Good point.
Thanks for the whole story. Yeah, whatever Miller decides. Not terribly important.
I have always liked the title of the “what were you thinking” thread. I think it covers what it’s about perfectly. And anyone who doesn’t get what it’s for just has to read the OP.
It’s prone to drifts and hijacks, but it’s the Pit where all threads are vulnerable to it, especially because it’s almost never moderated here (for good reason).
So I take from this that this thread about driving, which was spun off to avoid hijacking the “What were you thinking?” thread, has now been hijacked by a discussion about the “What were you thinking?” thread. 
But that’s OK, this thread is not really focused. Many posters check the What were you thinking and Trolls R Us threads for what’s happening around the board, so hijacks to those are kind of annoying as expressed by many of us.
I was more than a little surprised by the number of Dopers who don’t like to drive (to the point of detesting the act!), or no longer enjoy driving as much as they used to.
I just turned 73 and I will freely admit that I have always liked to drive and still enjoy driving. I have no qualms about a road trip, even if it’s by myself. Three years ago I drove alone to Utah and then Arizona before returning home to Kansas; a year later, I drove (alone again) to the Bay Area and then up to Crater Lake before heading homeward. In May, I will be driving to Cincinnati to meet my baseball buddies to watch two games in which the Reds will host the Cardinals. I try to stay off the interstate whenever possible, and I allow myself plenty of time to get where I’m going, as I like to stop at places that catch my fancy.
Yes, the days can get long in the car, particularly as evening approaches. But listening to a good book on the Libby app or Sirius XM radio can certainly help the time spent on the road.
Anybody else still like a road trip?
I do, but I’m not up to them the way I used to be. I’m looking to take breaks after maybe an hour. No more 12 hours of driving in a day, forget about the 27 hours I pulled once.
When we finally go to Italy, we’ll be doing a bus or boat tour.
I try to take a break every two hours, mainly because my bladder requests that I do so.
My longest day in recent years was right at 12 hours, from the western edge of Colorado to Lake Tahoe on Highway 50, the aptly-named loneliest road in America. That day was a bit too long. Since then I try to make my days no more than 10 hours, and preferably around 8.
I used to love driving long distances but I’m currently avoiding even moderately long drives until I get my cataracts fixed. Only one eye is affected but it’s surprisingly disconcerting even though the other eye is perfectly fine.
Further background on this narrow question. …
As explained above, the “what were you thinking?” thread is intended to discuss & gently chastise normally decent posters who pull a stupid.
One of the Dope regulars, who happens to be virulently anti-car and anti-AI, attacked me in yet another thread, that one about AVs. And drew a warning for that. Then I came to the “what were you thinking?” "thread to share my thoughts about that ill-considered post & poster.
Which post of mine launched a major digression about driving, AVs, civilization, and finally drunk driving & open container laws just before @What_Exit split this into a fresh thread about those car & car-adjacent topics.
And now you know …
The rest of the story.
Good day. 
I have to disagree with this (assuming I am parsing this correctly, that you are saying that for all of the population that lives within 3% of the land, i.e. in cities, public transportation is practical).
Where I live, in San Francisco, public transit is practical for some things, many people can commute back and forth to work for example, assuming they are able to build in enough of a cushion for lateness and stoppages, or that they have an understanding boss who allows them to be late on those occasions. Other than that, service outside of rush hours is just too infrequent, in spite of SFMTA doing their best to push public transit (and bicycles, don’t forget bicycles). I can’t imagine, for example, doing grocery shopping from a bus. I would simply be unable to do my volunteer work using public transit. We would have to sift all of our doctors, who are in another county (which is easier to get to for us).
It’s kind of a vicious circle, public transit is too sparse because it is not supported by the public, which is because it is too sparse. There is not the political will, among leaders or the taxpayers, to shift funds from other things into public transit. I only drive 4000 miles a year, so I don’t feel too bad about having and using a gas-powered car. Maybe by this time next year I will have my new Slate, and will be riding high on the EV.
It’s got its shortcomings for sure but public transit in SF is pretty much better than any place in the US other than NYC, Boston, Chicago and maybe DC. Of course that’ll change if BART goes through with the threatening rumblings they’re making about stopping service at 9 pm and closing a bunch of the outlying stations or even shutting the whole system down entirely.
Certainly more practical than in rural areas.
I don’t know if it was a conspiracy per se* or peoples’ choices – likely a combination of both – that lead to abandoning public transportation and everyone needing an auto to get around. United Parcel Service got its start in Seattle. Folks would take the trolley to downtown to do their shopping and arrange for UPS to deliver their packages home so they didn’t have to return encumbered.
*I’ve not done sufficient research to determine the veracity but there are persistent rumors that in the 1940s and early '50s Firestone, GM, and the Big Oil Companies™ conspired to buy out the existing trolley lines around the country, convert them to buses, then turn bus service to crap.
QFT
Although 75 annually I drive from Phoenix Metro to north of Reno for Burning Man, lately hauling a mini-teardrop trailer. It would be 16 hours if I drove direct but I stop near Beatty, NV after 10 hours, divert to Reno for supplies, then camp out a second night about 20 miles from Black Rock City before entering in the morning.
In addition there is a biannual trip to the Grand Canyon but I consider that a regional trip – not enough to qualify as a road trip.
In Canada, the only two cities I’ve lived in that have decent public transit have been Montreal and Toronto, both of which have both decent surface transit and good subway systems, although for political reasons (i.e.- federal bribes) the subway system in Montreal is much more extensive despite the city having a lower population than Toronto. It’s not only much bigger but also much more modern – the cars run on rubber tires over concrete tracks.
But the first-rate transit in Toronto is limited to the core areas – out in the burbs the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has shitty to non-existent public transit, although to its credit the province provides good bus and train commuter service from even distant areas right to the downtown core. My impression is that public transit is even worse in the US because of tax-averse voters, except in places like NYC. In any case, here in outlying suburbia I’d be totally lost without a car.
GTA transit (TTC, Go trains) spoiled me when I lived in the GTA. And I lived everywhere, from downtown, to North York, to Stouffville. In all cases, it was easy to get into the city, if I wasn’t already there—even Stouffville had GO trains, that connected to TTC buses (at Agincourt, bus 85 Sheppard) and then the subway at Union.
Then I moved to Alberta, where “public transit” seems to be a code word for “Horrors! Communism!” Because real people drive. You don’t always want to drive? You want public transit? You must be a Communist, you pinko!
Listen, if there was ever a place where public transit is desperately needed, it is Alberta. Greyhound has removed service, Air Canada and Westjet have removed service to smaller cities (Lethbridge, Medicine Hat), and ViaRail only goes through Edmonton (and only Edmonton 
) twice a week. I wish we had the options that exist in the Corridor: frequent intercity bus, frequent air, frequent rail, frequent GO commuter trains and buses, all day, every day. I mean, I like driving, but fercrissake, I wish that it wasn’t always the only option out here!
I’m always amused by central Canadians who say things like, “Alberta should use more public transit, and get out of their cars.” Well, fercrissake, give us some alternative, because all we have left after transportation companies have removed everything else is our cars!
Alberta seems determined to maintain its reputation as “Canada’s Texas”! 
A good friend’s wife is from Alberta, and I met her parents once when they deigned to come east for a visit. They were very nice people but it did not surprise me that they were very conservative!
Speaking of driving, I was high in the father’s estimation because on the very first day of his visit, I was scheduled to pick up my brand new car, and he came down with us for the ceremonial occasion. I was then in my conservative phase, having traded in the 280Z for a very conservative dark blue 4-door Chevrolet Caprice, a car so elegant and quiet that the engine sound could only be described as “purring”. It was only a Chevy, but it radiated quiet luxury. The father was very approving.
Ahem. There is no such thing as only a Chevy.
Spoons,
Chevy driver for decades.
You both said something interesting. That transit is OK for getting to/from a dense urban core, then for moving around inside it.
But that’s not how cities grow now. And that’s not how office or factory workers work now. It’s how things were done from ~1880 to ~1970. Trying to create public transit with busses, trains, etc., is utterly fighting the last century’s war with the last century’s weapons. IOW, a fool’s errand doomed to failure.
If I already have to own a car to move easily through my normal weekly schedule of random errands to random places scattered sparsely, but more or less evenly throughout a 10 mile radius of my home, I’m not then going to choose to take a slow bus, or hassle-ish airplane ride, to the next city 3 hours’ drive away. Especially not if I have to drive to the bus station or airport and pay to park my car while also paying to use the bus / plane. And paying for whatever local transport via whatever means I need in my destination city.
Those various commercial transport companies that pulled out of e.g. Alberta did it not out of conspiracy, but because the volume of people willing to pay the fare to go directly from [here] to [there] at a particular time simply didn’t exist.
Indeed. I really loved that car. What I was trying to say was that in that year, 1977, Chevrolet had gone through a complete redesign, and the high-end Caprice borrowed many design ideas previously used on the Cadillac. I only meant that it looked much like a Cadillac without actually being one. In fact, I think it looked better, because Cadillac had a way of going overboard and looking excessively ostentatious, whereas my beautiful Chevy just looked gorgeous and tasteful!
I noticed in the first months after I got it, that it was much ogled in parking lots.
Key words here are “willing to pay the fare.” The Greyhound bus fare between Lethbridge and Calgary was quite reasonable. I believe it was no more than C$50. Then Greyhound decided that it was cutting services across western Canada.
But the flight fares were ridiculous: C$250 one-way between Lethbridge and Calgary. Could it have been done cheaper? I’m sure. Forty minutes on a Beechcraft 1900D one-way should not cost $250. I paid it, because I had an expense account, but holy hannah!
Nowadays, with no air service in Lethbridge, or bus service to Calgary, I’m forced to drive to Calgary (2+ hours, depending on traffic) if I want to fly anywhere. There may be some sort of bus to Calgary Airport, but it will take four or five hours, given all its stops. So I drive to Calgary, park in long-term, and charge parking expenses back. Not really a problem, except it would be so much handier if I could leave this city of over 100,000 on a scheduled flight, like we used to have. Meanwhile, I hear that Quebec towns of 40,000 get scheduled air service from Air Canada. Yeah, I’m pissed off. 'Nuff said for now.
Hey, @LSLGuy —can I hire you as pilot, and rent a plane?
Current experience suggests that this is not entirely correct. One of my criteria after retirement and moving out of the Big Smoke into distant suburbia was the appreciation potential for the property, and one strong reason I chose this particular location was that it had commuter train service right into the downtown Toronto business district. And as for parking, it’s a policy of the GO (“Government of Ontario”) commuter train service that parking is free. Maybe it was coincidence, but that observation has served me well – there’s been a tremendous residential and commercial building boom in this area and the value of this house has more than tripled.