Find short cuts through neighborhoods and avoid the major east/west routes when driving during peak driving hours. The freeway isn't in the best of locations to be used, but there is a new highway that has opened up and has relieved congestion. If you're needing to use your car a lot in this town, expect it to take at least 15-20 minutes to get anywhere.

Most of the car dealerships, with high repute, are near the south end of town, between the White Lane and Panama Exits from the freeway (CA-99). I can't remember the name of the exact street, but you can see it from the freeway. Most of the new car dealerships are there. I would suggest buying from one of these dealerships as they are well-reputed and in a safer part of town. There are other used-dealerships in other places in the city, but I don't have experience with those.

Because this city is so spread out, I find my happiest memories of driving here tend to relate to finding quicker and easier routes. For instance, recently, when meeting my family at the movie theater, I was running late. I was with my mother and, instead of driving the most direct route, we were able to use some side roads and less used side roads to reach our destination faster, since many of the main roads are congested, regardless of the time of day.

Panama Lane. Panama spans much of the south-west of the city and is far enough outside of the main parts of the city that it generally is only used as a thorough way. Recently, there are more places popping up near and on Panama but it is generally the fastest way from the Freeway to my mother's house.

I'm not sure if I could just give one so I'll give my top two. Number one is that the lights in the downtown area are timed not pressure sensitive like most the other lights, so going the speed limit is not only lawful but helpful, as you'll make most of the lights going that speed. The second tip would be that the 58 west ends on a two to four lane road so merging on to the 99 before it ends is really convenient.

We have what we call the Auto-mall here, I've been with friends to get tune-ups at various times, and locations there are dozens of dealers within a very small radius. The one tip I'd actually give is to shop around, but I guess that applies everywhere.

My last job was a good 7 or 8 miles away from my house, so I would often take different routes to see which was faster, less stops, less traffic, or something like that. It took about two months but I found a route, sort of convoluted, but other than that it was great. It had around 6 stop lights which was fantastic, (the average was about 15) as I couldn't use the freeway here. Once while driving to work fairly early, I not only made every light, but was almost completely alone on the road, I made it to work in under 10 minutes! The drive was great, the waiting in the car before my shift, eh it was ok.

Truxton Ext.. The speed limit is very fast compared to most main streets and it has maybe two or three lights that are very rarely red. It also allows you to by-pass a lot of traffic on California Ave. Or Rosedale HWY. It is one of if not the most efficient roads in the city.