I see as many inattentive drivers whether I am riding or driving. Although riding has made me a safer driver.

I like driving out of town: highways and rural roads, no traffic, calmer drivers. But I despise driving in the city traffic, drives me nuts and I always end up mad and wishing I rode a bike instead. That's why I built two trailers so I can do a lot by a bicycle now.

I find the car handy for weekend getaways. Since my wife never got into bike touring, and looks like she never will, we do car-camping now and then and sometimes we drive out of the city so we can ride our bikes in some nice place or go for a hike in the mountains. It's just so much faster and easier to get to those places by car on a weekend morning than by any form of mass transit. ZipCar isn't widely available in my parts of Queens either.

But if we don't get up early enough on weekend to avoid the traffic, we stay home usually. The difference can be 20 minutes at 7AM versus 1h30m after 10AM just to get out of the city borders. And we purposely return late, because driving back home in traffic can negate all the mental benefits of a day spent cycling or hiking.

I'm quite car-lite: 48k miles after more than 6 years.