Drivetime Friday Five

Our weekly poll from the RevGalBlogPals :

Driving: an enjoyable way to clear the mind? a means to an end? a chance to be quiet with one's thoughts? a necessary evil? the downfall of our planet and its fossil fuels? Discuss.
For me, a necessary evil unless I'm on a leisurely recreational drive up north.

Do you drive the speed limit? A little faster? Slower? Have you ever gotten a ticket?
I generally drive about five mph over the limit, although I've had my moments...the most embarrassing of which was getting ticketed for going 60 through a rural 25 mph speed trip en route home from church. Oops...

Do you take public transportation? When? What's your opinion of the experience?
Living in rural America, "public transportation" consists of on-demand minibus travel. This means that, after calling the transit office and telling them where you are and where you need to be, your bus might arrive in 15 minutes. Or 45 minutes. Or an hour and 15 minutes. It just depends. I've used public transit when my car's been in the shop; sometimes it's a fairly straight shot from A to B, and other times it's a meandering adventure. If you need to get somewhere on time, like a job or an appointment, it can be incredibly frustrating. If you don't need to be anywhere in particular, it's a good way to discover the local "roads less traveled."

Complete this sentence: _____________ has the worst drivers I've ever experienced.
Oh -- a two-fer: Resort-town Michigan and southeastern Michigan. (A statement that might get me in trouble because I am the Close Personal Friend of a southeast- Michigan native.) The former is true because residents of the latter are the ones driving like maniacs up here. And I'll add that they make not only scary drivers but scary pedestrians; one of my most amusing (although not at the time) memories of living even farther up north in Up North Michigan was having to stop, one morning during my to-work commute, for a sleepily inattentive camper from the local state park wandering across the busy multi-lane highway, brushing his teeth.

According to the Census Bureau, reverendmother's fair city has the 6th longest average commute in the United States at 29 minutes each way. How does your personal commute rate?
I'm very lucky; I live "in the country," but can make it to work in under 10 minutes (and usually do). That's except for Fridays, when I have a fairly pleasant blue-highways commute of about 45 minutes into the next county.