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I don’t lol. I’ll probably get a driver’s liscence eventually though so eh.
Are you a fan of cars?
- Thread starter QarQing
- Start date
I don’t lol. I’ll probably get a driver’s liscence eventually though so eh.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
I own a fancy car, and a second not fancy car for going from point A to B. First is a hobby, I enjoy doing maintenance myself and even improving it (I have learnt a lot about cars that way), going around once a week for not particular reason and talking to curious people who ask questions about it. The other is simply a tool. Two different concepts.
Otoh when I sell my fancy car I will probably get more money than I payed for it, when I sell my not fancy car I will get 50€ from the scrapyard.
Otoh when I sell my fancy car I will probably get more money than I payed for it, when I sell my not fancy car I will get 50€ from the scrapyard.
I like the personal convenience of being able to get to where I want, when I want, at a reasonable time, in air-conditioned comfort, without having to interact with the public. I think cars are amazing machines and a great human achievement as an invention. Some of them even look nice.
I dislike what cars have done to society. There's no getting around the fact that cars are costly, dangerous, and space-intensive. ICE cars also create a massive noise pollution problem and wreck the atmosphere; electric cars admittedly much less so but they still have all the other drawbacks.
Places built around the car being the default mode of transport are bad places to live. So much land has to be devoted to road and parking. Depending on road design and the vehicle mix, walking and cycling become unacceptably hazardous activities - coupled with the fact that planners and business owners assume everyone will drive, meaning everyone has to drive everywhere, all of the time, to get to places they want to go, which means congestion. It also means families have to buy cars, sometimes multiple cars, and houses big enough to park multiple cars. Children suffer the most, as they miss out on a lot of early formative experiences of being outside and exploring the world.
Buses don't work in these environments because they get stuck in traffic, and trying to improve this will come up against a wall of resistance from the much larger and more influential group of motorists. Same with trying to add any other public transport infrastructure except for elevated rail and underground rail, and construction of these has to avoid disrupting traffic, causing public transport systems to become unacceptably costly, so they don't get built.
Then there's car culture and marketing. It's cool and fashionable now where I live to drive very loud and/or very large cars, cars that are basically just trucks, around your suburban neighbourhood getting groceries and dropping kids off at school, cars that take up even more space and are even more noisy and are even more hazardous to pedestrians. Any two-lane arterial road or bigger will be turned into a race track every other night. And all of this is just tolerated, by the authorities and the community at large, despite the toll it clearly takes on people and society.
I'm a fan of getting from A to B as easy as possible, as quickly as possible. My car is that for 90% of cases. But it's largely because the built environment I'm living in forces me to drive. Even in the most optimistic public transit utopia that I could reasonably live to see, I imagine the car would be the superior transport option for ~70% of cases. We will not have car-free communities, outside of niche purpose-built towns or very old historical areas where the narrow lanes literally cannot fit a car, for a very long time. But we can have communities less dependent on cars, we can get planners to shake the expectation that people will or should drive everywhere, and we can put loud modified cars in the scrapyard and their drivers against a wall.
I dislike what cars have done to society. There's no getting around the fact that cars are costly, dangerous, and space-intensive. ICE cars also create a massive noise pollution problem and wreck the atmosphere; electric cars admittedly much less so but they still have all the other drawbacks.
Places built around the car being the default mode of transport are bad places to live. So much land has to be devoted to road and parking. Depending on road design and the vehicle mix, walking and cycling become unacceptably hazardous activities - coupled with the fact that planners and business owners assume everyone will drive, meaning everyone has to drive everywhere, all of the time, to get to places they want to go, which means congestion. It also means families have to buy cars, sometimes multiple cars, and houses big enough to park multiple cars. Children suffer the most, as they miss out on a lot of early formative experiences of being outside and exploring the world.
Buses don't work in these environments because they get stuck in traffic, and trying to improve this will come up against a wall of resistance from the much larger and more influential group of motorists. Same with trying to add any other public transport infrastructure except for elevated rail and underground rail, and construction of these has to avoid disrupting traffic, causing public transport systems to become unacceptably costly, so they don't get built.
Then there's car culture and marketing. It's cool and fashionable now where I live to drive very loud and/or very large cars, cars that are basically just trucks, around your suburban neighbourhood getting groceries and dropping kids off at school, cars that take up even more space and are even more noisy and are even more hazardous to pedestrians. Any two-lane arterial road or bigger will be turned into a race track every other night. And all of this is just tolerated, by the authorities and the community at large, despite the toll it clearly takes on people and society.
I'm a fan of getting from A to B as easy as possible, as quickly as possible. My car is that for 90% of cases. But it's largely because the built environment I'm living in forces me to drive. Even in the most optimistic public transit utopia that I could reasonably live to see, I imagine the car would be the superior transport option for ~70% of cases. We will not have car-free communities, outside of niche purpose-built towns or very old historical areas where the narrow lanes literally cannot fit a car, for a very long time. But we can have communities less dependent on cars, we can get planners to shake the expectation that people will or should drive everywhere, and we can put loud modified cars in the scrapyard and their drivers against a wall.
And what kind of car is that fancy car?
Thorgalaeg
Deity
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schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
car bad train good
I haven't driven in over 20 years and have no desire or intention to do so again.
Narz
keeping it real
I prefer two wheels. Society would be better with more bikes, motorcycles, scooters and trains and car sharing programs/carpools/etc
Thorgalaeg
Deity
In fact, having two cars I use the train daily to go to work. Cars only sporadically and at weekends.
Samez
Emperor
My dad used to be a fanatic regarding cars. He drove some really nice models in his lifetime (Porsche, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Lotus, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Morgan...). As cool as those cars a looking and driving he nearly ruined the family several times over the years. So yeah I like me a nice car but not for the price of bankruptcy - so the topic is highly loaded for me.
The ones I liked best were the Morgan 4+ as the feeling of driving this wooden car is quite different to any modern plastic steel composite model. The other one which was just a beast regarding power and acceleration was a reconstruction of a Shelby Cobra - great for racing but completely unusable in normal traffic.
Personally I am dependant on a car to get to work (rural area without public transport) so I drive a station wagon. Fuel economy and max loading capacity beat max acceleration in every day life.
The ones I liked best were the Morgan 4+ as the feeling of driving this wooden car is quite different to any modern plastic steel composite model. The other one which was just a beast regarding power and acceleration was a reconstruction of a Shelby Cobra - great for racing but completely unusable in normal traffic.
Personally I am dependant on a car to get to work (rural area without public transport) so I drive a station wagon. Fuel economy and max loading capacity beat max acceleration in every day life.
bene_legionary
Searching for the daguerrotype of God
I like cars... but this year it's been challenging for me to learn how to drive them. Mostly down to time and desire and the past few weeks I have had neither. Also the fact that my instructor's car got totalled...
NZ loves its Hiluxes and Navaras, but I'm dreading having to get used to the old Navara for my restricted license test. It'll be bigger than anything I've driven in. But that's still at least few months away before I feel confident.
NZ loves its Hiluxes and Navaras, but I'm dreading having to get used to the old Navara for my restricted license test. It'll be bigger than anything I've driven in. But that's still at least few months away before I feel confident.
Narz
keeping it real
Car great place to chill and be alone while still having a movable view.
You can be reached if someone knocks on the window but you don't have to open it.
I miss that.
You can be reached if someone knocks on the window but you don't have to open it.
I miss that.
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I have a '99 Honda Accord - leather - with a V-6 VTEC engine. Not a fancy car, but man can it go. Never bothered with replacing it cause it still runs great, and has less than 90K miles still. I mainly work from home these days, so don't drive much anyway - just errands mainly. I have put a little dosh into it recently for necessaries like transmission, timing-belt, muffler, etc. If I do get a new car it would, of course, be electric or hybrid. I worry about going full electric as the infra is just not there yet to support it, but really we must.
IMO govs need to put more investment into making electric feasible, as well as incentives to consumers to go electric.
IMO govs need to put more investment into making electric feasible, as well as incentives to consumers to go electric.
EgonSpengler
Deity
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Not a fan of cars, either on an individual level - I don't have a car and I don't want one - or on the 'big picture' level. If they were occasional things, that would be fine, but their proliferation is only bad news for everybody. I think cars only look like a good thing if you're studiously myopic: A car is great for a person or a family. On a societal or global level, I think they're awful. But, as @Tee Kay pointed out, many of our societies have been built so that many individual people must have a car. I'm not sure how much of the United States you can live in comfortably without a car. 15%? I have no idea. I'm just making up a number. There are places in the United States where the infrastructure built for cars prevents even walking short distances, or riding a bike. I think Europe and parts of Asia are better, although places in Asia are dealing with unbelievable smog. I think I read somewhere that 50% of children in one Indian city have asthma. I heard on the radio just yesterday that smog is estimated to have reduced the average Indian lifespan by 4 years. At certain times of the year, the smog burns your eyes and throat. It's like some kind of cyberpunk dystopia. The smog in India is not solely, or even mainly, from vehicles, but they're a contributor and their use is growing, not declining. A complete takeover of the automobile industry by EVs - where gas-powered cars are a niche hobby, the way that some people still ride horses, just because they like horses - literally can't happen soon enough.
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Yep, DC area has a lot of public transpo. Technically, I can walk to the subway, but that doesn't do much for me. I use it in rare instances where I actually go into DC. Otherwise, I am bound to my car for basic stuff like groceries and getting my morning cup of Panera joe. Personally, I'd love to live in a village somewhere where I could get everything I need on my own two feet.
Now if one lives in places like downtown DC or NY, you don't really need a car at all. However, I don't care to live in the big cities. I'm tired enough as it is living in suburbia, which is pretty much the case my whole life with the exceptions of college (Blacksburg, VA - lovely) and summers in Bama.
Now if one lives in places like downtown DC or NY, you don't really need a car at all. However, I don't care to live in the big cities. I'm tired enough as it is living in suburbia, which is pretty much the case my whole life with the exceptions of college (Blacksburg, VA - lovely) and summers in Bama.
Samez
Emperor
The issue is that cars promise a certain kind of freedom - you can go anyplace anytime. Living in a rural area without car is a bit like living without direct access to the internet - it is possible but not desirable for most. So yup cars are bad, but to get people into giving up their freedom you have to provide alternative ways to be free. It's a bit like guns in the US...
EgonSpengler
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You mean the 'freedom' they provide is illusory and founded in myth, and they're actually a net loss for society on almost every level? I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's food for thought.
EgonSpengler
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Yeah, I think I would loathe suburbia. Urban or rural, for me. My sense of living in suburban, exurban and rural areas of the US means not only do you have to have a car, you have to use it daily, for even the most mundane activities. You don't have to go very far outside the city I live in before you pretty much need a car. And depending on how you measure it, traffic here is among the worst in North America. Living around the fringes of a big city may be the Worst of Both Worlds: You have to have a car, and yet having a car is a huge PITA. One of my colleagues has about the same commute that I do - about an hour - but he has to spend it in his car, in traffic. On the train, I can nap, read, watch a video on my phone, pet somebody's dog, or step off and go for a walk through a park. And while I don't know how much my colleague spends on his car each month, I bet it's more. And because he and his wife don't work in the same part of the city, they have to have two cars. That's one thing that I notice while walking around: Even in the city, it seems like 80% of cars have only 1 person inside. I'd guess that in places with no public transport, it's 1 car per adult, and it's not optional (freedom?
).
I'm lucky in living in a suburb of Cardiff with a good raillink and the only local bus company (Cardiff Bus) in the country that wasn't privatised.
Better, affordable public transport and electric vehicles can help in suburbia too. Even rural areas used to have good bus links here (until the advent of a certain Tory PM who hated anything publicly funded).
Better, affordable public transport and electric vehicles can help in suburbia too. Even rural areas used to have good bus links here (until the advent of a certain Tory PM who hated anything publicly funded).
