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I live in what is considered to be the second most congested city in North America. Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal among most congested cities in North America | Globalnews.ca I used to love driving when I was younger and there was a lot less cars to deal with. Now I hate driving. Not fond of the city's transit system either. There are times I would love to live in a rural area and not have to worry about all the cars around me.
Do you live in congested city? Do you ever consider giving up driving or take transit as much as possible?
"Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal" are in Canada!
We live in Florida, and everywhere you go here the traffic is just awful. We don't have any public transit to speak off either.
I live in Baltimore where in any given 5 minutes of driving I see 2 to 3 individuals DELIBERATELY break driving laws. I am not talking about individuals who run a red light when a light is yellow but turns red before you can get through it or a slowing down then going through a stop sign. I am talking about individuals who go through red light while the rest of us are sitting at the light waiting for it to turn green or passing others on the wrong side of a double yellow line. Allstate did a study of auto accidents in 200 cities nationwide and Baltimore had the 5th highest accident rate in the nation. Elected officials do not seem to care about this. In fact they tend to turn a blind eye to it. It is like the violent crime rate here. We also have the second highest violent crime rate and little is being done about it. The courts have decreased their incarceration rate by 43% and Our State's Attorneys Office is dismissing any none violent crime. If somebody bashed out the windows of your car with a baseball bat and you had several witnesses they might be arrested by the police but the charges would be dismissed before they got to court, talk about a dysfunctional criminal justice system. That certainly would not be tolerate 15 miles outside of the city in Baltimore County.
I am talking about individuals who go through red light while the rest of us are sitting at the light waiting for it to turn green or passing others on the wrong side of a double yellow line.
Same thing happens in Chicago frequently. I'd rather be on a train below or above traffic
Everytime I drove into Chicago or DC, I felt a piece of my soul die. I did do Metrorail half the time while visiting DC.
I lived in suburban areas instead. Northern VA wasn't half bad so long as you avoided certain highways to go to work.
I'm in a small town + remote area, so driving is a breeze. The tradeoff is large population centers are 1.5, 2, and 2.5 hours away. It also sucks being single in such a place, but we'll leave that for another discussion
Here in the Phoenix area, I definitely get more stressed than I used to. Surface streets aren't so bad IMO, but the freeways have become more chaotic over the years. They still flow well, but it's damn near impossible to drive in an efficient manner that benefits all when not all seem to subscribe to that attitude.
For example, I use cruise control a LOT because it maintains a constant speed. This way, you can pass people you come up on, and others maintaining and faster constant speed can pass you. The problem is, it doesn't work with the jerkoffs who can't manage to keep a constant speed. I stay in the furthest right lane as possible when not passing. I'll come up on somebody, move to pass them on the left, and they'll speed up and match speeds because of a hill, or just for the hell of it. At this point I have three options as I see it. Floor it, get in front of them, resume my cruising speed, and hope they don't leap-frog me back (often doesn't happen). Left-lane camp until the moron either speeds up for good and drops back (AKA **** off other people). Thirdly, drop back and risk having to go said person's chosen speed.
I always try to not interfere with the driving patterns of others when reasonably possible. It's stressful when others don't give me a chance to do that.
I'm in Florida and it's tourist season.. Driving is a nightmare until April..
A 20 minute trip could take twice as long in some areas...
Traffic accidents are everywhere..
It's only until April and it gets a little better..
Not at all. Our rush hour is maybe 25 cars at a red light. And that's a bad day! Our population is 110,000 more or less. But we have large wide multi lane city streets. And most folks around here are college students with no car and old folks that go home at dark. I've never felt unsafe around here driving cars with no power steering and four wheel drum brakes.
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