I wasted 6 months driving 1-2 hours to houses that looked great on Zillow, only to realize the neighborhood was terrible when I arrived.
After my 4th wasted Saturday, I built NeighborhoodScope. Paste any address and it auto-walks you around the block via Street View in 30 seconds - see the actual street before you waste gas and time.
It's completely free. Just wanted to solve my own problem and figured it might help other house hunters.