I just realized another plus to living in Seattle area: no bridge tolls! There's two big bridges, the 520 which connects Seattle to Redmond (that's a biggie), and the I-90 which connects Seattle to Bellevue.

On the minus side, there's no BART or good mass transit that goes across the sound, or lake, or whatever you call it. I don't know how the buses do it. When the 520 gets backed up everything gets backed up including the buses.

I learned that in WA state, allow radar detectors are allowed. Driving here is way different than in Bay Area. You aren't allowed to park within 30 feet of a stopsign or 15 feet of a fire hydrant. The cops usually don't enforce the 30 foot rule though, and the one cop I talked to said he usually would ticket if the person came within 10 feet or so.

There's alot more HOV (our version of carpool) lanes here than in Bay Area. Although, the east bay has more carpool lanes they seem to try to squeeze them in everywhere here.