Cool story, bro.

[Sradac]

I have to work today. that kinda makes me rage.

[nathrakh]

edit: spam

[Grey]

> busy bumper-to-bumper motorways

City folk. When will you all learn that 2-lane highways
are the best kind. I drive half way to work most days
without seeing another vehicle. The other half of the
drive is 4-lane, and I'll see 20 to 40 vehicles on an
average day. That's during the day... driving at night,
one can almost hear the crickets chirping.

Roads in America and Britain are very very different

(Though I'll also say that the American drivers I saw in Boston and New York were rude as hell!)

[fazisi]

I would recommend if you start your car only once every 6 months to have a battery charger to give your poor battery some juice before you drain the remaining charge trying to turn it on.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

If there is public transportation available, I strongly prefer it to a car. You can read while going somewhere, you don't have to worry about where to park (a problem here), it is less polluting, and I don't like driving anyway.

Modern trains are way more comfortable than buses. I tend to use buses to move within a city and trains to move between cities. I don't like inter-city buses because being quite tall and living in a country of dwarves, the space between seats makes me feel like a canned sardine. But that doesn't happen on trains, they have lots of space.

In the north of Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, UK, etc.) it's even better because it's generally possible to cycle to work. I really like that, as it's enough to keep reasonably fit without going out of your way to do some sports, and that means saving time for me. Unfortunately, going to work by bicycle in Spain is all but suicidal, the roads are designed for cars.

[gut]

I'm starting to wish they ran busses here.
Really, I suppose that's just a dream though,
as sending a bus 10 miles to pick up maybe
5 passengers wouldn't be profitable.

The only way train travel is going to happen
is if one doesn't mind riding on the outside
of the train.

[fazisi]

I like driving a car, especially if it is a manual.

I have rode a bus two-thirds across Canada: from Vancouver, BC, to Petawawa, ON. It was a boring ride, especially across the prairies.

I also have been using the bus this year to go to university. I get a semester bus pass for $40 for unlimited use of the bus system so I decided it was a pretty good investment, especially since I'm a broke ass university student.

Cyclists out here think the roads are safe enough for them because they ride all over them like the cars will get out of the way and let them be fucking idiots. Cyclists are idiots and each one that gets hit usually deserved it. That said, I have my bike in my storage unit and I haven't bothered to take it out since I moved here. I used to bike all the time when I lived in a smaller city but the larger cities are definately unsafe.

[gut]

> especially if it is a manual

I do hate manual transmission vehicles. I had
to learn to drive on one, and the exp. still haunts
me. As if it isn't enough to have to learn all the
lanes you are supposed to be in, and when, and
trying not to get ran over by the other nut jobs
on the road, you have to worry about killing the
engine, grinding gears, and your "teacher"
chewing you out for not already knowing all
this already.

Learning on the roads of Appalachia make things
even worse, as it is rare to see a patch of level
road. When you pull out from a red light on a
steep hill, with a vehicle right behind you, you
find out how fun a manual transmission can
really be.

Give me a good automatic any day.

[nathrakh]

Aren't all Americans supposed to be car maniacs?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

They are, but IIRC they buy more automatic cars while Europeans buy more manual cars.

To tell the truth, I'm European but I don't understand why people here like manual transmission either. Maybe it's because I work with computers, but when I learned to drive I was surprised with how crude it was. It's funny how in a computer program, when people can't do something with a couple of obvious clicks, and instead they need a right-click or an extra level of menus, they instantly complain about it being "unintuitive". And in a car, you have a lever to change gears, which is already quite low-level stuff all by itself, but then it gets even worse when you see that you need to use a pedal at the same time or the lever won't work! Come on, why people complain if a program doesn't have an obvious left-clickable button that does what they want to do, and then they don't complain about THAT?