Article: "Was the Automotive Era a Terrible Mistake?"

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction) 07/25/2019 at 10:45 • Filed to: None

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Long read. I wonder what percentage of the global population would answer that question in the affirmative? More and more every day, I think, unfortunately for us enthusiasts . Will be interesting to see how things change over the next couple decades. My oldest will be driving in 3 years, my youngest in 9. What will their life with cars be like? We live in a very rural area, so automation and ride-sharing will come to us last (if at all), but as cities’ transportation becomes more automated, how do those who these new transportation networks do not serve maintain their freedom of movement? At some point, will I have to park my truck on the outskirts of the city and hail a autonomobile to ferry me the last few miles?

The summer I was eighteen, I visited a parking lot forty-five minutes north of town and got behind the wheel for what I hoped would be the first real rite of my adulthood. I was tall, gangly, excitable. Less than a week earlier, following a brief stretch of test-taking at the Department of Motor Vehicles in San Francisco, I had received my learner’s permit. Learning in those days seemed easy. Tests were easy. Doing—when the matter arose at all—was hard. Behind the wheel, I made a show of adjusting the mirrors, as if preparing for a ten-mile journey in reverse. I surveyed the blank pavement ahead of me and slowly slid the gear-shift from park into drive.

Cars had been my first passion. As a two-year-old, I’d learned to recognize the make of vehicles by the logo near the fender or perched on the hood. I grew to understand the people in my life according to their cars; I learned what sort of person I was from my parents’ two old Hondas, one of which, a used beige Accord, I had gone with them to buy. My father’s lingering bachelor vehicle, a rotting yellow Civic, needed to be choked awake on dewy mornings, and I’d performed that job with relish, pulling out the knob beside the steering wheel, waiting a long moment, and pushing it back. This was the late eighties. Gas prices had fallen, and the roads were knotty with cars from across the world. I no longer remember what, as a small child, I envisaged for my future, but I know that it involved moving at speed behind the wheel.

Now, all those years later, the parking lot was virtually empty of cars, and I felt a flush of reassurance. I was learning in my parents’ highly defatigable ride, a minivan with an all-plastic interior and the turning radius of a dump truck. My teacher was my father, a flawless but not wholly valiant driver, who habitually refused to drive on certain bridges in certain directions, for fear of being, as he would put it, “hypnotized” by trusses passing alongside the road. For reasons lost to time, my little sister was on board, too, in the back. I eased my foot onto the gas; the engine revved for a moment, and the van lurched.

For the first time, I felt the seething power of the thing—not as a conveyance, which is how I had known cars in the past, but as a huge appetitive machine that interacted with the world through its own strength and expressed urges I did not. I was, I realized with a start, embarrassed at the wheel. It felt like being observed during a first attempt at slow dancing; my impulse almost at once was to use the brake. I did, and now it was my father and my sister who lurched...

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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:30

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For the first time, I felt the seething power of the thing... as a huge appetitive machine that interacted with the world through its own strength and expressed urges I did not.

Puff, puff, pass, dude.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:35

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I’m teaching my child how to drive right now and I can just see the change in her, it’s like ohhhh wow this thing goes and I can control it’s power. She said the other night I like this car, it does what I want.

facw > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:38

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Lots of problems, with pollution, traffic deaths, wasted space in cities, etc. Certainly not all bad, though we definitely need better public transport.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 07/25/2019 at 10:47

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Haha - nice. Control & freedom! 

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:50

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No mistake shall ever be as large and horrific as the internet.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > facw 07/25/2019 at 10:51

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The U.S., especially newer cities that grew mostly after cars were commonplace, is just set up for people in individual transports and not buses or trains. Works great in a place that’s densely populated, but in a place with a city core and far ranging suburbs in all directions, there’s no good public transport solution.

Cleaner, safer and more efficient are definitely things to strive for. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 07/25/2019 at 10:51

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LOL

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 07/25/2019 at 10:52

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All tools can be used for evil.

facw > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:55

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Still doesn’t hurt to add it. You don’t have that density precisely because the transit isn’t there. If you don’t put it in, sprawl will just continue. Houston, which has no subway, elevated, or commuter rail, and only three light rail lines (two of which are short) is currently building a third-ring road (the area enclosed by it is roughly twice the size of Rhode Island). This is continuing bad development practices when they could be encouraging building up, not out.

functionoverfashion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 10:58

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Good read, as much of the New Yorker tends to be. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > facw 07/25/2019 at 10:58

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No, it doesn’t hurt. It will help the people it serves, and alleviate some traffic.

Houston is insane.

benjrblant > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 07/25/2019 at 10:58

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No mistake shall ever be as large and horrific as the internet Oppositelock .

FIFY.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > functionoverfashion 07/25/2019 at 10:59

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At some point, I’m going to have to buy subscriptions to some of these sources...

Not yet, though. 

facw > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 11:04

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Heh, that graphic... And here’s the thing, based on the contours, I’m pretty sure that is showing Route 6, which I wasn’t even counting because it’s not a real highway most of the way. I was talking about the new Route 99 (Grand Parkway) which is like 5-10 miles out beyond Route 6.

functionoverfashion > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 11:05

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My mother has been a New Yorker subscriber forever. I have been on and off, but I find that it takes me the whole time between when the issues arrive to read through one. So I might get through it but then I don’t read any books.

The Atlantic is a good one, too, we’re on that kick for the time being partly because they’re less frequent but still contain a variety of good journalism.

I’d like to say it’s because of the kids that I don’t read more, but I’m sure I’d find other excuses in their absence. 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > facw 07/25/2019 at 11:13

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Yeah, it’s an old graphic.

I had an opportunity to move to Houston a few years ago after our office here close. Yeah... nope. 

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 11:13

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I’m starting to see a lot of vehicles as wasteful, but I also see them as this amazing tool that has taken us out of (involuntary) rural poverty and into an amazingly flexible world of work and social lives.

I can’t quantify it, but I’m gonna say they’ve done more good than harm. If anything, highway deaths are the saddest part of the story. Not suburban sprawl or climate-changing emissions.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > functionoverfashion 07/25/2019 at 11:14

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Yeah, I really like the Atlantic, too.

Sad, but true! 

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 07/25/2019 at 11:19

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Definitely more good, much like capitalism.

Anything that gives an individual the ability to work hard and better themselves is a plus in my book, even if there are downsides along the way.

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 11:34

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Yep. But at some point (now?) the Western World is going to reach some critical mass where the incremental return/benefit of each new ICE car is almost nil. I think we’re just about there.

The developing world still benefits a LOT from access to cars, so the hard discussion that not many people want to have is “Let people rot in the slumbs of Mumbai or let them pollute the air to better their family situation?” If I’m sitting on a dirt floor eating a bowl of rice with my hands, I don’t really give two shits about the beaches in Tuvalu getting eroded.

It’s almost the same argument over China building coal-fired power plants. 

HammerheadFistpunch > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 07/25/2019 at 11:47

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My kids are split - one really is excited to drive and explore.  The other’s ideal car is an RV that drives itself so she can watch TV and go to the bathroom on her road trips (she’s 5)

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 07/25/2019 at 11:56

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New, as in total number? Yeah, I can see that.

China is going all-in for electric vehicles; not sure if India has made that call yet. At least the bikes are getting cleaner there - “ manufacturers stopped the production of two-stroke motorcycles in India back in the year 2010 as the National Green Tribunal took strict steps to reduce air pollution”

Yeah, it’s definitely hard to change the rules for everyone behind you after you’ve already reached the finish line.

More and more western countries will ban the sales of cars burning hydrocarbons going forward. Seeing what Germany decides on this front will be very interesting. https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/news/a31123/german-transport-minister-calls-internal-combustion-ban/ Definitely easier to have such bans in Europe than in the U.S. or Canada, but what happens when California bans sales of new cars with ICE engines? I assume that’s coming at some point down the line. 

For Sweden > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/25/2019 at 12:01

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Cars are good

Transportation choices are good

This doesn't need to be difficult

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > For Sweden 07/25/2019 at 12:03

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Cars are (currently) dirty.

Transportation choice is expensive to implement.

I wish it was easy. 

Urambo Tauro > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 07/26/2019 at 12:01

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... ohhhh wow this thing goes and I can control i t’s power. She said the other night I like this car, it does what I want.

This is an excellent attitude to have while driving. Not just the joy of power/control, but also the responsibility,   knowing that the car’s going to do whatever you tell it to do.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Urambo Tauro 07/26/2019 at 12:13

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zoom zoom