A car is one of the most expensive household consumer items. And yet, there is a limited understanding of the cost privately and socially of owning and using one.
For most of my life I enjoyed owning a car, and not once did I calculate exactly how much it was costing me.
If you "have to have a car", why bother? But do you really have to have one?
Undoubtedly they are a highly convenient mode of transportation, but we pay a high price individually and collectively for that.
Private motor vehicles are expensive because they cost a lot initially to purchase. A car today costs what a house used to cost not so long ago.
There is also depreciation, insurance, registration, repairs, gas, and all it takes to keep a car clean and shiny.
Social costs include pollution, congestion, noise, death and injury (of humans and other living things) from accidents, road maintenance, and health care costs due to inactivity.
All those roads and parking spaces cost a lot, and determine how our landscape is designed. What we get is a planet built for cars, not for people.
It has been estimated that a couple that lives closer to work and bicycles there instead of driving could save them $250,000 over 10 years.
Linda and I are presently in our 3rd year of not having a vehicle, and we have no regrets. But I can't say it has been painless.
After a lifetime of easy mobility, we have had to make alternate arrangements for getting things done.
We have generous friends that have been picking up groceries for us that we order on line.
For other things there is a non-profit organization that provides wheelchair accessible transportation for both Linda and I for $20 dollars per trip. But we find that we don't really have a need to go anywhere.
I ride my bicycle a lot, and ride to town for most things that need to be done.
I ride to a small store run by a local family for small food orders, like onions or apples or potatoes, then carry the food home in a pack on my back.
Instead of driving and taking 30 minutes, it takes me about 2 hours on my bike. But those are 2 glorious hours in comparison.
People generally want to be healthier these days. Studies show that cycling and walking is not just physically healthy, but is also beneficial for mental heath.
Cycling is ideal for shorter distances. In cities it can be faster than driving, and it is definitely more enjoyable.
I have never seen someone on a bicycle get road rage.
Road relaxation is more likely.
But for the majority of people, the most important thing these days will be saving money. Saving lots of money.
If you want to go extreme frugal, I would highly recommend going car free.
We wish we had done it 30 years ago when we first talked about it.
“In a sense the car has become a prosthetic, and though prosthetics are usually for injured or missing limbs, the auto-prosthetic is for a conceptually impaired body or a body impaired by the creation of a world that is no longer human in scale.”― Rebecca Solnit
I love that you and Linda are car free, even with mobility challenges. It goes to show that really, for a LOT of us, a car is a WANT and not a need. I find myself asking myself that question more and more as I get older. We do have one 20 year old car (bought with cash second hand ten years ago), and every now and then I break it out of the garage to knock off as many chores as possible in the bigger town 20 minutes drive away. Otherwise it's Shank's Pony for us (as my dear Mum used to say). We walk everywhere. Kindy, school, Dr (not often as health care here in shambles- that's another story), cafes, markets, parks...everywhere our small town has to offer. Yesterday the children and I walked along the train tracks collecting kindling for the fire and windfall apples. The latter were stewed up this morning with brown sugar and cinnamon and enjoyed on porridge. Walking allows you to stay fit, enjoy nature and meet people, and enjoy the free offerings from both at times! We're in feijoa season here so it's hard to walk past a house that doesn't have a bucket out the front that's heaving with complimentary harvest. Driving is expensive, polluting and dealing with idiots on their phones, road rage and queues. Yeah, nah.
ReplyDeleteinitially I felt more free with a car. Over the years that feeling shifted. Now I feel freer without a car.
DeleteWalking along the train tracks sounds great. Apparently Henry David Thoreau thought that trains were even too much. He would have really disliked what cars have done to us and our world.
People are so car dependent that they rarely walk very far, which is a shame. The only thing sadder than someone like Linda that can't walk and wants to, would be people that can walk and choose not to. A car is just an elaborate wheelchair (as shown by the Solnit quote above), but they are not seen that way, and definitely not marketed that way.
Having never heard of feijoa before, I had to look it up. Beautiful blossoms. Free food is my favourite!
- Gregg
If you don't drive your car regularly, most insurance companies will insure them for occasional use. We did that for the last 20 years we owned a car because we weren't using it for commuting, and it saved us considerable money.
Delete- Gregg
No vehicle here either. I purchased a one-time lifetime share in a car share co-op a few years ago for less than most monthly car payments and only use it to get out of Dodge from time to time and to go camping in the summers. With the car share I know exactly what my daily rate is going to be, and my share takes covers insurance and roadside assistance - my only obligation, other than making sure I return the vehicle at the promised time, is to leave the tank at least one quarter full. I envy you being able to ride your bike. Childhood measles left me with very poor balance (don't laugh, but if I don't tilt my head "just so" I end up walking in circles), although if I can find a way to resolve the storage issue I have considered shelling out for a folding adult trike (would cost about the same as my lifetime car share). My late husband ran his IT business from the back of a bicycle - 90% of his clients were within easy cycling distance of our home and it was rare that he needed to carry any more than what he could haul in a backpack, laptop included. When extreme winter weather (as can happen on the Canadian prairies) made using the bicycle impossible, he either donned his Sorels and tramped his way to where he needed to be, boarded a transit bus or, rarely, called a cab. Our biggest annoyance was bike theft, so he bought cheap bikes, became an expert on filing police reports, and learned to take dealing with CRA's annual queries re "questionable business expenses" in stride. I think the car has a lot to answer for in terms of what it has taken from us in terms of mental, physical and community health.
ReplyDeleteA car share co-op is a very good idea. Most cars spend 95% of their time not moving.
Delete- Gregg