Not too proud to admit it, but I started commuting a little while after getting a DUI. I used to be into cycling a bit, road and mountain, but the past few years I had gotten away from it. I always dreamt a bit of being able to ditch my car and ride my bike around, but I suppose I was always dreaming of some Copenhagen bike utopia situation or, at the least, living in the city where most everything you need is close at hand. Living in the suburbs with a 20 mi commute to work didn't seem to afford me much room to ride a bike and even for short trips to friends' houses I'd just instinctivly jump in my car. Then I got myself in trouble and had no choice but to ditch my ride. Thankfully, the rising gas prices helped me feel a bit better about not being able to drive.

Anyway, I ended up getting a ride into work with my dad and home on the commuter rail and I really wanted to take my bike but the rail didn't let them on during the hours I was commuting in the morning. Then about two months ago my dad took a week off of work and I didn't and I found, despite what the commuter rail's website said, there was one inbound train in the morning that allowed bikes. Now for the past (almost) two months I've been hapilly riding my bike and looking forward to my commute to school when classes start next week.

I think the problem is that a lot of people (apparently not many of the kind that come to BF =P) won't change their behavior until forced to. As much as I wanted to ride my bike I kept thinking that there was no way to make it work until I had no choice to, and ta-da! its not impossible after all. We've known that pollution is getting bad, traffic jams suck, and cars are way too expensive, for a long while now, yet not until gas prices started going up did many people (and the media) start looking at alternate transport like bikes and public transit.

I don't plan on getting my license back when the state will allow me to, either. I'd like to see how long I can go on without a car, if nothing else, the next four years of school. As long as I'm a full time student I'll never be able to make enough money to afford insurance when/if I get my license back. Cars are too expensive anyway, even without having 'at-risk' insurance...