Is it possible to drive to LA from New York City non-stop?

Question

I mapquested it and it said it would take about 42 hours to do. Has anyone ever tied to make the trip?

Answer 1

I think you can do it! If you are healthy, experienced, and quite determined. Use your brain and plan to not be around the big cities at rush hours. I once drove 3100 miles by myself! 51 hours of driving, plus two 2 hour naps= 55 hours on the road to get home for a funeral. I was an experienced truck driver, and I was very motivated to get back to my family... All that to say I think you can do it in the 42 hours if you are strong, smart, and determined. Get to the Pa turnpike, head thru columbus, Indy and St. louis. take I-44 to OK city, then hammer down on I-40 all the way to Cali! St louis will be only real risk of traffic, followed by Columbus, OK CITY , and Indy (in that order) While I want you to have fun...know when to say when, bobbing your head more than once means its time to get out and jump around to get your brain and the heart rate back up

Answer 2

No one I know unless there was more than one driver. I drove from NYC down to New Orleans (as the only driver) and it did NOT turn out like mapquest said it would. Mapquest did not take traffic into account and we hit some bad spots near major cities. Getting stick in rush hour traffic for over an hour each time really drained me. Not only did it add hours onto the trip, it made it so there was no way I could continue driving without stopping for a bit for a break or quick nap after that. We tacked on at least 8 hours to the trip because of crap like that.

No matter what you do, you are going to hit traffic somewhere. If you leave LA at 2am and somehow get to St. Louis by 4am the next morning, that would still leave you trying to drive though the PA/NJ/NYC during afternoon/evening rush hour.

There is no way you can do it in the time mapquest says you can. You have to either sit in traffic for hours or choose to stop the car for awhile and wait until traffic clears up.

Answer 3

Yeah you can do it -the nonstop coast to coast part.. The often cited mapquest number of 42 hours is almost impossible to do. I know this because I personally have driven it [ NYC- LA] in 56 hours and know first hand how hard it would be to reduce that time by 14 hours.
I also know that I can do Denver to Chicago in 13.5 hrs and Chicago to NYC in 13.5 hrs also.
If you actually wanted to try it the vehicle of choice would be Lincoln Town Car a Mercury Grand Marquis or any late 90's full sized rear wheel drive GM station wagon's with the 350's in them. They will run all day at 80 mph/ 1300 rpms / 26mpg- in comfort.
Then you plan your trip to avoid as many cities as possible and those cities you do hit be there at the times of the least traffic .
Try this routing :
I-10/ I-15/ I-40 / I-25/ I-76/ I-80
or
I-15/ I-70/ I-76/ I-80- you would have to negotiate Vegas and go over the Rockies at 11,100+ but it would work
I would also drive it east to west because it would be really hard to make up time once you get East of the Mississipi -too many cities and small towns to deal with.
Honestly even being chemically aided and with another driver I would have a lot of difficulty getting much below my personal best which I did in a Sedan de Ville in 1973 with a good friend of mine.
The reason being is that there is a lot more traffic in America than there used to be. There are also a lot more people with cell phones who won't think twice about calling the Federales if you safely blow past them driving at triple digits. For some reason they take it personally.
So between the additional traffic and the annoyance of self-righteous anything under 48 hrs would be hard to do.
I got a great idea. Maybe you should get in touch with mapquest and see if they will provide a vehicle , expenses , one of their stafff to share driving and legal assistance for your attempt at matching their cited times .
Good luck

Answer 4

image taken in the time of WW II exhibits all around st Paul's burning and then the fantastic dome displaying above the rubble. The British people labored stressful to maintain ST Paul's and Prince Charles and Princess Diana have been given married there in 1981.

Answer 5

I drive from Abilene,Texas to Jacksonville, North Carolina. It takes me 23 hours nonstop. Thats one hell of a drive, but be careful.

Answer 6

I'm sure that it CAN be done in the right circumstances (weather, traffic, peeing in bottles, having a back like spaghetti...etc), but I don't think that you will survive (psychologically, physiologically, emotionally..). For your health..i really don't recommend it.

Answer 7

impossible = 0

Answer 8

No as traffic conditions will prevail !