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I Bought A Firetruck

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Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#191

Post by ljf »

jchrisa wrote: post #173
carlob wrote: post #21

Is there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler? First it was stretch limos, then Hummers, then Hummer stretch limos. I wonder if we're gonna see stretch limo fire trucks… Edit (since I'm being downvoted): The story is cool, I just find the fact that he's driving it daily to work completely retarded. What the hell I consider driving a car to work to be…

I sold my car and got the Humvee of bikes, it can carry two loads of firewood, or two kids, or a kid and the plants we got at the garden store. Most of America is batshit crazy but in Portland, Oregon the no-car lifestyle is catching on. Hopefully other cities too. Bike photo! https://mobile.twitter.com/jchris/status/312728928919896064

Awesome bike mate! I'd love one of those but I currently get by with a racer for work and panniered up road bike for shopping but that bike is the bomb! Some couriers use them in London, if I had somewhere to store one I'd buy in a shot! Enjoy!

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#193

Post by aaronbrethorst »

alan_cx wrote: post #72
Swizec wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I don't understand the american fascination with impractically fhuge cars for every day commuting. Okay I get it, you want a big car for that roadtrip or vacation. Understandable, I do too. But for everyday stuff? My hatchback does perfectly fine around town ... hell, it does perfectly well on most vacations and long drives too.

Im a European, well British anyway.... Something occurred to me today regarding Americans and big huge stupid cars... I was watching the NASCAR earlier and there was a throwaway comment about some driver's sponsors being "local". By local they mean 60 miles away. Now to a Brit, maybe other Europeans, 60 miles feels like anything but "local". So, I get the impression that we don't understand the sort of scale of trave…

Now in six US cities: https://www.car2go.com/

My 8.5 year old car has 31,000 miles on it. I haven't had a job since 2007 where I have to drive to work. My daily commute now is a 1.5 mile round trip walk. I hate traffic and don't understand other Americans who are fine with driving long distances on a daily basis.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#194

Post by shawn-butler »

uogecko wrote: post #183
RyJones wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He does say it was more to ship than to purchase.

I've been trying to forget about that part of this - the cost of shipping SUCKED.

Did you investigate rail shipping? I had a collectible truck shipped by rail and it was much cheaper than OTR. It was some time ago though, but I imagine for something as large as a fire engine it might have been very cost-effective.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#195

Post by ersii »

fzzzy wrote: post #49
jeffdavis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wrote about their experiences travelling the world, would you make a similar criticism? After all, they are flying, which causes a lot of extra carbon emissions. Or is the fire truck particularly bad for some reason?

This is one thing that bugs me about complaints about the carbon emissions of cars. Planes cause far more carbon emissions, and they do it way up in the atmosphere where it seems plausible that it actually does more damage. It's a giant elephant in the room.

I would just like to add, that the general person uses a car a lot more often than a plane - and it all adds up.

A lot of cars are used by a single person. Almost never (generalised) to it's full potential.

I'm uncertain about this, but I think most planes are very well utilised (closer to the full potential rather than to the opposite) - since it's so uneconomical to go empty or close to empty utilisation.

I'm not however disputing that a plane emits a lot more emissions than road bound vehicles.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#196

Post by roel_v »

rdl wrote: post #18

I still want an office in a light industrial area with a concrete wall/bollards/ditch, and a roller gate, behind which I could park a 5 ton truck and/or unimog or fire truck or something (so as to make it impossible to drive through the gate). I had no idea fire trucks were even cheaper than old 2.5 or 5 ton military trucks.

Right around the corner from where I live there is an old fire station that the municipality doesn't know what to do with. For the last 2 or 3 years it was used by artists for various purposes but that turned out to be too expensive, last I heard is that they're converting it to be used by startups as of coming summer. It has a huge yard behind it with enough room to park 50 fire trucks (old industrial zone). So, if anybody is interested in doing something with an old fire station in the city center of an historical European city, I'm sure the municipality of Maastricht would love to hear from you.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#197

Post by KJBweb »

AlexMuir wrote: post #104

I just bought a warehouse. Similar - I always wanted one. I'm going to turn it into a house and put a roof garden on it and put a sweet garage in to fiddle with cars and set up some office space and generally cause havoc in there. I could drop dead tomorrow. It's nice to tick these ambitions off, although my ambitions always seem to make it more likely that I will drop dead tomorrow. (It's in Manchester, UK if anyone…

I live about 20 minutes away from Manchester, would love to come down and lend a hand if beer is involved somehow?

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#198

Post by lovehashbrowns »

AlexMuir wrote: post #104

I just bought a warehouse. Similar - I always wanted one. I'm going to turn it into a house and put a roof garden on it and put a sweet garage in to fiddle with cars and set up some office space and generally cause havoc in there. I could drop dead tomorrow. It's nice to tick these ambitions off, although my ambitions always seem to make it more likely that I will drop dead tomorrow. (It's in Manchester, UK if anyone…

A warehouse is my dream, too. A huge warehouse that's kind of run-down (but still safe to be in). That Simpsons episode is what did this for me.

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#199

Post by robin_reala »

ljf wrote: post #191
jchrisa wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sold my car and got the Humvee of bikes, it can carry two loads of firewood, or two kids, or a kid and the plants we got at the garden store. Most of America is batshit crazy but in Portland, Oregon the no-car lifestyle is catching on. Hopefully other cities too. Bike photo! https://mobile.twitter.com/jchris/status/312728928919896064

Awesome bike mate! I'd love one of those but I currently get by with a racer for work and panniered up road bike for shopping but that bike is the bomb! Some couriers use them in London, if I had somewhere to store one I'd buy in a shot! Enjoy!

Somewhat smaller but probably the same level of practicality: http://donkybike.com/specs/

Re: I Bought A Firetruck

#200

Post by ofacup »

newbie12 wrote: post #41
gph wrote: post #32

That's pretty cool, as a toy. Too bad he doesn't seem to have any use for it in that capacity. Don't know if I can agree with him driving it on routine trips around town. Not only because of the extra gas consumption and CO2, but it also takes up a lot more room on the road, and it's a lot slower on acceleration wasting everyone's time behind him. When someone has a purpose for having a huge truck on the road you tol…

I'd be pissed to be his neighbor. The firetruck spews dirty exhaust, is unsafe if there are kids running around, and definitely is an eyesore. Even though there's no HOA he is probably running afoul of city or county zoning rules...you shouldn't be able to park large work trucks in residential neighborhoods.

won't they please think about the children!
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