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Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

economist.com

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#761

Post by flangola7 »

tropicalbeach wrote: post #644
flangola7 wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just park then from there go anywhere you want then just take a taxi or lyft back to your car. I thought I had heard it all but "take a lyft back to the parking lot your car is in" is a new low in car culture degeneracy.

Why it's very practical. Lets say you live in the suburbs 30 minutes from downtown. You find a parking lot park your car and just walk wherever from there. At end of the day if your tired and the car is to far just get a lyft back. Sitting on a train or bus with screaming kids and breathing everyones air is not something that enjoyable. I prefer my own car it's more freedom.

I know this is parody, but there are Americans out there that unironically think like this.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#762

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #372
taylodl wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That helps a little, but still makes care ownership prohibitively expensive for young people. You're still looking at $350 per month for a 5 year old or newer vehicle, i.e. one that's reliable and has lower maintenance (and aggravation) costs. That still leaves you paying a little over $600 per month. From that point as you start lowering your finance costs you're going to increase your maintenance and aggravation co…

There are plenty of reliable 15-year old cars. (My wife drives a reliable 18-year old, 225K mile car. We took it on a 1600 mile roundtrip for the winter holidays this year with no particular fear that it wouldn't run like a top for the entire trip.) The idea that cars are only reliable for 5 years and 60K miles is, IMO and IME, quite out-dated. That was more true in the days of carburetors, points-based ignition, and…

[deleted]

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#763

Post by plandis »

MengerSponge wrote: post #675
bathtub365 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s quite expensive to buy and maintain a car

Yes, and public roads should be an additional cost. I'm not interested in banning cars, but I am interested in charging appropriately for sprawl and air pollution.

Car registration fees / gas taxes do pay for that?

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#764

Post by wizofaus »

lp0_on_fire wrote: post #759
wizofaus wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that argument you should never cross a road as a pedestrian... FWIW I do agree, the safety aspect is by far the biggest downside of motorcycles/bikes. But there's plenty that can be done to make both a lot safer, and examples of countries that have pulled it off successfully. And once you have a significant fraction of people no longer using cars, roads tend to become safer for everyone.

Obviously one has to cross the road as a pedestrian sometimes but if I'm being honest in many places around where I live in the US I go out of my way to not. Stroads plus the lack of sidewalks, guarded crosswalks and blind corners make it so that it's dumb to cross in many places. Even guarded crosswalks are hit or miss (no pun intended). The lights are all timed for vehicles and most drivers around here think stop l…

Everything you describe is exactly why I would never care to live in a city designed for cars over people, of whom some will use cars from time to time.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#765

Post by ghaff »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #688
ghaff wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, per my other comment, whether or not they want to/need to own a car, being able to drive one is a pretty essential life skill. If nothing else, if you can't/won't drive, you'll be cut off from a lot of employment opportunities.

No, it absolutely is not an essential life skill. They will learn it if it becomes advantageous for them to learn it. I understand offering, I don't understand insisting if they say they don't want to.

I'll disagree somewhat.

If they're planning on becoming a lifetime Manhattanite who rarely leaves the city sure. (Substitute international locations.) Sure.

But I think parents insisting that not being able to drive is a poor life choice for a bunch of reasons--that they're not going to support through driving their kid around--seems pretty reasonable.

Strictly in terms of employment (and even job interviews in my experience) the ability to rent a car, even if not owning a car, is pretty common.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#766

Post by ghaff »

earthling8118 wrote: post #748
ghaff wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a car/not owning a car is to at least some degree an economic decision. But I literally could not have done my first job without being able to drive to job sites. And I couldn't really have worked at the next company in an office park either. To say nothing of countless recreational activities and vacations I've done that required me to drive. I've spoken to friends with teenagers and they've told me their kid…

If a job requires you to drive between many places with your own vehicle you are effectively taking a pay cut. They are offloading the costs of their job onto you. To me your statement logically is worded something like: "I require a car because I require a car"

Whenever I've had to drive on business--other than commuting--there's always been a mileage allowance which I expensed. Or I had a rental car and was paid for rental and gas.

But, yes, there are also many company locations out in suburban office parks that are generally not accessible if you don't have a car.

Even if I had a company car, I'd still have to be able to drive. Lots of jobs require being able to drive.

A great many teenagers will be in situations (especially after college) where they want or even need to drive a car. So it makes sense to "encourage" them to get a driver's license before there's an urgent need.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#767

Post by [deleted] »

gadders wrote: post #719
juve1996 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the 50th time someone said this on here. It can be said without being said. Yea, try living somewhere rural without a large number of things. The fact is, most people don't, and the fact is, most of the market for everything is in cities and their satellite suburbs.

I don't know how to break this to you, but you can write software from pretty much anywhere. You don't need to be living in a polluted city. You can live in the country with your family and raise chickens and walk your dog across fields in your lunch break. Uber Eats might not reach that far, but you learn to cope.

[deleted]

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#768

Post by areyousure »

mcdonje wrote: post #630
tropicalbeach wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have that freedom to walk anywhere after parking you know. I have done this 100’s of times. Just park then from there go anywhere you want then just take a taxi or lyft back to your car. Public transport sucks, not sure why so many people people like it. Driving is much better unless you live in a large city like NY or LA. My own climate control, radio for music and podcasts, plus driving is therapeutic. I…

>unless you live in a large city Most people live in large cities

In case anyone is curious, I downloaded US Census Bureau data on the population of all incorporated towns and cities in the United States, eg from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2...

It appears that the median resident of the United States lives in a town or city of population 18,290 (as of the census date April 1, 2020).

As a quick sanity check, the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... cuts off at population 100,000 and mentions that > The total 2020 enumerated population of all cities over 100,000 is 96,598,047, representing 29.14% of the United States population

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#769

Post by 93po »

taylodl wrote: post #472
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average new car price in the U.S. is now over $47K (Consumer Reports). I make a good living and I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a new car! A young person would be stupid to pay that kind of money for a car. I think what you mean is that enough Americans are stupid enough with money to pay 47k$ for a car (or worse, a 15mg truck/jeep), plenty of $15-25k cars exist, 45k$ cars just look cheaper with 5-7…

Run through all the numbers I ran through. The only number you're adjust is financing - which is a big number, but my financing number was based on $28K. Financing $20K drops you to $600, which is still expensive. Get much cheaper than $20K and you're starting to drive up your maintenance costs while you drive down your financing costs. Those maintenance costs come with several other ancillary costs (aggravation, pay…

Last time I shopped (admittedly 8 years ago) there were tons of entry level, cheap Toyotas and Hondas that were only a year or two old with under 20k miles for $10-15k.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#770

Post by fragmede »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #716
mcdonje wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless you live in a large city Most people live in large cities

Sure but most large cities aren’t just urban areas. Dallas, Houston, Denver, Phoenix etc are all large cities that you could live in and never have any reason to be near a high rise building.

Are those really cities though? A huge concentrated mass of suburban sprawl and strip malls doesn't count as a city in my book.
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