Map it out in your mind. There are a lot of backroads and windy roads, especially in the hills, so it really helps to familiarize yourself with how the roads connect. Although you can rely on GPS guidance quite a bit, there may be areas where you won't have a signal or the mapping technology itself gets confused. So learn the lay of the land.

Word of mouth has helped me a lot to find out about the dealerships that offer excellent customer service. Also researching on the internet, including the dealer websites, is really helpful. Talk to your friends, to your neighbors, to your coworkers and acquaintances because you will start to hear good things about certain places locally.

I was driving home one night and saw a few bicyclists going the other way on a big road. Their spokes were lit up with some kind of florescent lights that looked really cool as the wheels turned. Very colorful, mostly in lime green. Then I saw more and more riders. There were hundreds of people with colorful illuminated bikes. It was a beautiful event.

Highway 13.. Hwy 13 connects the Oakland Hills with Berkeley, The Tunnel to Contra Costa County and 580 to the south. It's an excellent East Bay thoroughfare. It is scenic with a lot of foliage plus panoramic views of the Bay and San Francisco. This makes it one of the most scenic highways in the Bay Area.

I would suggest, to maximize driving, that maintaining your speed as you merge onto highways would help everyone to keep traffic moving.

It's important to know your budget and stick to it. It can be very easy to finance something that is out of your price range but over the long haul cars depreciate in value too much to extend a payment for years and years without it being likely to retain value once you've finally paid it off.

My driving highlight in the city is during my early morning work hours. Typically it is fairly congested on the roads and often it appears that CA natives have difficulties merging onto highways without exaggerated slow downs. I work in SF and need to arrive by 6:30am and leaving to get from Oakland to SF during this time of the morning is a breeze.

International Blvd.. It's a good stretch of road as it isn't frequented during the morning and it often has a myriad of pedestrians which make the drive interesting.