I know the demographics around here, so I know everyone’s just going to put “nothing lol”, but please understand what I’m asking first.
I’m physically incapable of driving a car. I stand to gain immeasurably from a world that didn’t assume everyone owned one. Having loved-ones with respiratory issues aggravated by car exhaust has made me very aware of the health issues surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, and having to navigate sidewalkless suburban stroads on a regular basis and juggle poorly funded public transit has made it very clear to me that pedestrians are second class citizens. I could go on and on about the mess cars have made of urban planning, and the number of jobs I couldn’t take because they required driving, but I digress.
In short, I hate cars just as much as the rest of you. But I’m also conscious that a lot of other people feel differently. What does widespread car ownership enable that would be difficult or impossible otherwise?
As an American I’m familiar with the cultural aura that surrounds the automobile. One of the early episodes of Mythbusters explained this pretty well while digging into the folklore surrounding a particular car-related urban legend. Cars represent freedom and self determination, two qualities highly prized in American society. You can go where you want when you want, without relying on schedules and routes mandated by public transit[1].
Looking at more tangible things, I suppose hauling a bunch of stuff from point A to point B would be hard without a car.
But what else am I missing?
Ignoring the fact you can only go where there are roads, and someone has to build and maintain those roads. ↩︎
I genuinely love vanity plates. I think they’re a really fun way to express youself and the plate goes with you regardless of context: you’ve got the same plate in the office parking lot and at the hobby group.
I’ve seen hobby and interest references, from LAXBRO to NCC1701. I’ve seen meta plates, from the VW Beetle with SCARAB to the Nissan Cube with RUBIKS. I’ve seen professional references, BONEMAN (a podiatrist) to CSHFLO (somebody I knew who worked in finance).
And I’ve once seen SQRTRGY which I can only imagine means “squirt orgy” but I’ll never know.
I know it’s a little thing, but I think it’s fun. (Doesn’t make up the pollution and danger of cars, tho.)
When I think of vanity plates I think of the guy who registered his as “NULL” in the hopes that he could avoid traffic tickets by looking like a database error. But he ended up showing up every time anyone’s plate number was missing, so it showed him as having thousands of traffic violations.