Originally Posted by alathIN

I've just been commuting for a few weeks now. I work at two different locations and two different shifts; one shift and location is pretty bike-friendly. The other location less so.

Last week my wife's car was in the shop so I wound up commuting the whole week - spent a total of 15 min in a car Monday through Friday.

After that week, it was such a shock to get back in a car again. Red lights, traffic, lane changes, noise... the contrast was more dramatic owing to the fact that my bike commute is almost all on a greenway, so it's lots of trees and peaceful with the occasional deer, fox, or other wildlife. Not much of any of that driving a car.

This brought me to the realization that cars - particularly the reliance on cars - is a major detractor from quality of life. I was just a lot happier on my all-bike week - and will be trying to have more of them in the future.