Something that keeps bugging me and won't let up - WHY did Bryce decide to begin his trip to Laguna Niguel on Wednesday night?
Why not leave in the morning? That seems more practical ESPECIALLY since he was running on little to no sleep. We know he can't have been in a rush to get back to his parents because as it turns out, 24 hrs later and he's still hanging out in Buttonwillow.
So surely, staying Wed night and getting some MUCH NEEDED rest and then heading out fresh Thursday morning would have been fine. And much more logical.
Seems to me that he would have either went back to his apartment for the night OR, better yet, stayed with his girlfriend.
I live in SoCal (even further south than Bryce's family) and my brother has spent the last 5-ish years living a bit further north than Bryce was leaving from (thus adding about 1.5-2 hours to my brother's driving time for a trip that included the entire stretch of 5 that Bryce would have also been driving).
He did the drive many times, including several rather last minute ones.
At least 80% of the time he did the drive at night - especially leaving to head south.
It's cooler, especially in summer, to do the drive at night - and something about boys seems to make many inclined to tend to prefer windows down over a/c whenever possible, at least from the ones I know here in CA.
You also can really hit traffic in LA and even on the grapevine, and if you do the drive at night/very early am, you can miss the traffic, which, otherwise, can add many hours to the drive at worst, or at best, add some time and also be unpredictable.
Plus, there is a lot of truck traffic on part of that stretch and during the day, it can be incredibly annoying to be getting stuck behind trucks (especially with boys - or at least many I know! - tending to be a bit heavy footed... You're apt to get more truckers leaving early am than late at night, at least form my experience.
And I think, too, you tend to get away with speeding more through some of the desolate stretches at night than during the day.
So I don't really find the leaving at night odd - especially for a guy.
And really, I'd suspect most guys - teens even to into their 30's (especially if single and/or not working in the most traditional of jobs) tend to be more nocturnal, and apt to stay up late and sleep in late if they had their druthers.
But those are just my thoughts...
And while I've done the same drive (both ways, and also alone) as a female, I'm much, much more inclined to do it during the day, leaving early am, hoping I could miss some of the traffic in LA if I left really early...though knowing it's still likely I'd get stuck in some...than I would be to do the drive at night, just b/c of feeling safer as a female then than at night on some desolated stretches.