My flight was scheduled to arrive at LAX at 11:30 in the morning. Perfect, I thought. I could get a rental car and be out of Los Angeles before rush hour, heading up the California coast to visit my father by mid-afternoon. But my plans were spoiled by a thunderstorm in Chicago, which added five hours to my travel time. I arrived in LA at 4:30, picked up the rental car, and quickly got on the 405 northbound. It then took me one hour to go eight miles. And there were miles of heavy traffic still in front of me. Exasperated, I imagined an aerial view of my situation: surrounded by hundreds of cars on an expressway that now looked more like a linear parking lot. Clearly something was wrong with this picture.
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