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That viewpoint simply baffles me. As a European who is in the Bay Area for a few weeks, I find the roads in the Bay Area to be really, really depressing. I als

That viewpoint simply baffles me. As a European who is in the Bay Area for a few weeks, I find the roads in the Bay Area to be really, really depressing. I also find them harder to use than the European variants: * the Bay Area freeways don't seem to have consistent rules about when a lane is going to appear or disappear or peel off from the main freeway (so I constantly end up in the wrong lane; please, please correct me if I'm wrong!); * the very frequent merge/exits mean that there's not really a taboo on undertaking, which doubles the amount of awareness I need to maintain (as well as "everyone overtaking me", I also need to track "everyone undertaking me" too, which isn't true in the UK). The rule "stick to the rightmost lane which lets you maintain the speed you want to maintain" simply doesn't work for me because that lane regularly peels off to become a different road, and it's less effective anyway given that everyone undertakes all the time. On motorways in the UK, it's rarer for lanes to split off from the main road, and it's signalled much further in advance so you reliably have time to change lanes comfortably when you get caught in the wrong one. I infinitely prefer public transport where it exists; if that means taking a taxi for the last short bit of the ride, so be it. Personal preference, but I just can't fathom how anyone could prefer cars over a well-run public transport system. (Of course, there are times when you just need a car or a van - hauling personal freight, for instance. But the vast, vast majority of traffic doesn't fall into that category: in the UK, over the past four years or so, I've needed a car about five times in total.)

throwanem 9y ago
Same - I actually state my preference for public transit over driving in my résumé, and Baltimore's system is surprisingly good - not on the same scale of comprehensiveness as NYC's, but then we're a much smaller town, too. I don't understand the car preference either; although for years I did consulting work that involved site visits, and racking up 200 miles a day in the car was not uncommon, even at the time I regarded that more as a penance than a privilege. Latterly I feel that I've done just about a lifetime's worth of driving, and any further is a waste of time tolerable only in the rare case when no other alternative can be found. "Undertaking"? This is not a term with which I'm familiar; based on context, it seems to mean dropping back to change lanes behind a car, by contrast with "overtaking", to accelerate and pass in order to change lanes ahead. Is that a correct understanding?
- Smaug123 9y ago
  "Undertaking" might be a UK-specific term, I don't know; it means "overtaking but on an inside lane relative to you, rather than an outside lane".
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Oh! We just call that "passing on the right", and it's frowned upon here as well; some municipalities even have it on the books as a moving violation, but everyone does it anyway.
35bge57dtjku 9y ago
> That viewpoint simply baffles me...I just can't fathom how anyone could prefer cars over a well-run public transport system. The obvious answer is that most cities in the US, maybe just most cities, don't have a "well-run" PTS. I don't think it's an ideological refusal to use the PTS just because it's a PTS. Cars are a lot faster than the bus outside of rush hour, and I value my free time. Cars are a lot faster than the bus during rush hour if you have to transfer even just a single time. The bus comes extremely infrequently in the middle of the night. Plus, like your hauling personal freight example, there are things like hiking that you could do pretty frequently and for which Uber or a car rental aren't feasible. And the buses here are off schedule enough that you can't rely on getting anywhere on time, especially if it's raining. If buses came twice as often, I would easily pay double the current 100$/month bus pass rate and ditch my car.
aianus 9y ago
Driving saves me 20min each way vs public transit, even in heavy traffic. And I get to sit! And the seats are comfortable and adjustable and have lumbar support. And I have music and climate control. And I don't have to stand or walk in -30C or 40C weather of which we get both. It can't be surprising to you why I prefer driving even over a relatively good public transit system like the one in Toronto.
- Smaug123 9y ago
  Clearly you're better at driving than me - it takes all my concentration and is very mentally taxing, so I can't afford music in that kind of environment. If everyone did things like obeying the speed limit, and overtaking only on the left, and allowing even a couple of metres more space between cars, it would become orders of magnitude easier. Similarly, the road markings here seem to be quite a bit less clear than in the UK - in terms of how much warning distance you get before something happens (the difference is enough to outweigh the fact that the speed limits in CA are lower), and even just in terms of contrast between the markings and the surrounding environment (e.g. on smaller roads, I've seen lanes marked by uniform light-brown studs in the road, rather than bright white paint). Self-driving cars can't come soon enough! But yeah, if you enjoy driving and/or are good at it, I'm sure driving is fine. Personal climate control is an unequivocal win for cars, yes.
DrScump 9y ago
don't seem to have consistent rules about when a lane is going to appear or disappear Lane creation/destruction is almost always limited to the rightmost lanes. The only non-carpool exception I can think of is the added lane on Central Expressway westbound, approaching Sunnyvale.
- Smaug123 9y ago
  Is there a way to predict the rightmost lanes? Currently I just sit in one of the middle lanes because I can almost guarantee those ones aren't going to vanish, but that means I violate "slower traffic on the right" because I stick to the speed limit.

throwanem 9y ago

Same - I actually state my preference for public transit over driving in my résumé, and Baltimore's system is surprisingly good - not on the same scale of comprehensiveness as NYC's, but then we're a much smaller town, too. I don't understand the car preference either; although for years I did consulting work that involved site visits, and racking up 200 miles a day in the car was not uncommon, even at the time I regarded that more as a penance than a privilege. Latterly I feel that I've done just about a lifetime's worth of driving, and any further is a waste of time tolerable only in the rare case when no other alternative can be found. "Undertaking"? This is not a term with which I'm familiar; based on context, it seems to mean dropping back to change lanes behind a car, by contrast with "overtaking", to accelerate and pass in order to change lanes ahead. Is that a correct understanding?

Smaug123 9y ago
"Undertaking" might be a UK-specific term, I don't know; it means "overtaking but on an inside lane relative to you, rather than an outside lane".
- throwanem 9y ago
  Oh! We just call that "passing on the right", and it's frowned upon here as well; some municipalities even have it on the books as a moving violation, but everyone does it anyway.

35bge57dtjku 9y ago

> That viewpoint simply baffles me...I just can't fathom how anyone could prefer cars over a well-run public transport system. The obvious answer is that most cities in the US, maybe just most cities, don't have a "well-run" PTS. I don't think it's an ideological refusal to use the PTS just because it's a PTS. Cars are a lot faster than the bus outside of rush hour, and I value my free time. Cars are a lot faster than the bus during rush hour if you have to transfer even just a single time. The bus comes extremely infrequently in the middle of the night. Plus, like your hauling personal freight example, there are things like hiking that you could do pretty frequently and for which Uber or a car rental aren't feasible. And the buses here are off schedule enough that you can't rely on getting anywhere on time, especially if it's raining. If buses came twice as often, I would easily pay double the current 100$/month bus pass rate and ditch my car.

aianus 9y ago

Driving saves me 20min each way vs public transit, even in heavy traffic. And I get to sit! And the seats are comfortable and adjustable and have lumbar support. And I have music and climate control. And I don't have to stand or walk in -30C or 40C weather of which we get both. It can't be surprising to you why I prefer driving even over a relatively good public transit system like the one in Toronto.

Smaug123 9y ago
Clearly you're better at driving than me - it takes all my concentration and is very mentally taxing, so I can't afford music in that kind of environment. If everyone did things like obeying the speed limit, and overtaking only on the left, and allowing even a couple of metres more space between cars, it would become orders of magnitude easier. Similarly, the road markings here seem to be quite a bit less clear than in the UK - in terms of how much warning distance you get before something happens (the difference is enough to outweigh the fact that the speed limits in CA are lower), and even just in terms of contrast between the markings and the surrounding environment (e.g. on smaller roads, I've seen lanes marked by uniform light-brown studs in the road, rather than bright white paint). Self-driving cars can't come soon enough! But yeah, if you enjoy driving and/or are good at it, I'm sure driving is fine. Personal climate control is an unequivocal win for cars, yes.

DrScump 9y ago

don't seem to have consistent rules about when a lane is going to appear or disappear Lane creation/destruction is almost always limited to the rightmost lanes. The only non-carpool exception I can think of is the added lane on Central Expressway westbound, approaching Sunnyvale.

Smaug123 9y ago
Is there a way to predict the rightmost lanes? Currently I just sit in one of the middle lanes because I can almost guarantee those ones aren't going to vanish, but that means I violate "slower traffic on the right" because I stick to the speed limit.