4 ms·

Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I don't and i really don't plan to. Public transports, bus, subway, train, carpooling, stuff like that seems more t

Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I don't and i really don't plan to. Public transports, bus, subway, train, carpooling, stuff like that seems more than enough for me, here in europe (france) at least. I think we need to shift the subject here: sure current cars are bad (low reparability mostly), but to what extend do we need personal cars (at least specifically for people living in urbanized areas).

lapinot 7y ago
Not sure about the downvotes, care to explain? I did not expect this would be seen as out of topic.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  I did not downvote you, but I imagine it's partly because of this: > Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I think that's very self-centered to imply cars aren't worth talking about just because you don't have one.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I think it's perfectly fine to have that opinion, but if you're reading this thread, it's about cars, so it equates to "this thread shouldn't exist" which isn't very constructive.
    - lapinot 7y ago
      I was simply trying to have a broader thinking, not only about how current cars are bloated with hitech but about the place of cars. I care about technology and consumer goods getting more and more opaque, littered with useless electronics (not all, abs and esp have proved themselves). But to have a complete picture one should also take into account their usage of cars, which use case they fulfill, and whether or not this could be done otherwise.
      - Retra 7y ago
        Even if people in cities weren't using cars it would still be a problem if they were designed badly, and worth discussing. Conversely, even if cars' electronics were designed well, that would mean very little to the discussion of whether they are optimal transportation in cities. In summary, your comment is in the wrong thread.
        lapinot 7y ago
        I'm not sure i completely agree with that, maybe you're right. Isn't bad design is at least partly linked to the fact that these are personal (non-utility) cars, which are for a large part used in (sub)urban areas, ie usage influences the design and reciprocally. It seems to me utility cars (and other "professional vehicles") are among the less prone to this interface bloat. Actually to support your point i recently saw how this exact problem was a big issue for tractors, farmers being locked in with broken (electronic) stuff they're not allowed to/can't repair themselves.
- brianpgordon 7y ago
  Except in a few major cities, almost all working adults in the US own a car.
  - brentonator 7y ago
    For better or for worse. A lot of those things should not be on the road.
    - wincy 7y ago
      Yeah I've been reading about wireless hacking for luxury cars and I'm amazed they let things like new BMW and Lexus vehicles on the road.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
NikolaNovak 7y ago
I love how this keeps coming up from people who cannot comprehend that there are other people in the world - people who don't live in downtown of a city with good public transportation; people who need to move stuff; people who have need to travel; people who cannot easily walk or bike - they may have health issues or specific disabilities; people who live in places with inclement weather; people who live in places where distances are large. Essentially there's folks who think entire earth is a hipster downtown, and anybody else should just move, while collapsing economy, sending housing prices into stratosphere, impacting everybody's quality of life, and so on. Yes cars are still a topic. Get out of your own head, travel a bit, talk to people, learn to empathize. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but that's just an unbelievable amount of ignorance and lack of awareness and sympathy for other people.
- lapinot 7y ago
  I hear your point, i'm not offended. But you dismiss me as guilty by association, to some kind of superficial "hipster" who's hobby is to take part in gentrification. It's not rude, it's fallacious. For one gentrification is out of topic (i would gladly continue that argument some place else). Also i don't recall my comment to have any kind of imperative tone: i'm stating what works for me, and for a lot of people i see, explicitly requesting comments about whether or not this applies to others. Some made up numbers from what i feel about my surroundings: young adults (<30yo), i'd say maybe 1 in 3-4 have a car around here. Families from friends that live in or near a city center (inside the subway zone), i'd say 1 out of 3-4 have no car, that's already significant: they rely on their children, friends or rental when they need one. Parking lots aren't cheap. Of course there are some difficulties, when you need to move some couch through the city you grab a couple friends, a skateboard and start pushing. Every couple weeks when you do some large food shopping you have to carry heavy bags. Maybe you get a trolley of your own like the grandmas at the saturday market, it's actually convenient. In the country side where i grew up, i'd say half the people have only 1 car per household. There's a train station 30min from there, a small line but is used quite a lot, with a train every 1h or so. Almost all of my friends had a driver's license by the time they turned 18 etc. Yet i slipped through, always making my way using quite a lot of cycling, making my schedule around the one of the buses, sometimes hitchhiking when the time was bad. Most people i know use either some carpooling app or train when they travel across the country and don't transport anything they can't carry in a couple bags. People do have cars there, but it's because of necessity, not choice. And you see far less new cars, lots of people buy them refurbished, cars switch hands in the family, some are real utility vehicles which are adopting interface bloat at a slower pace, etc. So i ask again: don't we have to change our ideas about (1) car ownership and (2) car manufacturing/reparation/life-cycle? From what i can see, things are already far from the "every adult owns a car which they change every ~5 years" model from post-war until the oil shocks. My point is the usual dependency vs convenience thing [#]: the more a particular infrastructure becomes widespread or reliable (may be cars, electricity, network), the more you start depending on it; yet giving up some of it may not make your life worse, it just implies different life constraints and capabilities to work around it. [#] I'm getting out of topic here, but to read this argument developed in the field of energy, see: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-th... --- That was for the places i know well; now you implied i didn't travel or talk. I do. There are lots of other environments where car can and are avoided. Would you consider the whole north/west european cities (in nl, dk, de, ch, ..) to be just a big "hipster neighborhood"? Believe it or not, but not everyone on a bike or in the bus has a beard, fancy sticker on their macbook air or is some kind of alter-globalism&ecology activist. There, and to some extend in a lot of other places, personal cars are neither a big necessity nor very practical in most slightly urbanized areas. People there own and use less cars. Of course it doesn't come out of nowhere: there is less specialization of urban areas for living, shopping, eating/drinking, working. More smaller and distributed structures, roads organized differently giving a lot of space for pedestrians, bikes, some green spaces, playgrounds etc. I'm not saying it can be done everywhere and now, i'm saying it's being done in various places and probably could be expanded.
jalgos_eminator 7y ago
> Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I don't and i really don't plan to. Public transports, bus, subway, train, carpooling, stuff like that seems more than enough for me, ... Must not be from the US... > ... here in europe (france) at least Yeah, saw that one coming. I wish we had good public transport here in the US, but realistically most people need to have access to a car. Even people living in large cities. My current commute is from the middle of the city to the edge along a major freeway. It is 10 miles by car and takes 20 min on average to work, ~30 min. back home because of traffic. Public transport would take 80 min each way not counting traffic. Riding my bicycle would take about the same amount of time, but I would arrive quite sweaty. I drive because saving those 2 hours per day is 100% worth it.
wincy 7y ago
If I wanted to take the bus to work, my commute of 15 minutes would become 20 minutes of walking to the nearest bus stop, and 2h13m of riding on a bus. I live in an suburban area but because there's a state line, the bus line goes to the city center and then back out. We used to live in the city, but we moved when a drug deal gone bad across the street resulted in someone shooting his gun into the air while my daughter was playing in our front garden. Luckily she wasn't hurt, but our options for safe, affordable living conditions are limited to areas traversable by car in the US Midwest.
Zhenya 7y ago
"Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? ...carpooling..." Well there is partly your answer. Folks own cars for different reasons: family, location outside of place with public transport etc
dev_north_east 7y ago
> Who owns a car here? I do (Uk). I don't know of a single friend, family member, work colleague or as part of a couple, which doesn't have a car.

lapinot 7y ago

Not sure about the downvotes, care to explain? I did not expect this would be seen as out of topic.

RandomBacon 7y ago
I did not downvote you, but I imagine it's partly because of this: > Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I think that's very self-centered to imply cars aren't worth talking about just because you don't have one.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think it's perfectly fine to have that opinion, but if you're reading this thread, it's about cars, so it equates to "this thread shouldn't exist" which isn't very constructive.
  - lapinot 7y ago
    I was simply trying to have a broader thinking, not only about how current cars are bloated with hitech but about the place of cars. I care about technology and consumer goods getting more and more opaque, littered with useless electronics (not all, abs and esp have proved themselves). But to have a complete picture one should also take into account their usage of cars, which use case they fulfill, and whether or not this could be done otherwise.
    - Retra 7y ago
      Even if people in cities weren't using cars it would still be a problem if they were designed badly, and worth discussing. Conversely, even if cars' electronics were designed well, that would mean very little to the discussion of whether they are optimal transportation in cities. In summary, your comment is in the wrong thread.
      - lapinot 7y ago
        I'm not sure i completely agree with that, maybe you're right. Isn't bad design is at least partly linked to the fact that these are personal (non-utility) cars, which are for a large part used in (sub)urban areas, ie usage influences the design and reciprocally. It seems to me utility cars (and other "professional vehicles") are among the less prone to this interface bloat. Actually to support your point i recently saw how this exact problem was a big issue for tractors, farmers being locked in with broken (electronic) stuff they're not allowed to/can't repair themselves.
brianpgordon 7y ago
Except in a few major cities, almost all working adults in the US own a car.
- brentonator 7y ago
  For better or for worse. A lot of those things should not be on the road.
  - wincy 7y ago
    Yeah I've been reading about wireless hacking for luxury cars and I'm amazed they let things like new BMW and Lexus vehicles on the road.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

NikolaNovak 7y ago

I love how this keeps coming up from people who cannot comprehend that there are other people in the world - people who don't live in downtown of a city with good public transportation; people who need to move stuff; people who have need to travel; people who cannot easily walk or bike - they may have health issues or specific disabilities; people who live in places with inclement weather; people who live in places where distances are large. Essentially there's folks who think entire earth is a hipster downtown, and anybody else should just move, while collapsing economy, sending housing prices into stratosphere, impacting everybody's quality of life, and so on. Yes cars are still a topic. Get out of your own head, travel a bit, talk to people, learn to empathize. I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but that's just an unbelievable amount of ignorance and lack of awareness and sympathy for other people.

lapinot 7y ago
I hear your point, i'm not offended. But you dismiss me as guilty by association, to some kind of superficial "hipster" who's hobby is to take part in gentrification. It's not rude, it's fallacious. For one gentrification is out of topic (i would gladly continue that argument some place else). Also i don't recall my comment to have any kind of imperative tone: i'm stating what works for me, and for a lot of people i see, explicitly requesting comments about whether or not this applies to others. Some made up numbers from what i feel about my surroundings: young adults (<30yo), i'd say maybe 1 in 3-4 have a car around here. Families from friends that live in or near a city center (inside the subway zone), i'd say 1 out of 3-4 have no car, that's already significant: they rely on their children, friends or rental when they need one. Parking lots aren't cheap. Of course there are some difficulties, when you need to move some couch through the city you grab a couple friends, a skateboard and start pushing. Every couple weeks when you do some large food shopping you have to carry heavy bags. Maybe you get a trolley of your own like the grandmas at the saturday market, it's actually convenient. In the country side where i grew up, i'd say half the people have only 1 car per household. There's a train station 30min from there, a small line but is used quite a lot, with a train every 1h or so. Almost all of my friends had a driver's license by the time they turned 18 etc. Yet i slipped through, always making my way using quite a lot of cycling, making my schedule around the one of the buses, sometimes hitchhiking when the time was bad. Most people i know use either some carpooling app or train when they travel across the country and don't transport anything they can't carry in a couple bags. People do have cars there, but it's because of necessity, not choice. And you see far less new cars, lots of people buy them refurbished, cars switch hands in the family, some are real utility vehicles which are adopting interface bloat at a slower pace, etc. So i ask again: don't we have to change our ideas about (1) car ownership and (2) car manufacturing/reparation/life-cycle? From what i can see, things are already far from the "every adult owns a car which they change every ~5 years" model from post-war until the oil shocks. My point is the usual dependency vs convenience thing [#]: the more a particular infrastructure becomes widespread or reliable (may be cars, electricity, network), the more you start depending on it; yet giving up some of it may not make your life worse, it just implies different life constraints and capabilities to work around it. [#] I'm getting out of topic here, but to read this argument developed in the field of energy, see: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-lights-on-redefining-energy-security.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-th... --- That was for the places i know well; now you implied i didn't travel or talk. I do. There are lots of other environments where car can and are avoided. Would you consider the whole north/west european cities (in nl, dk, de, ch, ..) to be just a big "hipster neighborhood"? Believe it or not, but not everyone on a bike or in the bus has a beard, fancy sticker on their macbook air or is some kind of alter-globalism&ecology activist. There, and to some extend in a lot of other places, personal cars are neither a big necessity nor very practical in most slightly urbanized areas. People there own and use less cars. Of course it doesn't come out of nowhere: there is less specialization of urban areas for living, shopping, eating/drinking, working. More smaller and distributed structures, roads organized differently giving a lot of space for pedestrians, bikes, some green spaces, playgrounds etc. I'm not saying it can be done everywhere and now, i'm saying it's being done in various places and probably could be expanded.

jalgos_eminator 7y ago

> Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? I don't and i really don't plan to. Public transports, bus, subway, train, carpooling, stuff like that seems more than enough for me, ... Must not be from the US... > ... here in europe (france) at least Yeah, saw that one coming. I wish we had good public transport here in the US, but realistically most people need to have access to a car. Even people living in large cities. My current commute is from the middle of the city to the edge along a major freeway. It is 10 miles by car and takes 20 min on average to work, ~30 min. back home because of traffic. Public transport would take 80 min each way not counting traffic. Riding my bicycle would take about the same amount of time, but I would arrive quite sweaty. I drive because saving those 2 hours per day is 100% worth it.

wincy 7y ago

If I wanted to take the bus to work, my commute of 15 minutes would become 20 minutes of walking to the nearest bus stop, and 2h13m of riding on a bus. I live in an suburban area but because there's a state line, the bus line goes to the city center and then back out. We used to live in the city, but we moved when a drug deal gone bad across the street resulted in someone shooting his gun into the air while my daughter was playing in our front garden. Luckily she wasn't hurt, but our options for safe, affordable living conditions are limited to areas traversable by car in the US Midwest.

Zhenya 7y ago

"Are cars still a topic? Who owns a car here? ...carpooling..." Well there is partly your answer. Folks own cars for different reasons: family, location outside of place with public transport etc

dev_north_east 7y ago

> Who owns a car here? I do (Uk). I don't know of a single friend, family member, work colleague or as part of a couple, which doesn't have a car.