How come in all those "LA" shows, the heroes manage to get across vast tracts of freeway and umpteen miles in about ten minutes? Maybe it is just the next day at the same time.
One of the many frightening things about LA, you're pretty much dead if you have a medical emergency somewhere in the paved paradise, the chances of getting anywhere fast or anybody to help at certain times of day and certain places are nil, even compared to the Bay Area.
When I worked in Bellflower after my oral surgery residency, I bought a car in West LA and took it back through downtown for warranty work. I got stuck around downtown in a traffic jam/accident right at the scene. It was hot, smoggy, full of auto fumes, congested, there were flames and smoke, utter chaos, police walking around, and a sense of total helplessness and disorganization. It was a scene from hell that has never quite left me and made me a bit afraid of LA metro area. This was thirty years ago before things got really bad.