That's a real good point you make buddy. I too prefer to take the bike and leave the car at home. I would also happily cycle to work which is around 16 miles each way, but the only road that I can realistically use is way to dangerous to commute on..It's only an A road, but early in the morning when there's virtually no police patrols along it, the cars absolutely hammer down there. Some of them come past me whilst I'm driving like lunatics and must be traveling in excess of 80/90mph.Got to say I'm not a fan of thinking you need a cycling mentality. To encourage more people into cycling there needs to be the infrastructure to make cycling the sensible option.
My wife doesn't have a "driving mentality" but she drives everywhere because the cycling infrastructure is rubbish and there is free parking everywhere. She stopped cycling to work because they treat cyclists like inconvenient pariahs but have a huge car park.
Especially in this lovely weather cycling is a more pleasant way to travel than a hot sticky car. But still I choose to cycle because I really like cycling, and don't care for driving. If I was nonplussed about either there is nothing to not make cycling a clearly unloved second class option.
That's not to have a go at the OP, it's great if people get sucked in. But I've realised it is slightly pointless trying to convince colleagues to cycle at the moment when it remains objectively a less pleasant way to travel.
There's no way I would find cycling along there at 5 in the morning a pleasurable experience. I'm sure if a dedicated cycle path was built it would be used quite a lot because buses are few and far between in this part of Wales where I live.
All to best to you buddy :-)