Thread started by cabhauler at 11.6.07 - 1:27 am

Scottish musician Momus has a blog in which he has cars on his list of things that are "over." A pretty good summation of the insanity of making cars the only way to get around:

"Cars: Yet another monster of the 20th century that, as far as I'm concerned, has bitten the dust. Cars are possibly the most evil thing man has ever invented. They destroy all the places they touch by making everywhere irrelevant scenery on a transit corridor. We now realize they're destroying the planet too, melting the polar ice caps with their emissions. They cause oil wars. They magnify selfishness and make anyone who drives them into a snappy asshole. They clog up cities and show us, when we drive, only the ugliest bits of them. They've added to the sum of human misanthropy. They kill wildlife, turning it into roadkill. Their effect on urban planning has been appalling -- suburbs and malls and sprawl. Traffic in cities now moves as slowly as horses did. There's no point taking your car because you'll get all stressed, won't be able to read on the way, and won't find a place to park when you arrive. Use public transport; cars are over. What's more, they know they're over. You can tell this because, although they're still everywhere, cars want to be invisible. They all have the same design. Where once they came in vivid colours and represented "freedom", now they come in metallic non-colours (and, occasionally, red) and the ads for them try, pathetically, guiltily, to invoke ethics and the environment. Which, of course, is like a Borgia stressing religious duty and the need to be kind."

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Don't forget the solid waste that one, single, disabled vehicle becomes.
A waste of precious metals and resources.
It's more worthwhile to maintain fleets of trains/buses, than it is to churn out a new vehicle that is not meant to last beyond five years.
While I was out driving the 18wheeler for the last 14 months, I was angered by the thousands of disabled, four-wheelers I buzzed by on the freeways.
At least my crashed rig was refurbished and put back into service.
We're going to need those to some extent!!
But, the majority of four-wheelers we could definitely part with.



bentstrider
11.6.07 - 1:38 am

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Momus wrote:

"Cars: Yet another monster of the 20th century that, as far as I'm concerned, has bitten the dust. Cars are possibly the most evil thing man has ever invented. They destroy all the places they touch by making everywhere irrelevant scenery on a transit corridor [and on, and on, and on]."

Simplistic, melodramatic bullshit.

A car is a tool. Spending the last hundred years designing and rearranging nearly all cities and places of human habitation in the developed world so as to require their constant use was a catastrophic mistake, one that we will be spending the next hundred years trying desperately to fix. But the car itself is just a device, one that can be helpful or harmful, beautiful or ugly, fun or a gigantic drag, depending on how it's used.



PC
11.6.07 - 1:46 am

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You're chock-full of good points PC.
My only qualm with a car is when they're engineered to the point where you got to be an MIT graduate to fix one.
That and the people who overuse them(ie.,1/3mile distance to store for two items).






bentstrider
11.6.07 - 1:58 am

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i.e. most people.

I knew a kid who's mom used to drive to the end of the driveway for the mail (of course their driveway was 1/2 a mile long, but still...)

The biggest mistake was the advertising and other media brainwashing that assured people of the "need" for a car.



FuzzBeast
11.6.07 - 2:09 am

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Bentstrider wrote:

You're chock-full of good points PC.

Oddly enough, that's not what people usually tell me I'm chock full of.



PC
11.6.07 - 2:45 am

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Bentstrider -
My only qualm with a car is when they're engineered to the point where you got to be an MIT graduate to fix one.


Me -
Actually they've been engineered to be VERY reliable. It used to be that if a car had 100,000 miles on it, it was pretty much junk. Now a days 100,000 miles is just beginning midlife. This is mostly attributed to the computers on it and over a 100 years of trial and error. Really there isn't that much that goes wrong with them.

Now I'm not here to justify the use of cars. Take a look at satellite photos of any city and you'll see how much land is devoted to cars. Society fell for the spell sold to us and now we're paying the price. Personally I think it going to take us about as long to get out of this mess as it took for us to get into it.

There are far better ways to move ourselves from point A to Point B. We don't have to drag 4,000 pounds of steel, glass and plastics with us.

I feel like I preaching to the chore so I'm bailing..............



User1
11.6.07 - 12:18 pm

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http://www.chrisjordan.com/



User1
11.6.07 - 1:49 pm

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I feel you bents

it used to be that cars were simple, either spark or gas was your problem and they were built to LAST. case in point, my 64' dodge dart. bought that thing for $800 it already had 300,000 miles on it when I got a hold of it. then I personally put another 125,000 on it over 8 years of use..... I miss that thing, I really got to be in tune with it. starter broken? 2 bolts and $35 at kragen had you back up and running. now you have all these computers and shit. cars from the 70's - the mid 90's are all complete shite.



Roadblock
11.6.07 - 1:53 pm

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As much as i love bikes and riding, yes, i still drive a car. But i see both sides very clearly, how we need to care for the environment, but at the same time get around to other cities. I know i will definately be riding more in the future!



speedybrian2000
11.6.07 - 2:27 pm

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Good point, PC. It's how we've slavishly rearranged everything around cars that's the issue, not the cars themselves.



cabhauler
11.6.07 - 3:17 pm

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I'm actually thinking of getting a '74 K5 4x4 to assist in future "LA Bomb" missions.
The powertrain was quite similar to a '71 GMC 3/4 ton I owned back in '04.
Except the only reason I had to get rid of that was because an electrical fire destroyed the wiring harness and a replacement would've ran me $500-$1000 of money I couldn't procure in time.
But once I get the aforementioned vehicle, it will be for strict "bombing" runs-up-the-hills, and following newfound tradition, it will have some sort of Stargate, namesake attached to it.
Prometheus, Daedalus, Odyssey, Pegasus, Alk'esh, Ha'tok, Dakara, Thor's Hammer, take a pick.



bentstrider
11.6.07 - 9:45 pm

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These new cars are at as complicated as they look. It is actually pretty easy to diagnose the problem if you have the computer to do it. Which leads you to have to hire a mechanic (or have a friend who has one) to diagnose the problem. I will say, the parts for a car have gotten ridiculously expensive. $35 for a starter, try $150. I've been doing repairs on my Dad's 2000 inifiniti and it hasn't been that difficult. You have to take a few things apart, to get where you want to go, but the starter still has two or three bolts. Some stuff is
pretty much the same, some easier to fix.

Spark plug wires, with a computerized car, are $99 a piece, that $600 for new wires on a V-6, and sensors are $100-$250, not bad to fix (when you know what your going after).

Do you get it, $30,000 car $1100 in parts last month, new tire, after a blow out, $130 ---- How much labor does one have to exchange for that? Ccccccccccrrrrraaaaazzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

This is the book, that helped solidify my desire to never have a car again. It's a great, short read. I would suggest it.

Elephant in the bedroom by Stanley I. Hart, and Alvin L. Spivak

http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Bedroom-Automobile-Dependence-Environment/dp/0932727646





sexy
11.6.07 - 10:08 pm

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Are "NOT" as complicated as they look



sexy
11.6.07 - 10:10 pm

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you can read some of the book here.................................

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ciw6CfJyz1EC&pg=PR1&dq=the+elephant+in+the+bedroom&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=T_0G1SPIemI5hWmV6PLugWxTzxg#PPT1,M1



sexy
11.6.07 - 10:14 pm

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My hands are too big to work on any of these new vehicles anyway.
At least I could get into and out of the guts of a '57 Chevy Bel Air, and not need the soap to get my hands out.
Besides, that Blazer I mentioned will also be mothballed until it needs to be utilized.




bentstrider
11.6.07 - 10:16 pm

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