I mostly work offshore, so to me the block on the other side of the San Andreas fault is moving southeast, relative to the Pacific plate. Actually, research scientists make this sort of mistake-for example, Crouch and Suppe 1993 suggested that there should be contraction/thrusting back 15 million years ago (they don't use that number) north of the western Transverse Ranges because that side is in the path of the rotating block, and various people say there was extension in the path of the rotating block. From a Pacific Plate perspective, it is the other way around. Actually, there was extension on both sides/all sides....and now there is contraction on all sides.

As far as a direction of plate motion today, I was talking about relative motion. Motion over the mantle is different-both plates are moving west or northwest. Chris