Do cars liberate us?

[Globalti]

I can think of another invention you seem to have overlooked which is usually credited with that effect. There's a clue to what it was in the name of this forum.

What? Chat?

 

[theclaud]

No.

 

[Globalti]

I haven't got time to read that essay linked by theclaud; I've got to go and clean my car and fill the tank for some visitors.

 

[Crackle]

Yes....and no.

Most things in life demand compromise, the car is one of them, the problem is most people don't realize what they've compromised.

 

[theclaud]

I haven't got time to read that essay linked by theclaud; I've got to go and clean my car and fill the tank for some visitors.

You would if you didn't spend your life in thrall to the demands of the car . Anyway, your loss. But I'll pull out a snippet for you.

The model American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages; time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next buy. The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only 3 to 8 per cent of their society’s time budget to traffic instead of 28 per cent. What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.​

 

[tyred]

Like many things, the car is over-used.

 

[Hip Priest]

Like many things, the car is over-used.

Succint and correct as far as I'm concerned.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

They liberate the individual whilst enslaving the whole of society.

 

[Paulus]

It liberates them from buying petrol paying VED Insurance Servicing and MOT fees and buying the damn things. A friend doesn't drive and uses taxis and trains a lot, but is also not above cadging a lift at any opportunity!

Whilst a car can in many cases be liberating for many people, The cost of buying, insuring, servicing, and fuel will buy a great many taxi fares, bus and train fares over the years, with of course the cadged/blagged rides from friends and neighbours.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I cycle, I have motorcycled extensively and I drive. I enjoy all of them, they all cost money but as I don't know of any way to take it with me when I croak, so what?

 

[the_mikey]

I dislike having to use a car to get to work, I even more dislike businesses that require their employees to use their own cars for business use and then don't afford time for essential maintenance that's needed from time to time.

I'd like to have a smaller, cheaper car that isn't filled with work shite, one that I can actually use would be great. The money saved by not having a car would pay for 3 return railway journeys between Bristol and Leeds every month.

 

[400bhp]

Absolutely not.

 

[Jimmy Doug]

Looks like I'm about to beat everyone to posting this:

 

[theclaud]

I've only just got round to reading the Dalrymple thing. It's kinda sweet.

Required reading #2

 

[Jimmy Doug]

I've got that image I just posted above pinned to the wall of my office at work, just above where I keep my bicycle. People think I'm mad for cycling in; I think they're mad for taking the car with all the cost and stress that entails ... only to pick up their bicycle in the evening to keep fit.