Originally Posted by oldgeezerjeff

The MUP I ride is a couple miles longer (and slower) to work and back than it would be for me to use the road. However, three lanes of vehicular traffic at 50 MPH, with no shoulders can ruin your day in a hurry. I tried the road once and was honked at 5 times. Not necessarily by the person directly behind me, but by the happy folks two or three cars back who were mad that they were being slowed up and could not see that there was a cyclist ahead. Also, people in their cars do dumb things when approaching a cyclist from the rear...like make sudden stupid lane changes that further enrage other drivers in those lanes who end up hating on the cyclist for even being on the road in the first place.
Once, while riding the road, a couple young guys in "tuner" cars came racing up behind me. The first driver switched lanes suddenly behind me and the driver immediately behind him did not see me and had to cram on his brakes, locking his tires. Few things will make you jump on the pedals like a car skidding up directly behind you in full lockup.
Thankfully, no crash or injury.
I have thought about some alternate road routes to work, but the infrastructure here is so under built that all the reasonable alternate routes are also being used by a lot of traffic. So, I have resigned myself to MUP use wherever possible.