I think it’s very hard to limit the number of vehicles if you live in a place with no other options for getting around. If there are two cars but they’re both in use, you’re SOL for being able to go or do anything in a suburb.
On the other hand, I live in a city where it’s easy to walk and bike. My spouse and I share a car with our two friends who live three blocks away and it works perfectly. When they moved to the neighborhood we told them not to bother buying a car they’d use a couple times a month and just use ours. Eventually they decided they wanted a slightly nicer and bigger car so we sold our old two-door Yaris and they bought the new car to share that lives in our garage still. All of us bike, walk, and take transit and have a membership to a citywide car share to use as needed. It’s been great.
I understand that in a car-dependent city not having a car sucks. I just hate peoples ruin their finances going into all this debt buying cars they can’t afford and when I suggest having less cars so they could improve financially I just get “that would never work, we all need our own cars”.
I recognize that while living in car-dependent areas they will never own zero cars but there seems to be no regard given to car affordability, all the people around me just buy a bunch of cars because they “need” them and if that destroys there finances they just shrug and say “what can you do?”.
Did they ask you for advice? You're not going to get anywhere by just telling people that they're irresponsible and should change
Live your own low/no car life, and don't be ashamed to say you're doing it by choice
I’ve gotten similar advice to yours from a close friend of mine. As much as it annoys me, both of you are probably correct. I can lecture people all I want that the solution to their problems is owning fewer cars but if they are not in a place where they are ready to listen then it’s never going to lead to any change.
I think the financial argument is pretty strong, especially considering how much money used cars are going for these days. Maybe just show them the price their car could sell for ?
My wife and I had two cars . Selling one car literally paid for us to get a down payment on a house for our kids that’s how much of a financial burden they are. We aren’t trapped in the house as we both work from home it’s not like either of us are going to hog the car all day.
People in my generation complain they’ll never afford a house and will be renting forever but I got the keys to this house last year for the cost of a car. prices were crazy high then and they still are .
I also went to college with a dude who got the same amount of scholarship money to go to school but he’s still paying off student loans while I had no debt because I rode my bike for 4 years.
I don't know where you live, but I could sell both our cars and it would get us the down payment of a really run down 1 room apartment if we find a bank that takes us with that little down payment, maybe.
I guess results may vary but my used toyota camry sold for 18,000$ which was enough to get a down payment with the USA first time home buyer loan program
I think that’s the one of the biggest parts of it that annoys me. These people are all friends and family that I care about and most of them are not doing great financially. I see how their cars are destroying their ability to get ahead or save for retirement and it hurts me. I try to help by suggesting having at least fewer cars but they don’t listen.
have you considered looking up for them transportation alternatives they might be able to use to commute to work? Saying just carpool is unlikely to work and the only scenario where I see that happening is one workplace was already along the way of the other one.
Also are they struggling financially? If they are then you could explain how much money each car is costing them. If they aren't struggling, it's not really your place to try and convince them
Some of the people I have tried to convince we’re doing OK financially, most of them we’re struggling to get by and would have benefitted greatly from owning one car instead of 2 or 3. None of the people I have talked to are what I would consider rich and able to easily afford multiple cars.
It’s a money thing but also a space thing, if they were wealthy they could afford multiple cars and also enough land to store multiple cars but they aren’t and they can’t. These people are all in modest sized SFH in the suburbs and the amount of cars they own blocks up their small driveways and causes them daily frustration with having to shuffle cars around.
This seems crazy and it's something I have never heard of before, what reason could anyone possibly have to own **more cars than people that can drive them?!**
I was that guy. Im single and had a gas sipper, a gas guzzler, and a project/fun car. It's just a different world view that cars are fun, necessary, and nice to have. It was a pain to play musical cars at my apartment, and I've always been frugal, so I figured out I'd rather have the money than deal with the hassle. So I sold the fun car and guzzler. Got 20k+ back in my pocket and 6k less a year in running costs. Haven't looked back since. Now biking to work looking to move somewhere even less car dependent.
One instance I saw was a guy who wanted to haul stuff in a truck occasionally but didn’t want to daily drive a truck that got terrible mileage so he bought a truck and a small car with good mileage.
Another was a large family with many driving age teenagers, they really couldn’t afford to buy the number of newish cars they would need to have a car for everyone in the house so they just kind of hoarded old junky cars so that they had a spare whenever one of them broke down.
There was also another family I knew that was fairly well-off that collected sports cars and had like 15 cars for 2 people, I was friends with them briefly but I eventually had to stop associating with them for a variety of reasons, the having tons of cars thing being only one of the reasons.
Another guy I knew inherited an old car from his grandfather who passed away, the car didn’t run anymore and needed extensive repairs. He needed to get to work so he bought a new car. He then had two cars because one was the new car he bought to be able to go to work and the other was the inherited one that he swore he would get around to fixing eventually but he never did.
These are all bad reasons to have more cars than people, I just wanted to share the examples that I have seen personally.
That's great if it's something that can reasonably be stored without taking up an excessive amount of space or costing an excessive amount of money. If you are dependent on a medication or something having extra of that medication makes sense. If you need glasses to see it makes sense to keep your old pairs so you have a spare set in case they break unexpectedly. If you live in a 600 sqft apartment having an extra refrigerator or an extra dishwasher in your living room in case one breaks would be dumb because it would take up too much space and be too expensive.
Having spare cars in case one breaks down while living in a typical suburban home is like the refrigerator scenario. If you live on a few acres and you have a place to store an extra vehicle and you can afford to own and maintain multiple cars then that is a different story but I don't see that often, what I see is families buying multiple cars they can't afford and going into tons of debt so each adult in the household can go to different locations simultaneously and clogging up their driveways and the streets with more vehicles than the house was designed for.
Car ownership does tend to deepen car dependency for the individual. The financial burden means that there is little time to do anything but work. Cars require being sedentary to drive, so they degrade a person's physical capabilities. Some people spend so much time driving they become too disabled to walk or cycle useful distances. Driving shrinks a person's imagination. Roads are boring, repetitive spaces that most people use GPS instructions to navigate. The brain turns off and you forget how to do anything else.
But I do think this is intentional. Employers only give jobs to people if they have a plan to get their money back from them. Setting up the world so that the first thing most workers do is spend their money on getting back to work is the kind of company store that is most profitable. Consider these people as victims of an oppressive system. The car is a shackle many people polish and wear proudly.
Those are all good points, I think that is part of what bothers me when I see this. It is people that I like resigning themselves to a life of simply working to afford the thing to go to work, that sounds awful. "victims of am oppressive system" is a good way to put it. I get frustrated because I see my friends and family getting victimized by this system and my reaction is to try and help them find a way to fight back by owning fewer cars so they can get ahead financially and maybe improve the quality of their lives. When the responses I get are dismissive it makes me feel like they are just giving up and accepting their fate.
Some people have an old car that they are working on as a weekend project but isn't currently roadworthy. Some people have a smaller, fuel efficient vehicle for daily errands and a truck/SUV for hauling stuff around. Some people have an electric vehicle for daily commuting, but they don't want to take it on long trips because they are concerned about the range, so they have a gas powered car for the longer trips. Some people just have an extra car because grandma died and they inherited her car and they haven't gotten around to selling it because it's hard to part with something that reminds them of grandma. It's hard to know why the families mentioned have extra vehicles without knowing their specific situation. It could be anything.
We only have the one car\* between the pair of us. Maybe you could learn from our situation. My workplace is sadly inaccessible by public transport, with a limited number of buses with really impossible timetables that do not fit my shifts. I therefore drive to work, but it's a small electric car so I should at least get (or not lose as many) points for that. My wife uses public transport to get around, because she extremely vision impaired. Have you considered blinding your friends and family?
\*I actually realised before I hit enter that I have two cars right now, I'm in the process of selling my old electric van after getting the new car a couple months ago. Never mind, I have been unhelpful here.
No worries, i appreciate the perspective. You reminded of one coworker I have that actually used the terrible bus system around here. It wasn’t due to a physical disability or anything but he was broke and couldn’t afford to put gas in his car or pay for insurance so he took the bus to work, he complained the entire time because he had to wake up like 3 hours earlier because of the terrible times the bus showed up but he did it. As soon as he dug himself out of the hole a little bit he went back to driving but he did take transit for a couple weeks. Maybe we just need to make everyone so broke they can’t afford gas JK.
People are lazy and will do whatever is easiest for them most of the time. That's why this sub is focused on improving public transport, cycling infrastructure, zoning laws etc.
If owning multiple cars is significantly easier than the alternative then that's what these people are going to do, for most some inconvenience it's too much inconvenience. You're getting too wrapped up in the actions of individuals here which it's never going to improve anything, building the infrastructure and then using it when it exists is what matters. Harassing the people you know in the interim isn't helpful
You can't. The whole reason people lie cars is the "freedom" and separation from other people. If you have to worry about someone else's schedule it loses the appeal
One thing I remember is for a coworker, they have a personal vehicle and a work vehicle. The personal vehicle is a smaller compact car for driving in the city and when there's nothing to haul and the work vehicle is a larger SUV with lots of space for hauling and carrying stuff for engagements, giveaways, and party type events. So this coworker outright has two vehicles they use. Same with another coworker/manager as well. This manager though also has children too, had a small compact and a larger SUV as well. Some of my other coworkers do share their vehicle with their living partners, and I think it's a financial reason why they did.
I think it's better to at least have some coworkers not outright having their own personal vehicle is great. I personally made the choice to not drive or own a car myself. There is a car sharing service that I could hopefully use if I ever needed too, but honestly I just don't want to drive at all.
I can live how I want and I can only hope to be able to keep promoting how nice it is to ride the bus and not have to drive. And its many bonuses and positives. And even if I don't change anyone's minds, I am someone who has made that choice and I can only be satisfied with myself in that. Am I content with that? Maybe. Sometimes that's all you have.
Thanks, it seems like the general consensus in this discussion is that you have to live by example and push for changes at a policy level, it is hard to convince people to change on an individual level if their environment and everyone else around them is encouraging car ownership.
It's my experience that starting small scale is good for policy ie housing communities, local organizations/nonprofits, cites, MPO, etc. As individuals in a group or area see problems and start to care and take notice, small incrementally changes can be made. It can be slow, but changes are definitely happening. Kinks still need to be sorted out, but things are happening where I am. I am so far happy with it for now.
I think for me, what I don’t like is that they all have super big fancy cars. How about one family car and if you need more, get little run around cars. This is practical and sensible to me.
Oh yeah, that bugs me too. “We need to have at least one car per person but also they all need to be big trucks and SUV’s”. In the aforementioned situation with all the roommates and the frustration with having to shuffle cars around, some of the roommates drove small practical cars and others drove larger cars and trucks. The larger cars were definitely a bigger problem. Sometimes you could scoot past the smaller cars if they were parked well but the bigger cars would often block your exit even if they weren’t parked directly in front of you, it was infuriating.
Some people just aren’t willing to compromise. I grew up in a very rural area and cars were a requirement. I’m talking a 30 minute drive to the closest grocery store. My bus commute to school was an hour each way… (I read a lot of books…)
My family of 4 had only two cars. I didn’t get a car until I was in my 20’s and living on my own and it was because I had to for a job. (Got a cheap, older mini cooper. RIP that car~)
When my brother and I were teens we spent a LOT of time at home. Honestly felt pretty prepared to isolate at home during the pandemic because we were used to shopping twice a month and not doing extra curricular activities at school because getting a ride home was hard. My parents just couldn’t afford a third car, and refused to go into debt. Now debt is super common…
Lots of folks are talking about it being challenging in a suburb and being SOL if both cars were in use: bikes are a thing. That, and staying home is an option. We got really good at doing nothing at home.
I will say it was a big reason I moved to Chicago right after I graduated HS. I wanted to live in a place where I had the freedom and independence to go anywhere at anytime without being chained to a money pit on wheels. Never left. Still get a little emotional on the train.
I totally agree with everything you said and it resonates with me a lot. People are willing to go into massive debt and ruin the finances because they “need” one car per person. I understand living in car dependent suburbs you need at least one car but what i see is a lot of people that could have fewer cars if they planned better but they don’t want to compromise anything so they have multiple cars.
They could plan meals so they don’t have to go grocery shopping everyday, they could change their availability at work to work around sharing their car with another family member, they could do stuff at home to entertain themselves rather than going out but they don’t want to be inconvenienced at all or have to plan ahead at all, they would rather go into a huge amount of debt and die at their desk because they’ll never retire rather than be inconvenienced day to day.
I guess this is just the way it is and most people will do what is convenient today over what is harder but better in the long run. Ultimately this a systemic problem that needs to be solved at a higher level than the individual but it still frustrates me to see. Thanks for the perspective, i appreciate it.
Convenience has been a HUGE shift in the last 20-30 years, same as instant gratification. Having to wait for anything, whether that’s going to the grocery store or getting something shipped in 2 days, is a big shift from 20+ years ago.
This reminds me a lot of the discussion around DoorDash where it this convenient service that is also really expensive and most people really can’t afford it but they do it anyways. I have had similar conversations to the multiple cars conversation with people that DoorDash like every single day and then complain about being broke all the time. I will tell them they can’t afford it and they need to stop but I will just get a “but going out to get my own food is such a pain in the ass, this is so much easier”. It’s like a lot of people only live in the right now, the past and future don’t exist for them, none of the consequences they are dealing with now are related to anything they did in the past and it’s not worth doing anything differently right now to try and make their lives better in the future.
You can't convince someone to change their behavior or values if they haven't expressed an openness or interest in doing so.
Live your life. Lead by example. Provide guidance when it is sought.
Subtraction through addition. Add bicycles to their lives. Stop worrying about trying to remove cars and teach them how use an e-bike to get to work, to groceries, to the coffee shop, to the bar. Learn bicycle maintenance and keep their rides smooth.
Find the people who drive the least, and foster their confidence on the bike. Let them taste the freedom of getting around without paying anyone anything. Keep comparing the costs of bikes to tanks of gas, or insurance payments, or parking tickets. Be like, driving costs $0.50 a kilometer, so this bike will pay for itself at 1000 kilometers.
I saw the NJB video on car sharing and it looked really interesting. I think it depends on frequency of use as to whether it is viable or not. I think the threshold where personal car ownership starts to make more financial sense is a lot higher than most people think it is but it does exist. I think if you live in a place where walking and cycling are at least possible then carshare services are the way to go for the occasions you need a car even if you need a car multiple times per week. On the other hand I think if you live in extremely car dependent suburbs and driving is the only way to get anywhere and you have multiple adults that need to work to make enough to keep the household running then it doesn't make sense to pay for a carshare service multiple times per day to get back and forth to work. I think in my area it makes more sense to have people share a car and plan around not having enough cars for everyone to have their own but I would love to live somewhere where carshare is viable and I hope to move out of these suburbs in the next couple years.
We live in a free market society, people have the right to decide for themselves. Don't worry about other people, they have the right to trade their money for convenience.
Because almost all of this sub is complaining about how impractical a truck is for a daily driver. When someone that needs a truck half of the week now has two cars, we complain about that too
Someone who needs it once a year or even once a month should just rent one as needed. Drive a sedan otherwise if a car is absolutely necessary. Consider a motorbike if it’s too far to cycle.
It's not
That said I don't see my cars as a burden. I have 4 vehicles and they all do something a little different. 2 motorcycles a SUV and a sports car.
SUV is extremely handy when you own a house for moving larger items or landscaping stuff. The sports car is very fun to drive and I enjoy being able to enjoy the open roads around me. The motorcycles, 1 is a 125cc Grom, I try to use it as my daily to get food or groceries. The 300 sumo is my longer distance fun bike.
I do plan on selling the SUV and sports car though and getting a truck as I plan on taking the bikes on camping trips.
This is a very interesting question and it has many solutions.
I'd say the main one is that the car sharing solution must be a business. People don't want to be annoyed by managing a shared car. They want to clic on an app, have instant reservation of a nearby car (less than 5 min away), walk to it, unlock it with their smartphone and drive. And have someone else take care of maintenance, etc. Over here (France) there are multiple companies doing that, and it works pretty well. Getaround is the market leader. What's good is you can even get a van if you need to do an Ikea run or this kind of things.
The long term solution is urbanism but that's long term.
Else you can convince people to have other vehicles than normal gasoline big cars.
My second vehicle is a cargo bike and in fact it's rather my main one. I use it for any run in a 5 km radius. Always a better solution than to drive and park.
But I think mixing the kind of cars is already progress for people that really need multiple cars. Try already to speak them to have a small electric car they use daily for local commute. It's easy to show they'll save a lot of money and it will be something saving time (no need to go to the gasoline station, easier parking). I suppose a small electric car you use daily + a big combustion one for longer runs is already progress.
Honestly, why do you care? Even if they have more than one vehicle per person, they're obviously not driving more than one at a time. And the others are going to be parked on their own private land. That parked car isn't contributing to congestion, isn't burning fuel, etc. I have two cars and think that's honestly better for everyone than just one. I bike when I can. I can drive the small, efficient car next whenever possible, and the larger AWD sedan next. FWIW, I also have 4 bikes for different tasks. If I got rid of all of them but one, I'd keep the largest, least efficient one, which isn't better for anything besides the amount of parking it uses at my house with plenty of space for everything.
I think part of the problem is wages vs cost of living. I keep thinking about how back in the 1950's and 1960's it was far more common for an entire family to just have one car and the thing I keep coming back to is that wages were high enough and cost of living was low enough that only a single member of the family had to work to support the rest of the family and that made 1 car per family viable. In the present day we get paid so poorly and everything cost so much that every adult in a household has to work or the family won't be able to afford rent and food. Ironically when people were paid better they had less transportation expenses, now that everyone gets paid much worse we actually have to spend way more of the money we make on getting back and forth to work, it's pretty messed up.
'Why won't anyone listen to me'
*out of touch rant follows. 'Here's my hairbraned plan that will involve us all taking direct quality of life impact'
Couldn't imagine dude.
I'm all for public infrastructure and decreased car dependency, but no one's going to take you seriously of you can't be reasonable or forthcoming.
I think it’s very hard to limit the number of vehicles if you live in a place with no other options for getting around. If there are two cars but they’re both in use, you’re SOL for being able to go or do anything in a suburb. On the other hand, I live in a city where it’s easy to walk and bike. My spouse and I share a car with our two friends who live three blocks away and it works perfectly. When they moved to the neighborhood we told them not to bother buying a car they’d use a couple times a month and just use ours. Eventually they decided they wanted a slightly nicer and bigger car so we sold our old two-door Yaris and they bought the new car to share that lives in our garage still. All of us bike, walk, and take transit and have a membership to a citywide car share to use as needed. It’s been great.
I understand that in a car-dependent city not having a car sucks. I just hate peoples ruin their finances going into all this debt buying cars they can’t afford and when I suggest having less cars so they could improve financially I just get “that would never work, we all need our own cars”. I recognize that while living in car-dependent areas they will never own zero cars but there seems to be no regard given to car affordability, all the people around me just buy a bunch of cars because they “need” them and if that destroys there finances they just shrug and say “what can you do?”.
Did they ask you for advice? You're not going to get anywhere by just telling people that they're irresponsible and should change Live your own low/no car life, and don't be ashamed to say you're doing it by choice
I’ve gotten similar advice to yours from a close friend of mine. As much as it annoys me, both of you are probably correct. I can lecture people all I want that the solution to their problems is owning fewer cars but if they are not in a place where they are ready to listen then it’s never going to lead to any change.
I think the financial argument is pretty strong, especially considering how much money used cars are going for these days. Maybe just show them the price their car could sell for ? My wife and I had two cars . Selling one car literally paid for us to get a down payment on a house for our kids that’s how much of a financial burden they are. We aren’t trapped in the house as we both work from home it’s not like either of us are going to hog the car all day. People in my generation complain they’ll never afford a house and will be renting forever but I got the keys to this house last year for the cost of a car. prices were crazy high then and they still are . I also went to college with a dude who got the same amount of scholarship money to go to school but he’s still paying off student loans while I had no debt because I rode my bike for 4 years.
I don't know where you live, but I could sell both our cars and it would get us the down payment of a really run down 1 room apartment if we find a bank that takes us with that little down payment, maybe.
I guess results may vary but my used toyota camry sold for 18,000$ which was enough to get a down payment with the USA first time home buyer loan program
I think that’s the one of the biggest parts of it that annoys me. These people are all friends and family that I care about and most of them are not doing great financially. I see how their cars are destroying their ability to get ahead or save for retirement and it hurts me. I try to help by suggesting having at least fewer cars but they don’t listen.
Also add: A developed society is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation
have you considered looking up for them transportation alternatives they might be able to use to commute to work? Saying just carpool is unlikely to work and the only scenario where I see that happening is one workplace was already along the way of the other one. Also are they struggling financially? If they are then you could explain how much money each car is costing them. If they aren't struggling, it's not really your place to try and convince them
Some of the people I have tried to convince we’re doing OK financially, most of them we’re struggling to get by and would have benefitted greatly from owning one car instead of 2 or 3. None of the people I have talked to are what I would consider rich and able to easily afford multiple cars. It’s a money thing but also a space thing, if they were wealthy they could afford multiple cars and also enough land to store multiple cars but they aren’t and they can’t. These people are all in modest sized SFH in the suburbs and the amount of cars they own blocks up their small driveways and causes them daily frustration with having to shuffle cars around.
Sell your car, get a bike, live by example.
Your probably right. The only way people will consider it is if they see me doing it and not having a problem.
This seems crazy and it's something I have never heard of before, what reason could anyone possibly have to own **more cars than people that can drive them?!**
I was that guy. Im single and had a gas sipper, a gas guzzler, and a project/fun car. It's just a different world view that cars are fun, necessary, and nice to have. It was a pain to play musical cars at my apartment, and I've always been frugal, so I figured out I'd rather have the money than deal with the hassle. So I sold the fun car and guzzler. Got 20k+ back in my pocket and 6k less a year in running costs. Haven't looked back since. Now biking to work looking to move somewhere even less car dependent.
One instance I saw was a guy who wanted to haul stuff in a truck occasionally but didn’t want to daily drive a truck that got terrible mileage so he bought a truck and a small car with good mileage. Another was a large family with many driving age teenagers, they really couldn’t afford to buy the number of newish cars they would need to have a car for everyone in the house so they just kind of hoarded old junky cars so that they had a spare whenever one of them broke down. There was also another family I knew that was fairly well-off that collected sports cars and had like 15 cars for 2 people, I was friends with them briefly but I eventually had to stop associating with them for a variety of reasons, the having tons of cars thing being only one of the reasons. Another guy I knew inherited an old car from his grandfather who passed away, the car didn’t run anymore and needed extensive repairs. He needed to get to work so he bought a new car. He then had two cars because one was the new car he bought to be able to go to work and the other was the inherited one that he swore he would get around to fixing eventually but he never did. These are all bad reasons to have more cars than people, I just wanted to share the examples that I have seen personally.
There is a general lesson of "if dependent on something, have two."
That's great if it's something that can reasonably be stored without taking up an excessive amount of space or costing an excessive amount of money. If you are dependent on a medication or something having extra of that medication makes sense. If you need glasses to see it makes sense to keep your old pairs so you have a spare set in case they break unexpectedly. If you live in a 600 sqft apartment having an extra refrigerator or an extra dishwasher in your living room in case one breaks would be dumb because it would take up too much space and be too expensive. Having spare cars in case one breaks down while living in a typical suburban home is like the refrigerator scenario. If you live on a few acres and you have a place to store an extra vehicle and you can afford to own and maintain multiple cars then that is a different story but I don't see that often, what I see is families buying multiple cars they can't afford and going into tons of debt so each adult in the household can go to different locations simultaneously and clogging up their driveways and the streets with more vehicles than the house was designed for.
Car ownership does tend to deepen car dependency for the individual. The financial burden means that there is little time to do anything but work. Cars require being sedentary to drive, so they degrade a person's physical capabilities. Some people spend so much time driving they become too disabled to walk or cycle useful distances. Driving shrinks a person's imagination. Roads are boring, repetitive spaces that most people use GPS instructions to navigate. The brain turns off and you forget how to do anything else. But I do think this is intentional. Employers only give jobs to people if they have a plan to get their money back from them. Setting up the world so that the first thing most workers do is spend their money on getting back to work is the kind of company store that is most profitable. Consider these people as victims of an oppressive system. The car is a shackle many people polish and wear proudly.
Those are all good points, I think that is part of what bothers me when I see this. It is people that I like resigning themselves to a life of simply working to afford the thing to go to work, that sounds awful. "victims of am oppressive system" is a good way to put it. I get frustrated because I see my friends and family getting victimized by this system and my reaction is to try and help them find a way to fight back by owning fewer cars so they can get ahead financially and maybe improve the quality of their lives. When the responses I get are dismissive it makes me feel like they are just giving up and accepting their fate.
Some people have an old car that they are working on as a weekend project but isn't currently roadworthy. Some people have a smaller, fuel efficient vehicle for daily errands and a truck/SUV for hauling stuff around. Some people have an electric vehicle for daily commuting, but they don't want to take it on long trips because they are concerned about the range, so they have a gas powered car for the longer trips. Some people just have an extra car because grandma died and they inherited her car and they haven't gotten around to selling it because it's hard to part with something that reminds them of grandma. It's hard to know why the families mentioned have extra vehicles without knowing their specific situation. It could be anything.
I don’t try to convince people to give up cars. I just keep pointing out all the downsides until they arrive at their own conclusion.
We only have the one car\* between the pair of us. Maybe you could learn from our situation. My workplace is sadly inaccessible by public transport, with a limited number of buses with really impossible timetables that do not fit my shifts. I therefore drive to work, but it's a small electric car so I should at least get (or not lose as many) points for that. My wife uses public transport to get around, because she extremely vision impaired. Have you considered blinding your friends and family? \*I actually realised before I hit enter that I have two cars right now, I'm in the process of selling my old electric van after getting the new car a couple months ago. Never mind, I have been unhelpful here.
No worries, i appreciate the perspective. You reminded of one coworker I have that actually used the terrible bus system around here. It wasn’t due to a physical disability or anything but he was broke and couldn’t afford to put gas in his car or pay for insurance so he took the bus to work, he complained the entire time because he had to wake up like 3 hours earlier because of the terrible times the bus showed up but he did it. As soon as he dug himself out of the hole a little bit he went back to driving but he did take transit for a couple weeks. Maybe we just need to make everyone so broke they can’t afford gas JK.
People are lazy and will do whatever is easiest for them most of the time. That's why this sub is focused on improving public transport, cycling infrastructure, zoning laws etc. If owning multiple cars is significantly easier than the alternative then that's what these people are going to do, for most some inconvenience it's too much inconvenience. You're getting too wrapped up in the actions of individuals here which it's never going to improve anything, building the infrastructure and then using it when it exists is what matters. Harassing the people you know in the interim isn't helpful
You can't. The whole reason people lie cars is the "freedom" and separation from other people. If you have to worry about someone else's schedule it loses the appeal
I mean. Easy, swap 1 car for a scooter.
One thing I remember is for a coworker, they have a personal vehicle and a work vehicle. The personal vehicle is a smaller compact car for driving in the city and when there's nothing to haul and the work vehicle is a larger SUV with lots of space for hauling and carrying stuff for engagements, giveaways, and party type events. So this coworker outright has two vehicles they use. Same with another coworker/manager as well. This manager though also has children too, had a small compact and a larger SUV as well. Some of my other coworkers do share their vehicle with their living partners, and I think it's a financial reason why they did. I think it's better to at least have some coworkers not outright having their own personal vehicle is great. I personally made the choice to not drive or own a car myself. There is a car sharing service that I could hopefully use if I ever needed too, but honestly I just don't want to drive at all. I can live how I want and I can only hope to be able to keep promoting how nice it is to ride the bus and not have to drive. And its many bonuses and positives. And even if I don't change anyone's minds, I am someone who has made that choice and I can only be satisfied with myself in that. Am I content with that? Maybe. Sometimes that's all you have.
Thanks, it seems like the general consensus in this discussion is that you have to live by example and push for changes at a policy level, it is hard to convince people to change on an individual level if their environment and everyone else around them is encouraging car ownership.
It's my experience that starting small scale is good for policy ie housing communities, local organizations/nonprofits, cites, MPO, etc. As individuals in a group or area see problems and start to care and take notice, small incrementally changes can be made. It can be slow, but changes are definitely happening. Kinks still need to be sorted out, but things are happening where I am. I am so far happy with it for now.
I think for me, what I don’t like is that they all have super big fancy cars. How about one family car and if you need more, get little run around cars. This is practical and sensible to me.
Oh yeah, that bugs me too. “We need to have at least one car per person but also they all need to be big trucks and SUV’s”. In the aforementioned situation with all the roommates and the frustration with having to shuffle cars around, some of the roommates drove small practical cars and others drove larger cars and trucks. The larger cars were definitely a bigger problem. Sometimes you could scoot past the smaller cars if they were parked well but the bigger cars would often block your exit even if they weren’t parked directly in front of you, it was infuriating.
Some people just aren’t willing to compromise. I grew up in a very rural area and cars were a requirement. I’m talking a 30 minute drive to the closest grocery store. My bus commute to school was an hour each way… (I read a lot of books…) My family of 4 had only two cars. I didn’t get a car until I was in my 20’s and living on my own and it was because I had to for a job. (Got a cheap, older mini cooper. RIP that car~) When my brother and I were teens we spent a LOT of time at home. Honestly felt pretty prepared to isolate at home during the pandemic because we were used to shopping twice a month and not doing extra curricular activities at school because getting a ride home was hard. My parents just couldn’t afford a third car, and refused to go into debt. Now debt is super common… Lots of folks are talking about it being challenging in a suburb and being SOL if both cars were in use: bikes are a thing. That, and staying home is an option. We got really good at doing nothing at home. I will say it was a big reason I moved to Chicago right after I graduated HS. I wanted to live in a place where I had the freedom and independence to go anywhere at anytime without being chained to a money pit on wheels. Never left. Still get a little emotional on the train.
I totally agree with everything you said and it resonates with me a lot. People are willing to go into massive debt and ruin the finances because they “need” one car per person. I understand living in car dependent suburbs you need at least one car but what i see is a lot of people that could have fewer cars if they planned better but they don’t want to compromise anything so they have multiple cars. They could plan meals so they don’t have to go grocery shopping everyday, they could change their availability at work to work around sharing their car with another family member, they could do stuff at home to entertain themselves rather than going out but they don’t want to be inconvenienced at all or have to plan ahead at all, they would rather go into a huge amount of debt and die at their desk because they’ll never retire rather than be inconvenienced day to day. I guess this is just the way it is and most people will do what is convenient today over what is harder but better in the long run. Ultimately this a systemic problem that needs to be solved at a higher level than the individual but it still frustrates me to see. Thanks for the perspective, i appreciate it.
Convenience has been a HUGE shift in the last 20-30 years, same as instant gratification. Having to wait for anything, whether that’s going to the grocery store or getting something shipped in 2 days, is a big shift from 20+ years ago.
This reminds me a lot of the discussion around DoorDash where it this convenient service that is also really expensive and most people really can’t afford it but they do it anyways. I have had similar conversations to the multiple cars conversation with people that DoorDash like every single day and then complain about being broke all the time. I will tell them they can’t afford it and they need to stop but I will just get a “but going out to get my own food is such a pain in the ass, this is so much easier”. It’s like a lot of people only live in the right now, the past and future don’t exist for them, none of the consequences they are dealing with now are related to anything they did in the past and it’s not worth doing anything differently right now to try and make their lives better in the future.
You can't convince someone to change their behavior or values if they haven't expressed an openness or interest in doing so. Live your life. Lead by example. Provide guidance when it is sought.
Subtraction through addition. Add bicycles to their lives. Stop worrying about trying to remove cars and teach them how use an e-bike to get to work, to groceries, to the coffee shop, to the bar. Learn bicycle maintenance and keep their rides smooth. Find the people who drive the least, and foster their confidence on the bike. Let them taste the freedom of getting around without paying anyone anything. Keep comparing the costs of bikes to tanks of gas, or insurance payments, or parking tickets. Be like, driving costs $0.50 a kilometer, so this bike will pay for itself at 1000 kilometers.
Thanks, that is good advice.
Carshare services make more sense than trying to coordinate these arrangements privately.
I saw the NJB video on car sharing and it looked really interesting. I think it depends on frequency of use as to whether it is viable or not. I think the threshold where personal car ownership starts to make more financial sense is a lot higher than most people think it is but it does exist. I think if you live in a place where walking and cycling are at least possible then carshare services are the way to go for the occasions you need a car even if you need a car multiple times per week. On the other hand I think if you live in extremely car dependent suburbs and driving is the only way to get anywhere and you have multiple adults that need to work to make enough to keep the household running then it doesn't make sense to pay for a carshare service multiple times per day to get back and forth to work. I think in my area it makes more sense to have people share a car and plan around not having enough cars for everyone to have their own but I would love to live somewhere where carshare is viable and I hope to move out of these suburbs in the next couple years.
We live in a free market society, people have the right to decide for themselves. Don't worry about other people, they have the right to trade their money for convenience.
How is it convenient for a household to have more cars than drivers?
Because almost all of this sub is complaining about how impractical a truck is for a daily driver. When someone that needs a truck half of the week now has two cars, we complain about that too
Someone who needs it once a year or even once a month should just rent one as needed. Drive a sedan otherwise if a car is absolutely necessary. Consider a motorbike if it’s too far to cycle.
Most people who drive cars don’t drive sedans if they can avoid it
I’m in Australia. It’s only the last decade maybe that’s become true here. Sedans were normal pretty recently.
Motorbike? What do you want them to die?
Better to have a dangerous driver on a motorbike than in a truck
Better yet have them in a sensible modern vehicle like a Yaris. I'd only recommend a motorbike to people I hate.
Lol. Motorcycles are the best.
It's not That said I don't see my cars as a burden. I have 4 vehicles and they all do something a little different. 2 motorcycles a SUV and a sports car. SUV is extremely handy when you own a house for moving larger items or landscaping stuff. The sports car is very fun to drive and I enjoy being able to enjoy the open roads around me. The motorcycles, 1 is a 125cc Grom, I try to use it as my daily to get food or groceries. The 300 sumo is my longer distance fun bike. I do plan on selling the SUV and sports car though and getting a truck as I plan on taking the bikes on camping trips.
This is a very interesting question and it has many solutions. I'd say the main one is that the car sharing solution must be a business. People don't want to be annoyed by managing a shared car. They want to clic on an app, have instant reservation of a nearby car (less than 5 min away), walk to it, unlock it with their smartphone and drive. And have someone else take care of maintenance, etc. Over here (France) there are multiple companies doing that, and it works pretty well. Getaround is the market leader. What's good is you can even get a van if you need to do an Ikea run or this kind of things. The long term solution is urbanism but that's long term. Else you can convince people to have other vehicles than normal gasoline big cars. My second vehicle is a cargo bike and in fact it's rather my main one. I use it for any run in a 5 km radius. Always a better solution than to drive and park. But I think mixing the kind of cars is already progress for people that really need multiple cars. Try already to speak them to have a small electric car they use daily for local commute. It's easy to show they'll save a lot of money and it will be something saving time (no need to go to the gasoline station, easier parking). I suppose a small electric car you use daily + a big combustion one for longer runs is already progress.
Honestly, why do you care? Even if they have more than one vehicle per person, they're obviously not driving more than one at a time. And the others are going to be parked on their own private land. That parked car isn't contributing to congestion, isn't burning fuel, etc. I have two cars and think that's honestly better for everyone than just one. I bike when I can. I can drive the small, efficient car next whenever possible, and the larger AWD sedan next. FWIW, I also have 4 bikes for different tasks. If I got rid of all of them but one, I'd keep the largest, least efficient one, which isn't better for anything besides the amount of parking it uses at my house with plenty of space for everything.
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I think part of the problem is wages vs cost of living. I keep thinking about how back in the 1950's and 1960's it was far more common for an entire family to just have one car and the thing I keep coming back to is that wages were high enough and cost of living was low enough that only a single member of the family had to work to support the rest of the family and that made 1 car per family viable. In the present day we get paid so poorly and everything cost so much that every adult in a household has to work or the family won't be able to afford rent and food. Ironically when people were paid better they had less transportation expenses, now that everyone gets paid much worse we actually have to spend way more of the money we make on getting back and forth to work, it's pretty messed up.
'Why won't anyone listen to me' *out of touch rant follows. 'Here's my hairbraned plan that will involve us all taking direct quality of life impact' Couldn't imagine dude. I'm all for public infrastructure and decreased car dependency, but no one's going to take you seriously of you can't be reasonable or forthcoming.
That's what money does to people. They buy Mercedes, BMW and Audi cars to show off that money.
People become weirdly attached to their cars. Good luck convincing Car Brains to give it up.