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I think you can still travel long distances anonymously using a bicycle. Stephen King treats bikes as the canonical post-apocalyptic transit method — roads are

by mherdeg 12y ago

I think you can still travel long distances anonymously using a bicycle. Stephen King treats bikes as the canonical post-apocalyptic transit method — roads are too crowded with abandoned cars for automobile travel to be effective, and motorcycle travel is very dangerous (there is no ambulance if you have a high-speed accident). But you can do a hundred miles in a day on a bike. That's not bad. I've also never been asked for ID when using an Amtrak ticket, although my sample size is low (15 journeys) and I always use a credit card at point of purchase (either online or at a ticket counter).

JoshTriplett 12y ago
Motorcycles also need gas.
- varikin 12y ago
  And motorcycles need constant maintenance.
  - jff 12y ago
    But the maintenance is really pretty simple, the biggest problem with any gas-burning vehicle would be that all modern gas will be more or less useless after a year or so.
    - JoshTriplett 12y ago
      Electrics would have similar problems, though at least they can be charged from either generators or the electrical grid.
      - jff 12y ago
        A diesel motorcycle would probably be the best bet, since diesel engines can be made to run on a variety of other fuels. The US Marines have one, the M103M1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/automobiles/24KAWASAKI.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/automobiles/24KAWASAKI.htm...) but they're not really available to the public.
derekp7 12y ago
It's funny you mention that, because he doesn't bring up bicycles in several of his post-apocalypse books (I'm thinking of The Stand as one specific example -- the characters all walk from one end of the country to the other).
- ComputerGuru 12y ago
  I'm fairly sure The Stand uses bicycles as the primary mode of transportation? Unless I'm mixing that up with Under the Dome, but I don't think so?
  - CWuestefeld 12y ago
    It's been many years since I read it, but I seem to recall that in the full director's cut version (or whatever they call the not-well-edited version that came out second), the conclusion of the book involved a package in a basket on the handlebars of a bike?
  - hsod 12y ago
    It's not Under the Dome-- there are some kids that bike around but all the adults drive
- mherdeg 12y ago
  One of the passages I'm thinking of from The Stand: == Halfway there a thought rose to the surface of his mind like a bubble and popped. It happened casually, with no fanfare, but the implications brought him to a dead halt. The thought was: Why haven't you been riding a bicycle? He stood in the middle of the lawn, equidistant from the stream and the house, flabbergasted by the simplicity of it. He had been walking ever since he had ditched the Harley. Walking, wearing himself out, finally collapsing with sunstroke or something so close to it that it made no difference. And he could have been pedaling along, doing no more than a fast run if that's what he felt like, and he would probably be on the coast now, picking out his summer house and stocking it. ==
fredkbloggs 12y ago
Much like Greyhound drivers, Amtrak conductors don't always ask to see ID, regardless of where or how the ticket was purchased. It's hit-or-miss in coach, depending (at least) on the conductor, the train, and your boarding station. In first class it's either exceedingly rare or nonexistent, at least west of Chicago. The NEC may be different; I've traveled over 40,000 miles on Amtrak but never there. A reasonable thing for the author to point out would have been that this has become yet another seldom-enforced law/regulation. Such policies are bad because they allow for selective and abusive enforcement, erode respect for the rule of law as an institution, provide none of the purported security benefits for which the policy was made in the first place, and create confusion as to what laws and regulations actually exist. As a separate thought exercise, consider the otherwise law-abiding individual who has constructed an identity and identification indistinguishable from a real one, but different from his own. Since there is no means of validating a piece of identification anyway, and in the circumstances described herein no means of determining from an individual's name whether he is to be prohibited from boarding, what's the point anyway? There are a lot of similar rabbit holes here; it's really best not to think about it, because (a) nothing you or anyone does is ever going to change it for the better, and (b) you're never going to discover any kind of logic to any of it. Make yourself a phony-but-real ID if you want, or don't. Travel, or don't. But don't try to reason about or change government policy; it's a waste of mental energy.

by mherdeg 12y ago

JoshTriplett 12y ago

Motorcycles also need gas.

varikin 12y ago
And motorcycles need constant maintenance.
- jff 12y ago
  But the maintenance is really pretty simple, the biggest problem with any gas-burning vehicle would be that all modern gas will be more or less useless after a year or so.
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    Electrics would have similar problems, though at least they can be charged from either generators or the electrical grid.
    - jff 12y ago
      A diesel motorcycle would probably be the best bet, since diesel engines can be made to run on a variety of other fuels. The US Marines have one, the M103M1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/automobiles/24KAWASAKI.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/automobiles/24KAWASAKI.htm...) but they're not really available to the public.

derekp7 12y ago

It's funny you mention that, because he doesn't bring up bicycles in several of his post-apocalypse books (I'm thinking of The Stand as one specific example -- the characters all walk from one end of the country to the other).

ComputerGuru 12y ago
I'm fairly sure The Stand uses bicycles as the primary mode of transportation? Unless I'm mixing that up with Under the Dome, but I don't think so?
- CWuestefeld 12y ago
  It's been many years since I read it, but I seem to recall that in the full director's cut version (or whatever they call the not-well-edited version that came out second), the conclusion of the book involved a package in a basket on the handlebars of a bike?
- hsod 12y ago
  It's not Under the Dome-- there are some kids that bike around but all the adults drive
mherdeg 12y ago
One of the passages I'm thinking of from The Stand: == Halfway there a thought rose to the surface of his mind like a bubble and popped. It happened casually, with no fanfare, but the implications brought him to a dead halt. The thought was: Why haven't you been riding a bicycle? He stood in the middle of the lawn, equidistant from the stream and the house, flabbergasted by the simplicity of it. He had been walking ever since he had ditched the Harley. Walking, wearing himself out, finally collapsing with sunstroke or something so close to it that it made no difference. And he could have been pedaling along, doing no more than a fast run if that's what he felt like, and he would probably be on the coast now, picking out his summer house and stocking it. ==

fredkbloggs 12y ago

Much like Greyhound drivers, Amtrak conductors don't always ask to see ID, regardless of where or how the ticket was purchased. It's hit-or-miss in coach, depending (at least) on the conductor, the train, and your boarding station. In first class it's either exceedingly rare or nonexistent, at least west of Chicago. The NEC may be different; I've traveled over 40,000 miles on Amtrak but never there. A reasonable thing for the author to point out would have been that this has become yet another seldom-enforced law/regulation. Such policies are bad because they allow for selective and abusive enforcement, erode respect for the rule of law as an institution, provide none of the purported security benefits for which the policy was made in the first place, and create confusion as to what laws and regulations actually exist. As a separate thought exercise, consider the otherwise law-abiding individual who has constructed an identity and identification indistinguishable from a real one, but different from his own. Since there is no means of validating a piece of identification anyway, and in the circumstances described herein no means of determining from an individual's name whether he is to be prohibited from boarding, what's the point anyway? There are a lot of similar rabbit holes here; it's really best not to think about it, because (a) nothing you or anyone does is ever going to change it for the better, and (b) you're never going to discover any kind of logic to any of it. Make yourself a phony-but-real ID if you want, or don't. Travel, or don't. But don't try to reason about or change government policy; it's a waste of mental energy.