I'm not sure you understand persistent stop and go traffic -- shifting between neutral and first gets awfully tiring after 45+ minutes when you have to do it every day. Putting the car in neutral doesn't really solve that problem.
Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go support is not really the same as cruise-control in free flowing traffic. I rarely use cruise-control in normal traffic, but the stop-and-go cruise control is a luxury I never realized I wanted until I had it.
I used to drive from Connecticut to Queens every single morning. I am familiar with the concept of traffic. Nobody in their right mind enjoys driving in heavy traffic no matter what car they're in.
> Question: why do you drive? You could easily walk that distance in 2 hours, and driving just makes the problem worse for everyone.
Agreed 100%. About the only time I drive within the Bay Area is if I'm going outside the SF / Oakland / Berkeley urban core. This Labor Day I was going to Marin and planned poorly (driving the day of instead of leaving earlier).
Once you get out of that urban core (or if you're traveling late at night) public transit nearly evaporates. Without traffic that would have been around a two hour bus ride. However there are no dedicated lanes for buses along 19th / Park Presidio so that would've been easily a 3-4 hour bus trip with a few untimed transfers thrown in for good measure.
> It's like sixty miles. It takes 90 minutes without traffic.
At an average of 40 miles per hour that's not particularly bad. The people complaining about driving in stop-and-go traffic are almost certainly in much worse traffic than that.
The example I gave of getting from one end of San Francisco to another happens pretty much every holiday weekend. Average speed? About 3 mph. The worst part is the uphill approach to the GG Bridge.
Or you can look at the other SF bridge. In traffic (which has gotten so bad you'll see it like this on pretty much any weekend afternoon) it'll easily take an hour to get from the 280/101 interchange to the Bay Bridge approach (about 7 miles).
Traffic like that is why I rarely commute by car, but also why many people simply don't want to drive a car with a manual transmission.
> At an average of 40 miles per hour that's not particularly bad.
I gave you the time it would take if you drove at mid-day, not at rush hour (hence the "without traffic" qualifier). A lot of people commute to New York, as you might imagine (and you have to go through toll booths and there was non-stop construction), but my hours were variable at that particular job so I didn't always get the same experience. It wasn't part of my normal commute, but I assure you the George Washington Bridge isn't any better than the Golden Gate, and I have also driven over that in heavy traffic.
Anyway, I've done that and I've commuted on Massachusetts highways (allegedly among the worst in the country). I didn't enjoy it but my point is that driving an automatic car didn't make it any better.
I had a Mazda, but gave it up a few months ago when I moved to the Seattle area... Now I commute by bike (which has manual shifting, but no cruise control :-)) Though my Eastside commute is nothing at all like my old Bay Area commute, not nearly as much traffic.
Here are some other car models with full range adaptive cruise control:
Adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go support is not really the same as cruise-control in free flowing traffic. I rarely use cruise-control in normal traffic, but the stop-and-go cruise control is a luxury I never realized I wanted until I had it.