Has the passion gone out of America’s fabled love affair with the automobile?

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Has the passion gone out of America’s fabled love affair with the automobile?

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Started 1 year ago by News
Latest reply from GCrites80s

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cheap
Westgate
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JonMyers said:
I would guess that maybe the headline should be changed to

Has the passion gone out of America’s fabled love affair with automobile ownership?

While I can appreciate cars, there are some cars that make me turn my head, fun to ride in, but car ownership is a rolling prison cell. Even if your car is paid off, you're a sitting duck in your car, as cities and states desperate for a way to generate revenue continue to target drivers for the most minor of offenses.

All that over-policing of driving adds up to dollars for government, but taxes drivers.

I think many drivers are recognizing this addition to the money pit of owning a car, and it's one other thing making people have second thoughts about car ownership.

JonMyers said:

I think many drivers are recognizing this addition to the money pit of owning a car, and it's one other thing making people have second thoughts about car ownership.

it's the price you pay for the independence of just jumping in and taking off.

time cannot be replaced,money can.

Posted 1 year ago #
GCrites80s
5xNW
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Enjoyment of automobiles, motorcycles etc. and functional walkable places don't have to be mutually exclusive. I enjoy both. I don't like using up my free time sitting in traffic or driving the same route over and over on a raging highway. Somehow people have confused spending a lot of time sitting behind a windshield just to take care of everyday tasks as a love affair with the automobile. That kind of driving makes me like cars less, not more. Autocrosses, drag strips, twisty roads, unique vehicles and spectating at big races make me love the automobile. I-670, lonely drives through sprawl, ribbon development and efforts to turn vibrant cities into Brice Road make me hate it. Sprawl ruins the native habitat of automobile pleasure by straightening curves, flattening hills, widening roads through rural areas, taking away the individual character of the scenery to replace it with more of the same development seen all over the nation, adding triggerhappy, overfunded small-town traffic cops charged with trying to mitigate the very problems caused by sprawl, closing racetracks and turning off-road areas into yet more parking lots.

"The love affair with the automobile" is the very thing that may be its undoing. Will it really be that bad if cars become more like motorcycles where most of the people who participate are the people who actually care? It'll sure take a bunch of dumbasses off the road.

Posted 1 year ago #
alexs
Limestone bluffs of the Scioto
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When they invent the George Foreman Home Pizza Printer, 1/3 of the road traffic will be gone.

Posted 1 year ago #
misskitty
Columbus
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"The love affair with the automobile" is the very thing that may be its undoing. Will it really be that bad if cars become more like motorcycles where most of the people who participate are the people who actually care? It'll sure take a bunch of dumbasses off the road

That's a great point :)+1

Posted 1 year ago #
ricospaz

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cheap said:
it's the price you pay for the independence of just jumping in and taking off.

time cannot be replaced,money can.

Amen to that!

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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It's true that time cannot be replaced. Which is why I never want to sit in a car for a daily work commute for 30 minutes in each direction. That sounds like torture to me... not freedom, independence or passion.

Posted 1 year ago #
0Angle
Home-Northwood Park, Breweries-43215
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I've said it before; whether I'm working downtown or on Dublin Rd., it takes at most the same time to ride a bike as to drive. There is no downside. Well, I guess there's the geese on the mixed use trail and the ignorant jerk that flicked his cigarette in my general direction on 5th Ave., but other than that, there is no downside.

Posted 1 year ago #
JeepGirl

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Walker said:
It's true that time cannot be replaced. Which is why I never want to sit in a car for a daily work commute for 30 minutes in each direction. That sounds like torture to me... not freedom, independence or passion.

Guess it's all in how someone chooses to deal with a commute. If your world is so hussle-bussle that every minute matters then I see your point. I use the drive time as my own time, I stash my phone in the console, turn on some music, don't get in a hurry, and chill as I drive. Works for me.

Posted 1 year ago #
DavidF
Elysium Fields
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JeepGirl said:
Guess it's all in how someone chooses to deal with a commute. If your world is so hussle-bussle that every minute matters then I see your point. I use the drive time as my own time, I stash my phone in the console, turn on some music, don't get in a hurry, and chill as I drive. Works for me.

I loved living where I could walk to everything, but I gotta admit, I had jobs where several times a week I would have meetings or hearings several hours away and I absolutely loved those drives. If it wasn't too late, I'd map out round about, back road ways to get back home.

Posted 1 year ago #
Twixlen
The Weston District
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JeepGirl said:
Guess it's all in how someone chooses to deal with a commute. If your world is so hussle-bussle that every minute matters then I see your point. I use the drive time as my own time, I stash my phone in the console, turn on some music, don't get in a hurry, and chill as I drive. Works for me.

A friend of mine used her commute as her alone time - she has 4 kids, and that 30 minutes in the car each way was the only time she got to be autonomous.

I love driving. Really, really love it. I wish I'd been one of those kids someone stuck in a minicart, and got to graduate to racing supersports like my brother. I also love that sensation of heading home & enjoying the evening so much that I drive past my house, and just drive. I could wax totally poetic about it, but I'll resist.

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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JeepGirl said:
Guess it's all in how someone chooses to deal with a commute. If your world is so hussle-bussle that every minute matters then I see your point. I use the drive time as my own time, I stash my phone in the console, turn on some music, don't get in a hurry, and chill as I drive. Works for me.

I'm a fairly busy person, but it's not a "hustle-bustle" thing. I'd rather spend that extra hour a day with my family or doing something productive. Chilling while driving is easier said than done for most people during a rush hour commute, so I commend you for having that gift. ;) Driving in heavy traffic usually Just annoys me.

Posted 1 year ago #
tdziemia
GV/Schumacher
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I'm with twixlen. For 25 years I commuted an hour each way in a big northeast corridor city. If I think of all those accumulated hours (and greenhouse gases) I could go a bit crazy, bu tit never felt like that day by day. In the morning I used to the time to catch the news and mentally prepare for my day; the evening to decompress (and more news ... yeah, only NPR is worth listening to THAT much). Now that I'm in COlumbus, an hour gets you to great places like Logan or Zanesville. More seriously, I've enjoyed long road trips with my dog and a tent to visit my son in Colorado, getting to know all kinds of offbeat places in Kansas and Missouri along the way (Cathedral of the Plains in Voctoria, KS, a spectacular neo-norman church; the roadside cafe in Wilson with the homemade pies,and watching an enormous wind farm keep adding turbines just a bit farther east. Stone Hill winery right along I-70- in Missouri with some shockingly tasty wines).
Remains to be seen how my sons will line up on the issue. Neither of them rushed out to get their licenses on their birthdays, but one just borrowed my Prius for a 5,000 mile roadtrip with his girlfriend.

Posted 1 year ago #
JeepGirl

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Walker said:
I'm a fairly busy person, but it's not a "hustle-bustle" thing. I'd rather spend that extra hour a day with my family or doing something productive. Chilling while driving is easier said than done for most people during a rush hour commute, so I commend you for having that gift. ;) Driving in heavy traffic usually Just annoys me.

So if you're able to spend that time with your family or doing something else, then apparently you have no commute at all, correct?

Yeah, rush hour traffic used to annoy me too when I let it. I just don't let it anymore.

Posted 1 year ago #
JeepGirl

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Twixlen said:
I also love that sensation of heading home & enjoying the evening so much that I drive past my house, and just drive.

I can completely relate to this. I often vary my route on a whim just for a change of scenery. Last Monday I detoured through Grandview and Upper Arlington just to admire some of the homes.

Posted 1 year ago #
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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JeepGirl said:
So if you're able to spend that time with your family or doing something else, then apparently you have no commute at all, correct?

It's an eight minute bus ride, give or take. Which I generally use to check email, read the news, etc. So they're 8 productive minutes.

Or a 22 minute walk if the weather is nice and I feel like listening to music and chilling. ;)

I have worked previous jobs where I've had longer auto commutes, and it was nothing but wasted time for me. Just my own personal opinion. YMMV. (pun intended)

Posted 1 year ago #
JeepGirl

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Walker said:
YMMV. (pun intended)

Pun understood and accepted. :)

Walker said:
It's an eight minute bus ride, give or take. Which I generally use to check email, read the news, etc. So they're 8 productive minutes.

Or a 22 minute walk if the weather is nice and I feel like listening to music and chilling. ;)

I have worked previous jobs where I've had longer auto commutes, and it was nothing but wasted time for me. Just my own personal opinion. YMMV. (pun intended)

Oh, I understand and absolutely respect that everyone has there own circumstance and preferences, no issue there at all. Matter of fact if I could walk a few minutes to work I might do that. But then after work I would jump in the Jeep and head out for a spin. My step-daughter and niece love to go for rides when we can.

Posted 1 year ago #
NEOBuckeye
Ohio At-Large
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A car for me always has been just a means of getting from point A to point B and back. Bells and whistles like dashboard MP3 players, high-powered engines, and bluetooth setups are nice, but I'm quite happy with something that runs and runs reliably, looks decent, and isn't a gas and oil-guzzling maintenance money trap.

I can't see not having a car at any point in my life, but that's more out of general need, given the sprawling and spread out nature of our built environment, and job requirements, rather than desire. There's really no joy whatsoever in driving for me. I think of all of the times I've been stuck in traffic (I absolutely hate, hate, HATE traffic jams) either because of construction or else because a bunch of people wanted to rubberneck at a traffic stop or accident as if they've never seen one before, and those experiences pretty much negate for me any benefit of cruising around town late at night or during weekend afternoons.

If we someday have quality intra/inter metro rail systems all over that connected to all significant points of interest, and a more densely built environment that allows for all trips to be completed successfully, safely, and in a reasonable amount of time by walking or biking, I would seriously consider ditching my car if I could effectively get around without it.

Posted 1 year ago #
chrisgillespie
Short North/Victorian Village
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Hubby is a boomer, and I'm Gen X. But, I'm the bigger car fan. I love classic cars. Our current cars are totally practical (a vibe and a fit that we bought using cash for clunkers trading in an old pickup). I work from home, so I don't really drive a lot anymore. However, my first car was a 65 mustang. I spent about 2 weeks when I got that thing cleaning/waxing every inch inside and out. Loved driving it. I still think old mustangs are things of beauty. We were at our home in Hermann at the end of April through early May, and it turned out the Shelbyfest was going on one of the weekends. The weather wasn't the best, but during a dry spell, we walked down, and I excitedly drug Carl to each of the older cars. I don't know why, but old cars often make my heart pitter-pat :)

tdziemia said:
Stone Hill winery right along I-70- in Missouri with some shockingly tasty wines.

I'll agree with you there. I'm guessing you went to the one in New Florence. The original Stone Hill Winery is in Hermann.

Posted 1 year ago #
Anne
King Lincoln
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Safety and air bags are the biggest plus for me and that's what would keep me from wanting an older car.

There are times late on a cool evening I like to drive around blasting music, simply because I don't get to do that anymore with little sensitive ears in the backseat. And driving on hilly fun roads is cool. But I like that because of the scenery, not because of what I'm driving.

Posted 1 year ago #
JonMyers
HCMC, Vietnam ✈
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Gram: True it does depend on the individual as to whether or not you can go carless. I do it in Columbus, but that's not for everyone. Many people don't have a choice, which is why I called it a prison. Although, I have had friends who were suddenly forced into being carless.

Though it can be inconvenient they somehow adapt.

I'm also big on convenience and independence in transportation. Here in Saigon I have a motorbike I can roll right up on the sidewalk, park and walk in a place. It's incredibly efficient and I can get across town in seemingly terrifying traffic (it's actually not) in about 10 to 15 minutes max. I pay $50 bucks a month for it, and gas is about $5 bucks every two weeks.

It's better than a subway train (non-existent here), and way more efficient than a bus.

When I leave here to return to the states I just turn it in. No hassles.

My friend from Columbus (attorney ironically) was in town last week, was initially terrified to even cross the street in the thicket of motorbikes. Eventually he got his own motorbike here.

I bring it up because I recall my friend lamenting the fact he was trapped by all these belongings and a slave to the car.

I'm by no means suggesting self-organizing chaos with a family of four piled up on a motorbike for American roads, wouldn't work there too much road rage (there is none here), and too regulated.

What I am saying is there should probably be a lot more experimentation with transportation solutions and it should not be a partisan issue, which it has become.

You never know what might work. I'm shocked it works so well here.

gramarye said:
JM: Unfortunately, those "second thoughts" are just that--thoughts. I'd love to have enough public transit options to go carless, but it is completely not an option for anyone in a profession where you might need to get up and go somewhere quickly and unexpectedly.

I recognize the fact that car ownership is a money pit, even with it completely paid off. Fuel, maintenance (both routine and occasionally extraordinary), insurance, and the occasional ticket add up to a lot. Recognizing a pit and escaping it are different things.

Posted 1 year ago #