Do you like driving?

[pete6032]

I despise it. Thank god I live about 2 min from work

You live 2 minutes away and drive?

 

[pauldun170]

Beats sitting in the car twiddling thumbs. But in traffic I'll just sit in the car twiddling thumbs. Automated cars will be a bit of a pain to live with (too much rule-following), but not when in traffic.

If I'm in traffic, I prefer that 3rd pedal. Doesn't matter if its 2 hours of NYC traffic or or stuck on a mountain road behind a tractor trailer.
Driving the wifes auto sucks.

 

[zinfamous]

No choice but to drive. Even though I work at the largest employer in the city, there is no public transportation to my work. I did try the bus system once to go downtown. What is normally a 15 minute drive took 3 hours by bus with numerous transfers.

OK, you clearly did something wrong.

 

[pauldun170]

You live 2 minutes away and drive?

 

[DietDrThunder]

OK, you clearly did something wrong.

Unfortunately I didn't.

 

[snoopy7548]

I don't mind it when it's not in traffic. I can't stand being in traffic.

That said, my goal when driving is to get where I need to go as fast as possible safely. I can't stand people who are out there lolly gagging on the road as if they don't want to get where they are going. That shit grinds my gears.

And yes the slow assholes in the fast lane also grind my gears.

If you keep grinding your gears, you've gotta learn how to shift...

I love driving but I hate almost everyone on the road. Everyone must have broken speedometers because no one seems capable of approaching the speed limit.

 

[zinfamous]

Unfortunately I didn't.

Or the bus routes you took were under heavy construction/re-routing delays for anomolous reasons.

I understand how PT can be vastly different than driving times in certain cities (I recall a regular train/bus route in Chicago that would take me about 1 hour, 20 minutes; vs a 20-30 minute drive on the fastest drive route (where no PT route followed)---but that also compared heavy commuter times to non-commuter times of day), but no PT infrastructure can be that bad. So, I'm guessing a little big of exaggeration compounded on top of a raging awful experience the one time you took PT on the day that a series of cascading events wrecked the route. ...which definitely happens. It's why it can be so frustrating, because you can't modify your route at any given moment to try and change your situation.

 

[clamum]

I do actually, even though the road is filled with distracted drivers. I mean, I don't care for stop-and-go traffic and backups (who does?) but otherwise yeah I actually kinda like it. I listen to NPR or audiobooks, with an occassional music CD thrown in, and it's actually semi-enjoyable despite all the mongoloids out there.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Or the bus routes you took were under heavy construction/re-routing delays for anomolous reasons.

I understand how PT can be vastly different than driving times in certain cities (I recall a regular train/bus route in Chicago that would take me about 1 hour, 20 minutes; vs a 20-30 minute drive on the fastest drive route (where no PT route followed)---but that also compared heavy commuter times to non-commuter times of day), but no PT infrastructure can be that bad. So, I'm guessing a little big of exaggeration compounded on top of a raging awful experience the one time you took PT on the day that a series of cascading events wrecked the route. ...which definitely happens. It's why it can be so frustrating, because you can't modify your route at any given moment to try and change your situation.

Where I live, the bus service is every 60 minutes and to get downtown you have to transfer to two different routes that are scheduled for every 30 minutes. None of the bus route schedules are aligned, nor are there times posted on when they will arrive. There is just a sign you stand next to, and if a bus comes along you get on. Not counting the ride times, I waited at least 1.5 hours just on bus arrivals. Yeah I may have exaggerated a little bit, but not by much. Riding public transportation in North Texas is like walking in Los Angeles. You try to avoid it.

 

[gorcorps]

Yes, as long as I'm actually driving and not stopping. Driving is fine, traffic is not.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't mind driving, but I hate driving in traffic. I try to avoid certain roads at busy times. I also hate driving at night, I find it's harder to see with glare from lights etc, especially with the asshole trend of people installing those ridiculously bright blue HID lights.

I really do enjoy out of town highway driving though, no stop lights, not much traffic etc. Just go. I would never want to do the big highways like the 400 series ones, but the highways here in northern Ontario are quite tame. Just wish the speed limit was a little higher. Just need to watch for moose but that's mostly at night.

Made a time lapse for fun a while back when I was out of town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRnDo-P4eyg

 

[ponyo]

Don't mind driving but I hate traffic. I also don't care for long distance driving. Both traffic and long distance driving can be easily handled by the Autopilot feature on current Tesla cars. My next car will be Tesla with Autopilot.

 

[ultimatebob]

I like driving when it's an open road with no traffic, and I have good tunes playing. That doesn't happen often enough while driving in Connecticut, though.

 

[tynopik]

do i like driving? no

but i hate walking, biking, busing and subwaying even more

can't wait for autonomous cars

 

[local]

Or the bus routes you took were under heavy construction/re-routing delays for anomolous reasons.

I understand how PT can be vastly different than driving times in certain cities (I recall a regular train/bus route in Chicago that would take me about 1 hour, 20 minutes; vs a 20-30 minute drive on the fastest drive route (where no PT route followed)---but that also compared heavy commuter times to non-commuter times of day), but no PT infrastructure can be that bad. So, I'm guessing a little big of exaggeration compounded on top of a raging awful experience the one time you took PT on the day that a series of cascading events wrecked the route. ...which definitely happens. It's why it can be so frustrating, because you can't modify your route at any given moment to try and change your situation.

Public transportation in DFW is more of a "yeah we have that" than something you would actually want to use. Hell up until 2013 Arlington, which is a city of 375,000 people sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth, was the largest city in America without any public transportation.

 

[sdifox]

Public transportation in DFW is more of a "yeah we have that" than something you would actually want to use. Hell up until 2013 Arlington, which is a city of 375,000 people sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth, was the largest city in America without any public transportation.

That is ridiculous. Not even regional transit that covers the city? A small town of 35k North of my city gets regional bus service just like my 330k city.

 

[zinfamous]

That is ridiculous. Not even regional transit that covers the city? A small town of 35k North of my city gets regional bus service just like my 330k city.

Public Transportation kills freedom in states like Texas.

...I'm being serious.

But what cepak and local say does ring true, if you live in a city that only provides some semblance of PT begrudgingly. I did grow up in a southern subburby town where there really was no notion that we had PT. There was a bus system, CAT, but I do believe that went under many many years ago. The funny thing is that I recall realizing at some point that I had stopped seeing those buses on the street and couldn't remember the last time I saw them. You get used to the notion that you simply can't get anywhere in these towns without a car. On the other hand, you generally grow up with a different mindset when you live in an actual city with dedicated, supported PT that is meant to work.

 

[SKORPI0]

No. But I need to go places/work. Better than the available public transportation. 2.3 miles to work, <5 minutes.

 

[Exterous]

OK, you clearly did something wrong.

If you arrive at the bus stop near my house at 6:58am it will take you 24 hours to get from that bus stop to the bus stop near my work. Although thats mainly because they only run 2 buses a day. Trips home are similarly restrictive, departing at 3:29pm and 5:07pm only. Bus ride takes ~1 hour and 15min. Monthly pass costs $125.

Or I could drive which takes 20 minutes and I pay $60 a month for parking.

 

[MaxDepth]

There are some roads in eastern VA that are like this. With all this road construction on the highways, these roads are now about the same in terms of drive time.

HOWEVER - with Google Maps, the AI will start directing people to take these roads instead of the highways and thereby clog up these too. Dammit.

I love mythical unicorn driving:

 

[Midwayman]

I like driving, but driving instead of sitting in traffic is so rare. At this point the cost benefit ratio is so bad I'd rather just give it up and get a self driving car to do the work.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I hate most of my commute, but, love the twisty parts as long as there isn't some kinda slowmobile blocking me.

The best drive I had in recent times was over the winter, when we got around a foot of snow overnight, and lots of people decided to take the day off. There was like no traffic at all, and I was really able to drive "at the edge", note: in deep snow, the edge is not very fast (around 30mph, but, it was still a hell of a lot of fun )

 

[Midwayman]

There are some roads in eastern VA that are like this. With all this road construction on the highways, these roads are now about the same in terms of drive time.

HOWEVER - with Google Maps, the AI will start directing people to take these roads instead of the highways and thereby clog up these too. Dammit.

And they'll all be the sort who goes 20mph under the limit through corners, but speeds up to match you, even going over the limit any time there is a place to pass.

 

[local]

That is ridiculous. Not even regional transit that covers the city? A small town of 35k North of my city gets regional bus service just like my 330k city.

Public Transportation kills freedom in states like Texas.

...I'm being serious.

But what cepak and local say does ring true, if you live in a city that only provides some semblance of PT begrudgingly. I did grow up in a southern subburby town where there really was no notion that we had PT. There was a bus system, CAT, but I do believe that went under many many years ago. The funny thing is that I recall realizing at some point that I had stopped seeing those buses on the street and couldn't remember the last time I saw them. You get used to the notion that you simply can't get anywhere in these towns without a car. On the other hand, you generally grow up with a different mindset when you live in an actual city with dedicated, supported PT that is meant to work.

I don't know about the whole kills freedom thing but yes we just don't expect it to exist here. Dallas, a city of 1.3 million people in a metroplex of 6.4 million has only 3.9 percent of commuters using PT. Just about everyone drives, it's not like we don't have the space for parking. Dallas is also pretty low on the congestion of traffic despite what people here might think compared to many other large cities. The entire DFW area is built upon the idea that people will be driving to get where they want to go. Part of what helps that is this entire area was almost nothing until cars existed so it built up with people driving in mind unlike NYC or Chicago.

I commute 32 miles from outside the metroplex to almost the exact center of it and it only takes about 35 minutes each way. Some real bad traffic may add 15 minutes to that. Sure as the area fills up, the last 10 years have been insane, PT is getting more attractive. Dallas has a light rail system that is really limited but probably works fairly well if you happen to live and work along one of it's routes.

And no Arlington does not have PT at all, I just looked it up and the bus service they started in 2013 is closed now. They did make their own UBER thing with 10 cars people can call on to get a ride though. This is the city that has both the Rangers and Cowboys Stadiums in it.

 

[rh71]

If I'm in traffic, I prefer that 3rd pedal. Doesn't matter if its 2 hours of NYC traffic or or stuck on a mountain road behind a tractor trailer.
Driving the wifes auto sucks.

Actually radar cruise control (those which can go as low as 0) is optimal in traffic. Just steer.