I love to drive. It is a nice area I live in to drive, lots of long and winding roads and beautiful farm land. We have some of the most polite drivers and they will let you go first. I did not feel this way in the city. I also have a comfy car with a great sound system and it’s a lot of fun to drive to music.
Until recently I have always had long commutes and it never bothered me.
I’m amazed at how cheap they can be. Last weekend I never paid more than $10 for one, tip included.
Well, you might not, but that obviously doesn’t hold true for everybody.
Me, I love to drive. I really enjoy driving in congested downtowns like NYC, Boston, and DC (which was really fun as it seemed that lane markers are treated as merely “lane suggestions”.)
If you hate driving, it’s because you have the wrong car. Get a high horsepowered German sports car, that’s a convertible, and you will renew your love for driving.
I’ve had Jeeps, sports cars, 4x4 trucks, and motorcycles. Between them all, I would choose to have one of each if I could! Well, I guess the only thing missing is the sports car right now, because I traded it a few months ago for the 4x4.
I’m not a good driver, but I feel much more constrained by driving. I worry about finding a parking place, or needing to go down a one-way street in the wrong direction and circling around, or pulling up to an intersection only to realize there’s no light and since it’s rush hour, it’s a question of either reversing and turning around - oh wait I can’t, there’s a car behind me - or waiting for literally 15 minutes for a break in traffic or turning right and ending up on the freeway… Yeah, I find driving overwhelms my little brain. And did I say that I’m not naturally a good driver?
Whereas, when I go somewhere by bus, I wait a few minutes for the bus to show up, the journey takes a few minutes extra, and I can zone out with my iPod for the entire trip, leaving traffic-wrangling up to the driver. What’s not to like?
For what it’s worth, I also dislike driving in non-city environments. I can’t quite imagine how other people handle the idea of being in control of a deadly weapon so easily. I just can’t get over the fact that if I just don’t look quite properly one time, I could kill a pedestrian.
You need to try to get to downtown from, say, Duluth at around 7:30am. Atlanta isn’t called the “LA of the east” for nothing!
But, yeah - oddly, downtown ATL can be relatively deserted when it comes to the number of cars on the streets. But the rest of the metro area? Fuggedaboudit.
Meh. I’m willing to bet it’s a shorter trip than driving from Capitol Hill to Woodley Park at any time of day, any day of the week. That’s a solid 45 minutes, traveling less than 5 miles.
This is part of my dislike of driving, too. If you screw up, you’ll have to pay a lot of money, you might injure or kill somebody, and you might even be killed or suffer life-altering injuries. I don’t understand how this could NOT scare anybody.
I love to drive and wish my everyday commute was directed by John Frankenheimer.
I agree with everything Mr. Excellent said. I haven’t driven for at least 5 years (since I was a teenager with a training permit, now expired), and I don’t expect I ever will again. Cars are going to be obsolete soon enough with the energy crisis, right?
I love to drive. I commute in the DC area and hate that (and hate parking downtown even more: I rarely go to the District unless my destination is walkable from a Metro station), but I love my car and love the other driving that I do. I’ve been to the track more than once for high-speed-driving instruction, and plan to try autocross this summer. Intellectually I understand the concept of hating to drive – and, believe me, I am extremely grateful to those of you who hate to drive and therefore do not – but I’ll never really “get it.”
I used to hate it, but now I kinda love it. I just wish there weren’t so many cops around…
I dislike driving, and rarely do it. I haven’t owned a car since 1986, but I do rent cars occasionally (perhaps two to three times a year on average).
I don’t mind driving, I just don’t much like driving here. I’ve wanted to move to a smaller place for years now; the traffic getting worse by the day (it seems) is not making me want to stay here any more. I don’t much like taking public transit here, either - any time I’d be taking it (rush hours morning and night), I’d be taking it with 200 of my closest friends. At this point, my life revolves around traffic.
I don’t like driving. I live in a rural area and there’s not much getting around it. I was in an accident last October that turned out to be my fault (although the trooper who came around the next day said if he wasn’t forced to, he wouldn’t have assigned blame to anyone), which has made my aversion worse.
My dream car is a Town Car with an on-call driver.
I used to love it, but now I kind of hate it.
Like most things enjoyable, driving is easily ruined by other people.
I loathed driving and was ridiculously phobic of it for years. Hated it when I started, and when my car caught fire with me driving it 2 years after I got my license, I was fine giving it up (and could not afford a new car, the old one being a hand-me-down from my parents). I went without a car for 13 years, no small feat in Columbus, Ohio.
Having a baby was what got me driving again. I had to basically re-take the road portion of driver’s ed to get used to it. I took the baby on the bus for four months before I realized it wasn’t feasible, and my husband promised me a new car if I would get to driving again. I now am the proud owner of a Honda Fit and only get nervous driving it if I have to do a quick merge or lane change, or if I don’t know where I’m going. Otherwise, I’m doing pretty well with it, and I have to say, I love the freedom it brings. But it took a long time to get there.
This. I loved to drive when I was young and immortal. Now I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands every time I get behind the wheel. I hit a racoon a few weeks ago and I was sick about it for several days. How would I feel if it had been a little kid who darted out in front of me?
Most days I have to drive, and I get along OK. My commute is 7.8 miles, but when the weather is nice I hike down the hill a mile to the bus stop. I did without driving during college and the year and a half I was in Asia, and much of the 10 years I was in Seattle… happy times.
I’m not a big fan of driving. I’d be quite happy to take public transportation…but like sidewalks, that doesn’t exist throughout most of the state. So I drive, but don’t enjoy it.
