This horrendous 405 backup is a Thanksgiving traffic nightmare

Oh, you planned on going somewhere for Thanksgiving? The 405 would like a word with you.

Soul-crushing, life-questioning traffic is by no means a new phenomenon in Los Angeles. But we were still taken aback by this helicopter footage taken on Tuesday—that's the day before the day before Thanksgiving—that shows both directions of the 405 at a standstill for miles.

The footage comes from ABC7 at 7:15pm last night. On a semi-related noted, we don't know whether to applaud their cheeky Mannequin Challenge reference or declare the time-freezing meme so over.

It's not just the 405, either, that's come to a halt; the ramps at the junction with the 10 are of course jammed, but so are large patches of Sawtelle and Sepulveda Boulevards.

So we have to pause and ask: why? Rush hour traffic on the 405 is always abysmal, of course. And after the end of Daylight Saving Time, it seems like everybody's forgotten how to drive in the dark. But early reports had also pegged roads for this holiday as the most crowded in nearly a decade, with 3.65 million residents expected to be traveling, according to AAA. To make matters worse, smoke from an underground utility malfunction shut down a stretch of Sepulveda near LAX around 11:30am on Tuesday, which was enough to keep the road closed until around 8pm.

So this Thanksgiving, be thankful that you avoided that traffic. And if you didn't—just be thankful you're not reading this while still stuck on the 405.

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