Anyone have recent contact with Damage Control?

[J M Fahey]

Living in Buenos Aires with excellent and practically free (30 US cents a ticket) go-anywhere Public Transport (Bus or Subway) I donīt *really* need to drive ... and I havenīt for the last 10 years.
Sold my car and my pickup truck because 90% of my travels are Downtown (2 miles) where I get in 30 minutes by Bus, where driving is complicated anywhere and Parking hard to find and expensive, and anyway I will walk from shop to shop (a few blocks from each other).
When my arms are full of packages and bags, I take a Taxi back home (U$10).
I much prefer letting other guy do the driving and getting mad at traffic jams, cops, stupid drivers, etc. while I enjoy reading one of the 100 up good books I always have loaded in my Sony Reader, practicing some Chinese lessons aloud with my MP3 player (much to the atonishment of my fellow travellers), or even eating a sandwich or an apple, etc.
It would be impossible if *I* were driving.
If I lived in any other *big* and dense city , as in NY, London, Paris (or St Petersburg for that matter) I guess I would be able to do the same; definitely impossible in LA or any other city if I were *living* in some suburb and actually travelling back and forth to work somewhere else.
It still its cheaper for me to use Taxis and "Remises" (rented cars with driver) and hiring "Fletes" (same thing but with pickup trucks) than having my own, paying taxes, insurance, etc. not to mention the very important but often forgotten "legal shielding from street problems". (canīt find a better way to explain it).
Meaning: in any problem, itīs not my car/truck and Iīm not driving it.
OK, to each his own.
Not meaning to disagree with drivers, just showing an alternative.

[km6xz]

Exactly!

By being car bound, as I was for many decades, I never realized just how much negative impact a car has on time, money, and frustration.
Our buses are 21 Rubles which is about $0.60 and our subway 25 Rubles. That is a big increase from when I moved here when it a bus was 10. But incomes have increases(and pensions) 4 times in that period on average.
Children and pensioners are free, even of foreign.

The total impact of car use is one thing that is dragging the US average citizen's standard of living where real income adjusted for inflation has not increased in 30 years. The average suburban home is about 1700 sq feet but a garage to house their car is 300sqft. That is useless space filled with a car( or 500 if a 2 car garage which is standard) or junk. The cost of buying that car space increased the cost of the home a great deal and debt for most people. Suburbs are the worst invention ever for raising costs of living and lower productivity. At least rural property can pay for itself in production or resources( I built a large two story barn finished off with a nice apartment for a ranch hand, for a cost that was recouped 100% by selling the milled wood from 3 large mature oak trees that were cut down to clear a space for the barn), but suburban housing is really a major consumer of resources but contributes nothing, creates an impossible situation for more efficient transportation options and use of resources. By spread all out with low density housing, yet still having houses right next to each other the worst of all worlds is realized. Two cars are needed just to handle simple tasks everyday by a 2 adult household. That will create the need to work extra time, and do without real necessities to support the $1000-3000 a month soaked up by the car(cost of housing, parking, insurance, cost of delays, fuel, maintenance, increased hazard risk, etc) plus price of the car. I have not had a car payment since I was 23 years old but it still cost me a great deal to own cars.
By not having one here, I get more time for friends and fun than I ever had....or at least since age 5. Getting rid of TVs regains a lot of living also.

[jrfrond]

OK, so I live in an area of New York (Long Island) where public transit (aside from the railroad I take to work in NYC) really sucks, and cars are an absolute necessity. What really pisses me off though is that Long Island is the land of gluttony and excess, and far too many people drive SUV's min-vansand other big gas wasters when they don't need to. There are a few people who drive hybrids, but even THOSE are a joke, compared to the turbocharged small-block 4-cylinder cars with manual transmissions that I've seen in Germany that squeeze out better gas mileage than our domestic hybrids. In addition, even though I am one of those overweight Americans, I do a lot of walking here in NYC, because driving is impossible, and the subway system is too expensive for short hops. But one thing I just CANNOT see making sense is the moving sidewalks in airports and other large enclosed areas. I mean really, can't people just walk?

[Enzo]

Hey, I am an overweight American. I'd walk to work, but well, it is 20 miles each way, and in the winter, my pants cuffs would get wet. My little pickup truck warms up in minutes and i can hauls bags of cat litter and old jukeboxes a lot easier than in a Prius. WHen I go to the recycle center, I can haul a LOT of old newspaper, cans, bottle, and what not. I live out in really rural America, and we don;t have recycle pickups like the city does. One night I was unloading tons of this stuff, and some lady drove in in her Audi, got out and threw THREE, count 'em THREE, empty plastic milk jugs in the recycle bin and drove away.


In her defense, at least she was not in curlers and fuzzy slippers.

[J M Fahey]

Well, with the oil she burnt to get there, Monsanto or Du Pont (or some equivalent company) could probably make plastic for a couple dozen milk jugs (or more).
Oh well, at least she felt useful and that night she slept without pills (which also come out of oil).

PS: 20 miles? Enzo, you surprise me, I always thought you practically lived by your shop.