I’m on my way to DIA on a city bus. Once I get to DC, I’m going to take the Metro to the train station and take a train to where I stay west of Gaithersburg. I will be using my bicycle and/or the train for commuting while I’m in Maryland.
Using bicycle/public transportation will save me about $400 on this trip, and generally saves me about $3,000 a year in other expenses.
I’ve been in Boulder a month, and it has been fantastic. A beautiful place, full of interesting people, with bike trails and buses everywhere. I don’t ever have to use my car for anything. I’d like to eventually get completely car free.
I’ll go car free the day they take my license away. I love driving. I’m 60 y/o and still have a go-kart. Guess it’s just in my DNA. My Grandpa held the 1/4 mile track record in Indiana for a short time way back in the early 20s when they raced hopped up model “T”s at the horse tracks at county fair grounds. Can’t imagine living without my own set of motorized wheels and besides it just would not be practical where I live, the way I live, and for just getting back and forth for my driving job.
Without people like you Big City people would starve to death within 2 or 3 days. Just imagine how the situation would be at the end of the week.
It would get ugly quick if somehow truckers ever got together and cut off supply to a major city. Sometimes I think it needs to happen just to make a point about some things. Regulations on us and the companies we work for continue to proliferate and so many of them are pure revenue making BS for the states.
As a general rule the closer one gets to the Eastern or Western coasts the worse it gets. But I’m going to use Michigan as an example which is close to neither one.
Just to give you an idea:
1. Truckers cannot have anything attached to their windshields that is within the sweep of their wiper blades. This does not apply to anyone but the big rigs. So every time I go to Michigan I have to take my GPS down.
2. In Michigan the only people restricted from using a handheld cell phone while driving are kids with probationary licenses and truckers. The ban on truckers using hand held devices while driving is nation wide and I agree with it. Have been using a head set for years. It should apply to EVERY driver on a public road.
3. In Michigan they have some of most restrictive bridging laws in the US. The “bridge” on a big rig is the distance from the king pin that inserts into the fifth wheel where the trailer attaches to the tractor to a specific point located on the trailer tandem axles. If the tandems are too far back or too far forward it’s a big ticket. This in a state where they allow trailers with up to 8 axles that can’t be adjusted at all and go all the way to the tail of the trailer. It makes ZERO sense.
4. Top Speed limit for big trucks in Michigan is 60 mph. For all other vehicles it’s 70 mph. This despite the FACT that multiple studies over decades have concluded that having a 10 mph difference causes MORE accidents. Even OH, and IL, have seen the light and changed so that the top speed of a big truck is the same for all other vehicles except in a few cases where otherwise posted and then that difference is only 5 mph.
These are just a few of many examples of the BS we put up with from the authorities and many of the laws vary from state to state. Fact is that when my rig is on a public road and involved in an accident in any state it effects our score. And I mean NO MATTER WHAT! If an aircraft or a meteor crashes into my rig while it’s going down the road it will cost me and my company points on it’s safety record!
BTW I just found out I was nominated for Carter Express Driver of the Year (out of over 700 drivers) at the awards banquet they had last Saturday that I didn’t attend.
That is a recognition that I have no interest in receiving and so I am quite happy I didn’t win. It comes with a little money but who in their right mind wants “Driver of the year for year such and such” plastered on the door of their truck. Every damned thing you do is then being watched when and where ever you take that truck.
Nope! I would much prefer to win the new Harley Sportster (or the money) they give away by drawing for those that have maintained a perfect safety and performance record. Your name is added again for each quarter after one year which you maintain a perfect safety and performance record so the longer you keep your nose clean the better your chances of winning. Screw up you start all over again. My name is probably in that hat about 15-20 times so I hope to get it one of these days. Now there is some money! At this point in my life it’s show me the money and give the plaques and honors to others!
Don’t come to Europe it’s even nastier here. Every truck or coach driver is a potential criminal in the eyes of the State.
I think they don’t like to depend on the ‘little’ people who have the power to destabilize a country in just one week. They do everything they can to divide the truck drivers so they don’t operate like a group ,as they do with the rest of society.
Divide and Conquer.
I would love to go mainly car free, but my job is a bit too far for daily commuting. Still would need to use car on some weekend trips too. I do bike commute most Fridays, and do 20-40 miles on weekend bike rides.
In Barcelona and surrounding area the best and fastest way to travel is train or metro. Bicycle is an option if you have a safe place to park. But the moment you get outside this area you need a car.
http://www.shbarcelona.com/blog/en/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ssytem.jpg
And certainly if the family is bigger than 1 .
https://youtu.be/2mA1vgnpsi4
I prefer going “city free”.
+1
Surely BIG OIL has an employee discount ? 😉
Only 5%!
If people like this car free stuff, fine, just leave the rest of us alone. We live in Alaska away from a large city, where cold is a way of life, going anywhere requires you to be warm or you freeze to death. A car/truck is a symbol of freedom, independence and to many of us something we enjoy doing..driving is fun. We pack the kids and dogs in for chores or adventures, we go food shopping and volunteer our service’s, we go to church and to the vets and doctors, we go to weddings and funerals, we go help neighbors in trouble and pull a stranded car out of 5 ft of snow, we cut trees and load them for firewood,we drive to the lower 48 every two years to visit family’s across the USA..I can go on and on..our trucks are part of our family, we could never replace them with a bike or bus or train..absurd.
I live in Upstate NY.
This is about one mile from the North Pole in winter. 🙂 I have a big Toyota truck. And a big snow plow. Can’t ride bikes in winter here. Snowboard, yes. Skis, yes. Below zero: stay home and feed the fire.
Sure you can! You just need one like this.
http://cdn.blessthisstuff.com/imagens/stuff/img_ktrack_2.jpg
I saw a guy on a Segway with chains in a ski resort earlier this year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG0kGKtFpKA
I could ride a moose!
It’s more likely the moose would trample you into a bloody mat.
Rush hour snowstorm in Copenhagen http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iUhKrKOkX10/VMVbMem9KDI/AAAAAAAAB5o/5AmIT83h2-k/s1600/VikingBiking.jpeg
No lights, no helmets, no hi-viz
lo-viz, I would have said. !
Hey I remember that place! Passing through on a couple of day layover in transit until the USAF could get their C-130 fixed. Went bar hopping and was propositioned by four girls in one night. By that time was married so I was a good boy. Liked the historic area down by the docks, the Guild houses, and the fact a lot of the locals spoke pretty good English. And the Danish Army barracks we were billeted in for a couple nights was pretty comfortable. Much better than most other European Countries military quarters I had stayed in.
I’ve never traveled by plane does that make me plane free ?
You are plane, not handsome. 🙂
The latest bull bulletin from the global warming crew is a BILLION PEOPLE will drown now due to driving cars and living in warm homes. These people will drown…in 1,000 years. Oh, the horror. Can’t outrun the water creeping up this slow.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3231966/London-New-York-Tokyo-Shanghai-cities-housing-one-BILLION-people-submerged-underwater-burn-planet-s-fossil-fuels.html#comments
Interesting, 90% of the comments make fun of this new prediction of future horrors.
Close packing of people makes public transportation/bikes practical. Living in Rural North Dakota it is not really my idea of a good time.
OK, people, especially you, rah:
Steve is travelling and can’t defend himself so I must straighten you out. He is not into some kind of monastic austerity or SF hardship. You don’t know Boulder. His typical bicycling experience around town is completely different:
https://sweatngears.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/sweatngears_sexy-girls-bikes-001.jpg
Now, I don’t know about his current love affair with buses. It could be just a romantic thing caused by Monroe’s performance in the Bus Stop:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/1d/3e/71/1d3e71c8027b8fa1cc7fde4e2dc3713b.jpg
God, Steve looks good in tee shirt & shorts (hate the pink nails), if that’s what cycling does for you I might try it !!
https://youtu.be/oaEM4JYFPfw
or
https://youtu.be/o1hFcYxzHQs
I don’t know about bicycling but that first one made my kickstand go up!
She can ride my Huffy anytime.
I have a 10-Speed.
You forgot the identical picture of a naked male group doing the same thing. Most disgusting looking thing on the planet. Lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXQf0JG8Uj8
“Carbon dioxide haze”?
http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/files/2008/01/smog.jpg
For me living without a motor vehicle would be like living on an island in a lake without a boat.
I like bicycles, but don’t ride mine much, mostly because I need to haul it somewhere where it is safe and fun to ride and then haul it back. Also I’m usually too busy around the farm for such pursuits.
I’d love to see them put in bicycle lanes. Not likely though. Many of the roads in my area (including some state highways) are just wide enough for two motor vehicles to pass on the pavement and have either no shoulder or a rubble strewn shoulder. The recent decline in oil prices has lead to some catch up on deferred paving, though. The dirt roads vary, but many are slightly wider than one lane and one always has the possibility of meeting a log hauler; pretty scary in a truck, let alone on a bicycle, especially when towns don’t bother to trim back the brush, limiting your escape possibilities. In winter it is not safe to walk.
Driving to the post office and back takes a half hour. I live far enough from supermarkets, farm and feed stores that I try to limit myself to two trips a month. Despite some progress reducing inputs, usually the pickup or SUV is loaded enough that I’m using the outside mirrors. If I lived closer, and could make daily trips, there’s no reasonable way to move feed, hay or fence supplies on a bicycle or get them up my 1200 ft driveway that gains about 250 foot of elevation in the first 800 feet. In winter 4WD is a minimum requirement, and I always carry chains.
I’m going on another 3000 mi roundtrip pulling my travel trailer. Spending some time in the national parks. I expect to do this for at least a week or two each month until Spring when I will drive to Alaska stopping off in various Canadian cities first to visit relatives. SO happy others are conserving gas as my truck and trailer combo gets 10 mpg.
That was my original plans for retirement. Instead we have a farm. With animals three days is the max window for a vacation since we can set up with good pasture, water tanks and salt/mineral/protein blocks. My last ‘farm sitter’ sold off a lot of my livestock so we do not go that route.
Hell Gail I was thinking about putting a few chickens out back for fresh eggs but decided I like my freedom more. I have people to take care of the dog and cat for a week or so though.
Going car free is like coming back to the nature of the human.