Tickets aren't a huge concern for me living in a state that has fairly strong anti-speedtrapping laws, but the absolute thing that has pushed me to driving less on a daily basis are other drivers.
I drive a low slung sports car, so it's clearly not the act of driving itself that I hate: it's dealing with nearly being hit by inattentive drivers that are more focused on their cell phones than the road on a regular basis. It's people riding at 30 MPH the entire length of an onramp and then being surprised they can't merge with traffic traveling at 70+. It's the fact that the two mile commute to my office that takes five minutes most hours of the day will turn into a fifteen to twenty minute commute at peak hours.
It's a lot of stress and unnecessary risk when there are better things I could be doing with my time.
I love driving when it's hopping in the car and going to carve up some mountain back roads. I loathe it when it's standing between me and just getting daily living done.
Parking is massively subsidized in the United States (read 750 pages about it! http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/1...) and drivers only get tickets because they habitually violate tons of laws (I've never gotten a ticket in my 12 years of licensure).
I've gotten one. One was enough. At this point, I accelerate up to the speed limit and stick the car into cruise control unless forced to change my speed. Haven't gotten a ticket since.
Where do you live? In the NY metro area, once you leave the city itself, generally the speed limit is the absolute slowest speed you can travel safely before traffic will overwhelm you. In a 65MPH zone, 75-80MPH is generally the speed of travel; anyone traveling slower than that may become a hazard as drivers change lanes to pass them.
Generally, I sit in the right lane and cruise along. I don't sit in the passing lane, and I keep my distance from other cars (which is easy, because they're usually going faster than me). If I can, I sit 200 yards behind a tractor trailer and cruise at their speed. I'm in no hurry.
On residential roads, I give zero fucks about who's behind me. I'm going the speed limit, so they are too. They won't be paying my speeding ticket, so I couldn't care less.
I do know that this strategy can be unsafe, though - when I was in the Marine Corps, I had to drive into San Diego to pick up Marines from Balboa in a government van. It had a GPS that would go off if you went above the speed limit at any point, meaning that your command would get a nastygram if you went 2 miles an hour over the speed limit. I went 5 miles under the speed limit at all points, and it was hilariously unsafe. People were mad.
Yet again, though, they weren't going to pay the half salary and reduced rank that I would've gotten from getting busted down, and they definitely wouldn't have been doing restriction time with me. So fuck 'em.
If you're insinuating that following the speed limit and maintaining your vehicle are enough to prevent police harassment, I've got some reading material for you.
Agree. I feel like the cost of Ubers need to go down a bit further to make cars go for good. Stuff like grocery shopping, quick errands, etc would add up quickly with $10 for each trip (considering the minimum $5 fare, let alone higher costs)
If you consider the cost of a car loan, insurance, gas and car maintenance your car might not look as cheap anymore.
As a personal anecdote I now only drive once every two weeks here in SF, mostly for weekend trips, and my car is such an expensive luxury that if I didn't already own it from the days I drove more I would probably just always zipcar or use Uber.
Well, if the prevailing anti-progress narrative is to be believed and expanded to even higher cliche-levels: Yes, it is slavery because only the rich will own the self-driving serfs and the slaves will have to pay for it anyways.
1) We are preyed on by police as a source of revenue via traffic tickets.
2) Parking is increasingly becoming more and more difficult.