Buick Driver, Beamer Dreamer

Name: Dan Brozo

Car: 2001 Buick Century

Previous cars: 1991 BMW 525i

How’s your commute? Clairemont to Sorrento Valley.

Cheapest gas? I end up going to Shell more often than an Arco directly across the street because [Arco has] a larger convenience store and [I] end up spending extra money needlessly. If you’re just getting gas, go to Arco to reliably save four cents per gallon.

What’s wrong with your car? A cell in the battery shorted recently and got misdiagnosed as a starter.

What is the coolest car you’ve ever driven? Oh, by far, my BMW 525i, I loved that car.

What do you listen to while you drive? Lots of KPBS and KPRi, where I work, just to listen to what the jocks are playing and talking about. When I listen to music deliberately, I enjoy a lot of electro-pop like Passion Pit and Yeasayer, which help me feel excited about my day, which is usually an uphill battle.

Do you use your cell phone and drive? Yes, of course I do. Dude, this is my thought about this: they should have tests that you have to take where if you pass it and you are shown to be fully functional while driving, [you] are...allowed to only use your phone in safe situations. It would require people to have a good sense of judgement, which I don’t think we can count on but just make the tests really hard.

Any good hitchhiking stories? One time my sister picked up some hitchhikers and brought them to the last Christmas my family spent together as a unit, the year before my parents got divorced. They were just some random hippies from Florida she found in O.B. and brought home. You could smell them from across the room, and we had a pretty big living room. It was awful.

Tickets? None I’d really like the public world to know about.

Accidents? I’ve scraped many a pole. I scraped up my mom’s car and tried to pass it off as if it was a yellow car that hit me. Did not go well.

Where do you experience the worst traffic in San Diego? I actually know this for a fact cause I am a traffic reporter and I’ve read many case studies on this — it’s the 78 eastbound, up in North County. It’s the worst bottleneck in San Diego and it’s the most consistently awful.

What is your favorite drive? I love going over the Coronado Bridge, I like the altitude and the view and all.

Your best ShortCut? Instead of taking La Jolla Village Drive exit off the 5 to get to UCSD, take La Jolla Colony/Gilman. It’ll save you three lights and a lot of traffic.

What is your dream car? Whatever the most comfortable, fastest BMW is. Probably a four-door, so I guess it would have to be an M5.

What bothers you most about other peoples’ driving? I hate that people are so predictably bad at driving.

Do you use any shortcuts in real life? If you’re out eating fast food, it becomes tedious to open a whole bunch of ketchup packets. Stack four together, flatten the tops and tear all four off at once. I discovered that one time, and my life has changed.