The Day After
Imagine someday in the future a time will come when a majority of Americans will surrender their God-given right to own their own car. In the days of the greatest empire on earth, it is inconceivable to imagine such a day will come. In our days, not even the lowest of lower class consider life without an automobile is possible. How could this change?
Cost estimates for an automobile are perhaps now around $6000/year, averaging purchase costs, interest, insurance, gas, maintenance over its lifetime. Driving less miles can definitely cut costs, but many costs don't have a strong proportionality to distance driven. If you consider "efficiency" as $/mile, driving MORE is more cost efficient!
This little fact of "fixed costs" being high to me suggests wise people would try to SHARE cars for access while dividing costs. In practice it is hard enough within one household, and even harder to imagine with neighbors - since we're all too busy to take the time to socialize enough to trust sharing a car with neighbors on a regular basis.
Teens growing up in the suburbs would seem to be those most harmed by the growing costs of cars. At least many will purchase their first car with the help of parents, but that proud day soon becomes a great time sucker. Lets say teens can get away with investing only $3000/year for their car - say driving a low 5,000 miles/year. Say they can make $8/hour, or $6/hour after taxes. They'll work 500 hours to drive 5,000 miles. At 25mph, they're sitting in their cars 200 hours. So they're spending 700 hours/year for going 5000 mile. So their AVERAGE speed becomes 7mph - a medium jogging pace, and half the speed of a bicycle.
I don't know, but I think I'd rather spend 7 hours a week BIKING, than 10 hours a week working and 4 hours a week driving, but I admit I don't always think like most, and I admit winter biking in Minnesota isn't the winter wonderland we might wish for! Oh, and I guess I didn't go on too many dates either as a teen!
This little example perhaps clarifies the idea of "dimininish returns". Those on the margins of the economy will someday discover, if they bothered to calculate the costs, that the economy of car ownership is not actually particularly profitable exchange. SURE, we all agree $8/hour is not a "living wage" anyway, but people and DO live on less when they have to IF they have family and friends to help with shelter costs.
It would seem someday some will exclaim "Hey, maybe it would be cheaper to live in an apartment a half mile from my work than to continue owning a car and driving 40 miles a day." Such insights MUST happen, perhaps already, and maybe like the "100th monkey", a change in consciousness will happen at a critical mass point? Who can say?
Will it be temporary $6/gallon gasoline that is the trigger? Will it be a war with Iran? Will it be a blackout? What event or events will lead? Or will it just be straw by straw finally breaking the camel's back without any single special event?
For me I suppose it was a foolish car accident February 2005 - running into a 3-car accident on the freeway in rushhour, pissed I failed to have collision insurance to cover my damaged car. Well, I'm not poor, and I'm not vowed from cars. I just note I can live without one for the present, and have some extra money to pay down my mortgage faster. But at least I've made one winter car-free and sitting on the cusp of a nice warm summer, right!?
Someday I'll have to join CAFIT "Coalition Advocating Freedom In Transporation", or something like that. We'll spout things like MLK's speech of freedom "I have a dream..." and offer our vision of communities that can exist without car ownership.
With peak oil I would have to imagine a "peak car" year will also exist - the year the largest number of cars ever manufactured will exist. Perhaps we could could largest "weight" of cars as well, knowing cars MUST get lighter in the future. I expect that date still hasn't occured. And then there's the year of "maximum running cars", after which car ownership declines, and "maximum driven miles" as well. Lots of economic measures to look forward to!
I dread times where people are forced to cut back ambitions because of economic pressures, but perhaps there's more like me out there, ready to change, willing to sacrifice a little, and hopeful voluntary powerdown is in our individual as well as collective best interests.
Cost estimates for an automobile are perhaps now around $6000/year, averaging purchase costs, interest, insurance, gas, maintenance over its lifetime. Driving less miles can definitely cut costs, but many costs don't have a strong proportionality to distance driven. If you consider "efficiency" as $/mile, driving MORE is more cost efficient!
This little fact of "fixed costs" being high to me suggests wise people would try to SHARE cars for access while dividing costs. In practice it is hard enough within one household, and even harder to imagine with neighbors - since we're all too busy to take the time to socialize enough to trust sharing a car with neighbors on a regular basis.
Teens growing up in the suburbs would seem to be those most harmed by the growing costs of cars. At least many will purchase their first car with the help of parents, but that proud day soon becomes a great time sucker. Lets say teens can get away with investing only $3000/year for their car - say driving a low 5,000 miles/year. Say they can make $8/hour, or $6/hour after taxes. They'll work 500 hours to drive 5,000 miles. At 25mph, they're sitting in their cars 200 hours. So they're spending 700 hours/year for going 5000 mile. So their AVERAGE speed becomes 7mph - a medium jogging pace, and half the speed of a bicycle.
I don't know, but I think I'd rather spend 7 hours a week BIKING, than 10 hours a week working and 4 hours a week driving, but I admit I don't always think like most, and I admit winter biking in Minnesota isn't the winter wonderland we might wish for! Oh, and I guess I didn't go on too many dates either as a teen!
This little example perhaps clarifies the idea of "dimininish returns". Those on the margins of the economy will someday discover, if they bothered to calculate the costs, that the economy of car ownership is not actually particularly profitable exchange. SURE, we all agree $8/hour is not a "living wage" anyway, but people and DO live on less when they have to IF they have family and friends to help with shelter costs.
It would seem someday some will exclaim "Hey, maybe it would be cheaper to live in an apartment a half mile from my work than to continue owning a car and driving 40 miles a day." Such insights MUST happen, perhaps already, and maybe like the "100th monkey", a change in consciousness will happen at a critical mass point? Who can say?
Will it be temporary $6/gallon gasoline that is the trigger? Will it be a war with Iran? Will it be a blackout? What event or events will lead? Or will it just be straw by straw finally breaking the camel's back without any single special event?
For me I suppose it was a foolish car accident February 2005 - running into a 3-car accident on the freeway in rushhour, pissed I failed to have collision insurance to cover my damaged car. Well, I'm not poor, and I'm not vowed from cars. I just note I can live without one for the present, and have some extra money to pay down my mortgage faster. But at least I've made one winter car-free and sitting on the cusp of a nice warm summer, right!?
Someday I'll have to join CAFIT "Coalition Advocating Freedom In Transporation", or something like that. We'll spout things like MLK's speech of freedom "I have a dream..." and offer our vision of communities that can exist without car ownership.
With peak oil I would have to imagine a "peak car" year will also exist - the year the largest number of cars ever manufactured will exist. Perhaps we could could largest "weight" of cars as well, knowing cars MUST get lighter in the future. I expect that date still hasn't occured. And then there's the year of "maximum running cars", after which car ownership declines, and "maximum driven miles" as well. Lots of economic measures to look forward to!
I dread times where people are forced to cut back ambitions because of economic pressures, but perhaps there's more like me out there, ready to change, willing to sacrifice a little, and hopeful voluntary powerdown is in our individual as well as collective best interests.
posted by Ares Olympus at 10:14 PM
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