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Over the past few years, I've been taking driving very seriously in terms of skill development and practice. One ritual I've started doing is thanking my car a

Over the past few years, I've been taking driving very seriously in terms of skill development and practice. One ritual I've started doing is thanking my car after every drive. For the privilege I'm afforded by being able to drive freely unlike most of the world. For the car itself for holding up so reliably. And for the hundred+ years of engineering man hours and passion given to get where we are today. In any population of drivers, the effort put in saves (literally) countless lives every day. And while things like sturdy bridges and the reliability of tall buildings are obviously important, driving involves flinging your fragile body extremely fast (in comparison to normal movement) while fighting tooth and nail against physics to perform as you want. It keeps me humble and, as a bonus, makes me care for my car more through maintenance and cleanliness.

auxym 4y ago
I am mechanical engineer, though I never worked in engineering. The low cost and amazing reliability, all things considered, of modern cars, absolutely amazes me.
playingalong 4y ago
You seem to suggest cars save more lives than they take. I am not sure that's the case. Especially knowing the car injury stats and secondary effects of different kinds of pollution.
- petodo 4y ago
  It's quite simple math, for instance ambulances deliver every year thousands of people in life threatening conditions, while road deaths are in low hundreds, there is no noncar alternative to ambulance really. Regarding pollution it would be very complicated to calculate, but I think you overestimate impact of public and personal transport on pollution, it's negligible compared to other sources of pollution calculated per capita.
- spicybright 4y ago
  Definitely not. But it's not just only optimizing for life, it's having flexible and reliable transportation while making sure as few injuries happen as possible in the process. Motor travel let us distribute food, medicine, and specialized labor that would otherwise be impossible/impractical to do. Sure you can argue that's not worth the non zero number of lives lost in the process, but we wouldn't be able to live the modern lifestyles we have today without it. Like being able to go to a hospital filled with teams of experienced specialists to get better treatment.

auxym 4y ago

I am mechanical engineer, though I never worked in engineering. The low cost and amazing reliability, all things considered, of modern cars, absolutely amazes me.

playingalong 4y ago

You seem to suggest cars save more lives than they take. I am not sure that's the case. Especially knowing the car injury stats and secondary effects of different kinds of pollution.

petodo 4y ago
It's quite simple math, for instance ambulances deliver every year thousands of people in life threatening conditions, while road deaths are in low hundreds, there is no noncar alternative to ambulance really. Regarding pollution it would be very complicated to calculate, but I think you overestimate impact of public and personal transport on pollution, it's negligible compared to other sources of pollution calculated per capita.
spicybright 4y ago
Definitely not. But it's not just only optimizing for life, it's having flexible and reliable transportation while making sure as few injuries happen as possible in the process. Motor travel let us distribute food, medicine, and specialized labor that would otherwise be impossible/impractical to do. Sure you can argue that's not worth the non zero number of lives lost in the process, but we wouldn't be able to live the modern lifestyles we have today without it. Like being able to go to a hospital filled with teams of experienced specialists to get better treatment.