7 ms·

(A bit off topic) The current situation is a good argument for owning a car. I don't own a car -- I take the subway to work (about 25 minutes each way). But i

(A bit off topic) The current situation is a good argument for owning a car. I don't own a car -- I take the subway to work (about 25 minutes each way). But it seems dumb to use the subway at this time, which means I have to work from home. If I had a car, I'd feel safe commuting.

mattnewton 7y ago
But wouldn’t going into the office also be less than ideal here?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- taborj 7y ago
  Trust me, you want your police and fire (and doctors and nurses) to be "going into the office."
  - mattnewton 7y ago
    Oh definitely, I guess I assumed OP was not in an essential sector like that since they mentioned working from home.
Analemma_ 7y ago
If you didn't already need it before this went down, a car is an awfully expensive item to have just for a black swan event like this.
pengaru 7y ago
Indeed, public transportation is the worst option when it comes to sanitation.
- the_af 7y ago
  In cases like this, however, it seems a car is the solution to the wrong problem: you should not be commuting at all. A car is also the "solution" to an individual problem -- "how do I get safely from A to B?" -- but this is a societal problem: "how do we as a society overcome this disease while causing as little damage as possible?". Solutions must be oriented towards the community, not the individual. Everyone using their cars, if they even have them, is not the solution.
  - pengaru 7y ago
    I don't commute, but use my automobile to retrieve groceries and potable water every week or two. I don't see this as a poor solution to my particular needs, but I do look forward to it being electric and charged from solar panels on my roof.
    - gumby 7y ago
      You live in a place without a supply of potable water?
      - pengaru 7y ago
        I haul water from a bulk water dispenser in town operated by the city water department, have a cistern cache on site which gets topped up that way. It's not that unusual in desert communities like mine.
        nradov 7y ago
        It is disappointing how unaware many urbanites are of the realities of life in rural areas. After the travel restrictions are lifted we would do well to get out of our bubbles and see firsthand how others live. That could help reduce the current political and cultural divides.
        scarejunba 7y ago
        What's really disappointing is the degree to which we subsidize the incredible climate costs of non-urban people. When the carbon taxes are finally required, rural Americans will learn just how much they've been externalizing. Our food will be more expensive and it should be but all those other parts of rural living are just this horrendous climate abuse. EDIT: Oops, I mean the costs should be baked in. Obviously governments should provide food aid.
schoen 7y ago
In many places you could use a bike (the appeal and safety level depends a lot on where you live).
jMyles 7y ago
It is unlikely that this virus will kill more people than die in car crashes in a single year. Let's keep some perspective. edit: Commenter below asked for citations, which is reasonable. :-) This comment applies to the USA only. There were 37,991 deaths classified under one of the WISQRS "Motor Vehicle Traffic Death" codes last year.[0] Another 1000-3000 are reasonably counted also, for example, the 203 deaths coded as "Pedestrian injured in nontraffic accident involving other and unspecified motor vehicles." (this includes some cases of people injuring themselves with cars on private property, etc). I think we can safely say 40,000, without even including any part of the long-term health effects of cars; this is just deaths from crashes. We've had 71 deaths from COVID-19 so far[1]. We don't know how many total infections or transmissions have occurred; estimates vary unbelievably wildly because of so little test coverage. [2] It's possible that our death rate is high, more likely that, at least so far, it is much, much lower than has been published in the media (the 8% of people over 65 figure, for example, uses only confirmed cases, which almost certainly represent only a tiny fraction of cases). Based on these numbers and sources, I think it's a reasonable assertion that the number of otherwise unexpected deaths to result from COVID-19 is unlikely to be higher than the number killed by cars. 0: https://webappa.cdc.gov https://webappa.cdc.gov 1: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 2: http://perkinslab.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/6/2/25629832/perkins_etal_sarscov2.pdf http://perkinslab.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/6/2/25629832/perkin...
- andbberger 7y ago
  [citation needed] That reallllllllllly depends on how we respond as a society in the coming weeks...
- cjbprime 7y ago
  You are probably baking in assumptions like "people who need critical hospital care but do not have COVID-19 can still receive it", which are deeply under question right now given the number of expected hospitalizations from the virus.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    One of my dads friends just went through the first set of rounds of Chemo for lymphoma. They are having trouble figuring out when he can do his second set.
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Yep. I’m nearly the only employee at my job and I’m trying to decide if it makes sense to work from home. The biggest issue is that I would need to go to the gas station every few days if I keep going to work. I’m probably going to pack up the 3D printers and some other stuff and just work from home to avoid unnecessary exposure. My roommate has respiratory issues.
- baq 7y ago
  Don’t 3d printers produce fines? I’d double check before bringing them home in your circumstances.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Most 3d printers shouldn't produce dust or off gassing. If printing with ABS it can be smelly and an enclosure is recommended (but more for the ABS than for you). In general it's a good to always work in well ventilated areas.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    I have six 3D printers at home already. But the ones at work are a bit nicer.
- rubidium 7y ago
  Just go in and use hand sanitizer + wipes at the pump. No need to make it complicated.
  - fortran77 7y ago
    Hand sanitizer and wipes are completely unavailable here because of hoarding and shoplifting.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Commuting in to work means hitting gas stations which increases my chances of infection. Also there’s no wipes or sanitizer at stores I’ve checked.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
The current situation is a good argument for owning a car. It's actually not. It's a good argument for actually diversifying our transit options so people have real choice. A lot of people aren't really pro transit options. They are really for public transit and/or against cars. If it is easier to do a mix of walking, public transit, etc, then there's no single point of failure. If the transit system isn't overloaded, you can sometimes find yourself on the bus by yourself for a bit. If you have flexibility to work from home or go in when you feel like it, that's another way to not be trapped in a crowded bus or whatever. We need to break some lockstep patterns, not trade one monolith for another, which tends to be the argument.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  That couldn't possibly help people in the next half year. An interesting change to the public transportation system is a tree one plants for the decade or two later.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Often, small tweaks are overlooked or outright dismissed out of hand because people think it's not enough and insist it won't make a difference. But the 80/20 rule tends to apply. If you do whatever small and easy things are immediately possible, you get 80 percent of the way there and it frees up resources and extends the runway so that last hard 20 percent can be resolved or at least better tolerated.
    - threatofrain 7y ago
      For your idea to work, there still has to be an interesting change to how public infrastructure works, and not merely in the change-your-lifestyle way. Having to walk a little bit is already part of the bus/subway/train bargain unless you're pretty lucky. But once you're on the bus there's only so much social distancing you can do. What are you going to do then? Thus, the car is the ultimate vehicle if you don't want even want a driver. Renting a car is the lowest hanging fruit right now for dealing with this problem. If you have a low hanging fruit suggestion then put it out there, but it's not trying to socially distance yourself on a bus, right?
wutbrodo 7y ago
Yea, my habits are very tuned to living in a dense city[1], and all those habits are suddenly very maladaptive...dense urban living is, in general, has a lot of dependencies on the "thrive" part of the thrive/survive spectrum, and as such is not great in times of chaos. [1] Not stocking up on things since I constantly pass stores that contain necessities, locating myself where I can access a dozen parks (and a million activities) instead of having lots of personal living or yard space, not owning a car since I can easily (and cheaply) rent or take the subway...etc

mattnewton 7y ago

But wouldn’t going into the office also be less than ideal here?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
taborj 7y ago
Trust me, you want your police and fire (and doctors and nurses) to be "going into the office."
- mattnewton 7y ago
  Oh definitely, I guess I assumed OP was not in an essential sector like that since they mentioned working from home.

Analemma_ 7y ago

If you didn't already need it before this went down, a car is an awfully expensive item to have just for a black swan event like this.

pengaru 7y ago

Indeed, public transportation is the worst option when it comes to sanitation.

the_af 7y ago
In cases like this, however, it seems a car is the solution to the wrong problem: you should not be commuting at all. A car is also the "solution" to an individual problem -- "how do I get safely from A to B?" -- but this is a societal problem: "how do we as a society overcome this disease while causing as little damage as possible?". Solutions must be oriented towards the community, not the individual. Everyone using their cars, if they even have them, is not the solution.
- pengaru 7y ago
  I don't commute, but use my automobile to retrieve groceries and potable water every week or two. I don't see this as a poor solution to my particular needs, but I do look forward to it being electric and charged from solar panels on my roof.
  - gumby 7y ago
    You live in a place without a supply of potable water?
    - pengaru 7y ago
      I haul water from a bulk water dispenser in town operated by the city water department, have a cistern cache on site which gets topped up that way. It's not that unusual in desert communities like mine.
      - nradov 7y ago
        It is disappointing how unaware many urbanites are of the realities of life in rural areas. After the travel restrictions are lifted we would do well to get out of our bubbles and see firsthand how others live. That could help reduce the current political and cultural divides.
        scarejunba 7y ago
        What's really disappointing is the degree to which we subsidize the incredible climate costs of non-urban people. When the carbon taxes are finally required, rural Americans will learn just how much they've been externalizing. Our food will be more expensive and it should be but all those other parts of rural living are just this horrendous climate abuse. EDIT: Oops, I mean the costs should be baked in. Obviously governments should provide food aid.

schoen 7y ago

In many places you could use a bike (the appeal and safety level depends a lot on where you live).

jMyles 7y ago

It is unlikely that this virus will kill more people than die in car crashes in a single year. Let's keep some perspective. edit: Commenter below asked for citations, which is reasonable. :-) This comment applies to the USA only. There were 37,991 deaths classified under one of the WISQRS "Motor Vehicle Traffic Death" codes last year.[0] Another 1000-3000 are reasonably counted also, for example, the 203 deaths coded as "Pedestrian injured in nontraffic accident involving other and unspecified motor vehicles." (this includes some cases of people injuring themselves with cars on private property, etc). I think we can safely say 40,000, without even including any part of the long-term health effects of cars; this is just deaths from crashes. We've had 71 deaths from COVID-19 so far[1]. We don't know how many total infections or transmissions have occurred; estimates vary unbelievably wildly because of so little test coverage. [2] It's possible that our death rate is high, more likely that, at least so far, it is much, much lower than has been published in the media (the 8% of people over 65 figure, for example, uses only confirmed cases, which almost certainly represent only a tiny fraction of cases). Based on these numbers and sources, I think it's a reasonable assertion that the number of otherwise unexpected deaths to result from COVID-19 is unlikely to be higher than the number killed by cars. 0: https://webappa.cdc.gov https://webappa.cdc.gov 1: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 2: http://perkinslab.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/6/2/25629832/perkins_etal_sarscov2.pdf http://perkinslab.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/6/2/25629832/perkin...

andbberger 7y ago
[citation needed] That reallllllllllly depends on how we respond as a society in the coming weeks...
cjbprime 7y ago
You are probably baking in assumptions like "people who need critical hospital care but do not have COVID-19 can still receive it", which are deeply under question right now given the number of expected hospitalizations from the virus.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  One of my dads friends just went through the first set of rounds of Chemo for lymphoma. They are having trouble figuring out when he can do his second set.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

Yep. I’m nearly the only employee at my job and I’m trying to decide if it makes sense to work from home. The biggest issue is that I would need to go to the gas station every few days if I keep going to work. I’m probably going to pack up the 3D printers and some other stuff and just work from home to avoid unnecessary exposure. My roommate has respiratory issues.

baq 7y ago
Don’t 3d printers produce fines? I’d double check before bringing them home in your circumstances.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  Most 3d printers shouldn't produce dust or off gassing. If printing with ABS it can be smelly and an enclosure is recommended (but more for the ABS than for you). In general it's a good to always work in well ventilated areas.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  I have six 3D printers at home already. But the ones at work are a bit nicer.
rubidium 7y ago
Just go in and use hand sanitizer + wipes at the pump. No need to make it complicated.
- fortran77 7y ago
  Hand sanitizer and wipes are completely unavailable here because of hoarding and shoplifting.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Commuting in to work means hitting gas stations which increases my chances of infection. Also there’s no wipes or sanitizer at stores I’ve checked.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

The current situation is a good argument for owning a car. It's actually not. It's a good argument for actually diversifying our transit options so people have real choice. A lot of people aren't really pro transit options. They are really for public transit and/or against cars. If it is easier to do a mix of walking, public transit, etc, then there's no single point of failure. If the transit system isn't overloaded, you can sometimes find yourself on the bus by yourself for a bit. If you have flexibility to work from home or go in when you feel like it, that's another way to not be trapped in a crowded bus or whatever. We need to break some lockstep patterns, not trade one monolith for another, which tends to be the argument.

threatofrain 7y ago
That couldn't possibly help people in the next half year. An interesting change to the public transportation system is a tree one plants for the decade or two later.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Often, small tweaks are overlooked or outright dismissed out of hand because people think it's not enough and insist it won't make a difference. But the 80/20 rule tends to apply. If you do whatever small and easy things are immediately possible, you get 80 percent of the way there and it frees up resources and extends the runway so that last hard 20 percent can be resolved or at least better tolerated.
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    For your idea to work, there still has to be an interesting change to how public infrastructure works, and not merely in the change-your-lifestyle way. Having to walk a little bit is already part of the bus/subway/train bargain unless you're pretty lucky. But once you're on the bus there's only so much social distancing you can do. What are you going to do then? Thus, the car is the ultimate vehicle if you don't want even want a driver. Renting a car is the lowest hanging fruit right now for dealing with this problem. If you have a low hanging fruit suggestion then put it out there, but it's not trying to socially distance yourself on a bus, right?

wutbrodo 7y ago

Yea, my habits are very tuned to living in a dense city[1], and all those habits are suddenly very maladaptive...dense urban living is, in general, has a lot of dependencies on the "thrive" part of the thrive/survive spectrum, and as such is not great in times of chaos. [1] Not stocking up on things since I constantly pass stores that contain necessities, locating myself where I can access a dozen parks (and a million activities) instead of having lots of personal living or yard space, not owning a car since I can easily (and cheaply) rent or take the subway...etc