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1   BayArea   2019 Jul 9, 10:20pm  

40,000 traffic deaths per year ugh

That about 1 in every 8000 people...
2   Patrick   2019 Jul 10, 3:28am  

We are compelled to own cars in order to keep our cash flowing to Saudi Arabia.

Efficient public transit would use far less fuel.
3   BayArea   2019 Jul 10, 6:20am  

To be fair, extending BART to Palo Alto, Burlingame, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos etc would mean a direct line connection from Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo.

Rich Silicon Valley residents would not stand for this kind of riff raff.

Also, efficient public transportation is not easy in a culture that uses the detached single family suburban home with the big yard.

Rich Silicon Valley residents would not stand for high density housing.
4   Tenpoundbass   2019 Jul 10, 6:49am  

So there's no upside to car ownership?

When did Americans become such whinny defeatist little shits?

I'm happy with my car and wont be pondering my car ownership as something that has impugned a millennial.
5   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2019 Jul 10, 7:01am  

Patrick says
We are compelled to own cars in order to keep our cash flowing to Saudi Arabia.

Efficient public transit would use far less fuel.


Is this really true anymore? We can drill our own oil at this point, certainly in enough quantity for technology to catch up economically where everyone can afford electric vehicles.

I do agree that US cities would be better off with more light rail or similar, but I see clearly that people don’t want to give up their cars.
6   Tenpoundbass   2019 Jul 10, 8:21am  

CovfefeButDeadly says
I do agree that US cities would be better off with more light rail


That does not work for no city in South Florida. I'm talking about from Miami all the way up to the Palm Beaches. We're on a North to South and East to West grid. We don't have circular bypasses, or diagonal criss crosses. So a commute from South to North then have to get off and catch a bus, No east to west Trains down here. All of this double or triples commute times for those dumb enough to try it. 90% of the people who try it, to be progressive. All end up going back to their car in less than a week. It only works for people who live near the train and work near the train. What's that 3% of the population at best?
7   RWSGFY   2019 Jul 10, 9:51am  

Arguing against cars on the basis of some people sometimes dying in them is weak sauce and a sign that lefty collectivists are running out of ideas.

Would the author feel better if his neighbor was stabbed on a bus or pushed under a subway train?
8   socal2   2019 Jul 10, 10:04am  

Tim Aurora says
A friend who owned three cars, downgraded to one car after moving close to his work in downtown. He substituted his car with biking and uber . I am currently on my third EV and thinking of buying another Volt ( hybrid) for my daughter. Besides saving money, you get better parking and access to HOV and toll lanes


I believe self driving cars will dramatically decrease fatalities on the road and will also improve traffic. Give me self driving cars and human carrying drones any day of the week before more 18th century technology like trains and dramatically redesigning cities with super dense housing.
9   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2019 Jul 10, 12:00pm  

I was compelled to own a car when going horseback from Reseda to Palmdale became fucking impossible long adventure!

Going to get groceries, 2 day trip horse back to the city ya all. Are liberals this fucking out of touch with reality that they don't realize why we all use cars? God damn overgrown infants, get out of your mamas house and go get a job like the rest of society.

Liberals are fucking stupid!
10   Malcolm   2019 Jul 10, 1:43pm  

Simple, it was cheaper than paying for a ride.
11   Reality   2019 Jul 10, 2:28pm  

Government policies endorsed cars in the post-WWII era likely due to the US having won WWII because of the massive car making industry could be quickly transformed into making tanks and aircrafts (not to mention the even more numerous military trucks to keep soldiers fed and having bullets and shells to throw at the enemy). At the time of WWII (or between WWI and WWII), the US car making industry likely had a capacity that was more than double or even quadruple the rest of the world combined! The "arsenal for democracy" wasn't a joke.

American public embraced cars from 1946 to 1980's due to cars lowering cost of living and raising income potential: the 1950's bunglo's built along the beltways outside the big cities offered much much lower housing cost than the rent in the city. Businesses could also find more grounds to build along the beltways at lower ground rent . . . that meant more jobs and more higher paying jobs as more employers compete against each other for the labor pool.

The Saudi oil angle only came about later, after 1970 or so, when the US Dollar became pure fiat, so the middleast oil functioned as a dollar repatriation system funneling money to the big US investment banks.

What's killing cars / car-ownership for youths today is the high insurance cost due to regulations on the insurance industry itself as well as regulations on the medical industry raising injury medical cost sky high. Regulations making cars more expensive than they have to be don't help either.

Public transportation is always more expensive than private cars (when insurance, medical and car price are not regulated into high priced monopolies) for the same reason that Amtrack is more expensive than flights despite far less energy expenditure moving on the ground than flying in the air: the price a monopoly can charge is Infinity!

Real competition among several/numerous providers when cars are self-driving taxis can make for an interesting future. One problem: how to prevent people turning self-driving cars into guided missiles on the ground? Consequently, would society become segregated hamlets that severely restrict travel by unidentified people/goods?

Self-driving bombs and the shock wave of explosion in atmosphere may well someday become the leading reason why people finally find a compelling reason to get off the planet: in space, even a nuclear blast within short distance can have its damage limited by vacuum and reflectors / lead shielding, quite unlike the shock wave in atmosphere.
12   B.A.C.A.H.   2019 Jul 10, 2:36pm  

We just can't afford it anymore. It's too darn expensive.
13   BayArea   2019 Jul 10, 10:12pm  

FortWayneIndiana says
I was compelled to own a car when going horseback from Reseda to Palmdale became fucking impossible long adventure!

Going to get groceries, 2 day trip horse back to the city ya all. Are liberals this fucking out of touch with reality that they don't realize why we all use cars? God damn overgrown infants, get out of your mamas house and go get a job like the rest of society.

Liberals are fucking stupid!


Hehe, this made me lol
14   RWSGFY   2019 Jul 10, 10:41pm  

Reality says
What's killing cars / car-ownership for youths today is the high insurance cost due to regulations on the insurance industry itself as well as regulations on the medical industry raising injury medical cost sky high. Regulations making cars more expensive than they have to be don't help either.


The easy workaround is to buy a Mexican ID for the sole purpose of driving. No need to buy insurance and nobody in the right mind would sue an illegal alien for damages (real or imagined).
15   HeadSet   2019 Jul 11, 6:15am  

American public embraced cars from 1946 to 1980's

Americans embraced cars ever since the Model T came out. Remember 15 million Model Ts were sold from about 1908 to 1927. The follow on Model A did pretty good as well. Cars were very common even during the pre-war depression.

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