I definitely don't think it's just you. Once, when I lived in the valley, I was at a restaurant on one side of the street and wanted to go to a shop across the

I definitely don't think it's just you. Once, when I lived in the valley, I was at a restaurant on one side of the street and wanted to go to a shop across the street, but it was the middle of the block and I didn't feel like walking to the cross-walk. The road was 3 lanes in either direction, but there was a wide grassy median, so I did what I've always done growing up in NYC: I crossed the near 3 lanes and waited on the median for the traffic in the other direction to clear. Well, apparently the sight of a pedestrian in the median was unexpected enough that every driver in the far 3 lanes slammed on their brakes immediately, stopping traffic right in the middle of the block. It was as if they expected that I was just aimlessly wandering across the road and would step out into oncoming traffic if they didn't stop. Of course, I think at least part of the problem is that pedestrians, in general, are so rare in CA. I used to live ~1 mile from work and would walk in regularly, whereas co-workers who lived half that distance would always drive (and don't get me started about the difficulty walking after 9 pm when every lawn sprinkler in the valley would unleash a deluge across the sidewalks).