 1989, The Times produced an extensive poll in which Southern Californians sounded off about traffic and their love/hate relationship with cars. The poll offers an amusing time capsule of the Southern California driver of that era:
While most said they’d like to own a fancier car, the majority had not been swept up in the latest gadget craze.
Only 4% of drivers had telephones in their cars, and although 31% said they would like to have them, 64% indicated no interest in car phones. In Orange County, 5% had car phones; 26% said they wanted them.
The fuzzy dice fad had a small following. Only 8% of drivers said they had some sort of ornament in their cars. It was even less in Orange County, where only 3% said they displayed such items.
Bumper stickers were more in favor, with 18% if drivers putting them on the rear of their auto in Southern California (11% in Orange County). Eleven percent of drivers in the region said they customized their cars. Oversized tires and souped-up engines were the most popular modifications.
Seventeen percent of the people polled had car alarms; 23% said their cars had been broken into. In Orange County, 18% said cars had been burglarized and 16% had an alarm.
The vast majority of men and women polled (90%) said they pumped their own fuel, and most said they could perform routine auto maintenance. However, 6% said they couldn’t pump their own gas and 29% said they didn’t know how to change a tire.
Asked what a carburetor does, 82% of the men and 36% of the women interviewed knew the answer.
Although the biggest plurality, 36%, said they worried more about bad drivers than anything else on the road, 12% said they worried about their car breaking down. There may be good reason for that. Some drivers apparently weren’t accustomed to using their legs much.
According to the poll, 20% of the drivers said it had been a year or more since they’d walked as far as four blocks.
More stats from that poll:
40% agreed that automobiles had ruined Los Angeles.
38% had made an obscene gesture to another driver.
28% said their pet peeve was people who drive slowly in the fast lane.
13% had been in a car accident in the previous year (65% said it was the other guy’s fault).
5% had a gun in the car.