Why driving isn't fun anymore

[pwd72s]

From the Dec. 2017 CAR & DRIVER, their 750th issue, a bit they ran on the Interstate System:

"The number of vehicles in the U.S. has increased from 65 million in 1956 to more than 260 million in 2015."

It's no wonder this crusty old bastid remembers driving as being fun from the early 60's to the mid 70's, but after that not so much.

Oh, the lure of the open road is still there. It's finding an open road that isn't so easy...

[svandamme]

Early bird catches the worm and the empty roads..

[DanielDudley]

I already had my second childhood. I am going to have to fake the third, but I understand there is still fun to be had if I choose to seek it out. I certainly don't always wake up feeling fun.

I still appreciate a good car, but I get why PDK is a more popular option when I am driving in stop and go. Some people even make a sport out of that.

[cabmandone]

The worst part is, of the 260 million on the road only about 65 million are decent drivers. The rest are idiots in a hurry and doing a 4 lane shift to pass one car in heavy traffic. The more I drive the more I'm convinced people are in a hurry to die these days and they don't care if they take someone with them when they go.

[Alfasrule]

There are those who know how to DRIVE a car. The rest just know how to OPERATE them.

[ckelly78z]

Life is far too short to drive a boring car. A boring car is a reliable appliance, but sucks the soul out of you with it's familiarity to every other car on the road. The amount of traffic has certainly curbed my spirited driving over the years along with age.

[slow&rusty]

Sure the number of cars has increased exponentially...but what about the supporting road network?

[Nickshu]

I still enjoy driving at the track. :-)

[epbrown]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

It's no wonder this crusty old bastid remembers driving as being fun from the early 60's to the mid 70's, but after that not so much.

Oh, the lure of the open road is still there. It's finding an open road that isn't so easy...

Now you're just being cranky. I checked Linn County, Oregon on Wikipedia - only 120,000 people with a pop. density of 51 per square mile (half the density of that sprawling metropolis Possum Trot, KY out this way). You're in a rural part of probably one of the top 20 least populated states in the US. Trouble finding the open road? It's at the edge of your driveway, running about 100 miles in any direction, seems like.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by cabmando

The more I drive the more I'm convinced people are in a hurry to die these days and they don't care if they take someone with them when they go.

But they aren't bored.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by ckelly78z

Life is far too short to drive a boring car. A boring car is a reliable appliance, but sucks the soul out of you with it's familiarity to every other car on the road. The amount of traffic has certainly curbed my spirited driving over the years along with age.

This is one of the reasons people wind up with early Miatas on skinny tires. More shifting, lower limits, easy to beat on, high red line. Little hooligan cars.

[T77911S]

the big trucks are what really ruins it for me.

when one is trying to pass another one going 1/2 MPH faster than the other and it takes 10 miles for him to pass. and it seems they ALWAYS wait until you are right on them to pull out to do it too.

I40 fro Memphis to Arkansas is HORRIBLE.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by ckelly78z

Life is far too short to drive a boring car. A boring car is a reliable appliance, but sucks the soul out of you with it's familiarity to every other car on the road. The amount of traffic has certainly curbed my spirited driving over the years along with age.

Same here. After fifty years of vroom vroom cars I don't want to drive one daily any more. I'm loving my Chevy Volt. It will spin the tires if I get on it, it is interesting to operate, and it gets attention. At least once a week someone stops me in a parking lot to talk ask about it. I do have a 911, a couple of 356s and a 68 year old truck to drive for fun.

[legion]

I've lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta, but I've spent over half my life in Bloomington, IL. A big part of the reason is that I can take a relaxing drive in the country any time I want. It's one of the things that helps calm me. In the other three cities, I felt hemmed in. If I wanted to take a country drive, I'd sometimes have to sit in traffic for hours (the irony!).

I also find that living in a less densely populated area either means there are fewer idiot drivers or the idiot drivers have much less impact on me. (The jury is still out on this one.) Either way, I don't end up trapped behind some idiot that wants to drive 15 on the interstate with their hazards on just because there is a light sprinkle. If I'm driving 15 on the interstate around here it means there is a blizzard and I'm probably the only person on it.

[kach22i]

One of the reasons I moved into a house that I can walk almost anywhere to 25 years ago was several years of driving 18,000 miles a year in traffic. I drive less than half that these days, and it's mostly fun.

Not so fun last night getting off the highway with the steep incline exit ramp all backed up with cars in rain ready to freeze in the dark. Suddenly the car in front of me emergency stops and decides to take of both lanes because he can't make a decision. I gotta get new tires, and good ones.

[masraum]

Because you're old and grumpy and stuck in a mustang instead of a Porsche?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Too many people, too many rules, too expensive, too much B.S. in general. It's a chore rather than a pastime now. I found I'd never take out my 911 back east since I was too paranoid that either the lousy roads would destroy it (it'd end up bottoming out on some pothole or rut and destroying something), or I'd have some knucklehead slam into me (either some doofus playing "Five Nights at Freddys" while driving or maybe on purpose, there were / are lots of over-testosteroned aggro types back there that I could see doing it out of pure jealousy), or who knows what else. It created more anxiety than joy.

Driving is a TASK at this point in my life now (I need to get someplace) rather than an ACTIVITY (I want to go someplace so I get an opportunity to drive).

[Tervuren]

Just move away from the big cities...

I was driving through the foot hills of Virginia a few weeks ago. Not a single car in front of me for fourty five minutes.

[RKDinOKC]

Originally Posted by T77911S

I40 fro Memphis to Arkansas is HORRIBLE.

Isn't I-40 from Memphis to Arkansas just crossing a bridge?

[Mad Max]

Driving in my book equals the definition of freedom;
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.
the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

We are overtaxed for crappy, overcrowded, and decaying roads. But it is still in our best interest to protect this freedom for the alternative is automated and despotic. No one should have that much control over a society but that is where we are headed. https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2017/08/17/fords-ceo-is-ready-for-the-driverless-car-future-are-we/

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