If we’re talking about outside the city, then it’s not like the problem is a lack of land… There’s plenty of parking, but there’s also plenty of empty space.
We don’t actually have a pending shortage of landfill space, either.
Still, we have developed our current society with an enormous implicit subsidy for individual cars that people rarely think about.
Why “obviously her husband’s?” IME, many women also choose crazy-large trucks and SUVs for their own vehicles, frequently because they believe that a bigger vehicle will make them more visible in traffic, and protect them (and their children) better in a crash than a smaller car would.
And, honestly, given the increasing percentage of U.S. passenger vehicles that are enormous trucks and SUVs, I understand why they feel that way, though it may be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Both of the vehicles I regularly drive are small sporty cars, and I increasingly worry that I’m just not visible to people driving those tanks.
They’re likely in a minority, though:
88% of pickup buyers identified as male.
Also, from Google AI:
While women buy more compact and midsize SUVs than men, men still make up the majority of buyers for large, full-size SUVs
However, the gender gap for large SUVs is significantly narrower than the massive divide seen in the pickup truck market.
Why is it different if it’s a small women stepping out of a giant behemoth of a car than if it’s a man? Large men fit comfortably in a Honda Fit. (People joked about how apt the name was.) The desire for crazy large trucks is not driven by body size.
And to be fair, the intrinsic physical wastefulness of car use for simple solo trips that I was talking about isn’t really a “compact vs. SUV” issue. Even the heaviest SUVs weigh maybe twice as much as a subcompact, but the latter weighs approximately a hundred times as much as a bicycle. The footprint/volume disparities aren’t as drastic, of course, but the external-dimension volume of cars and SUVs is in the range of 10-20 cubic meters, while that of a bicycle and rider is about one-quarter of a cubic meter.
Again, none of this is an attempt to scold any individual car owners or lecture them that they should be driving something else, which for many people is a practical impossibility anyway. Just pointing out ways in which the “luxury” of extravagantly excessive resource use is hardwired into US automotive culture and transportation policy, to a degree that far outweighs comparatively minor issues of how big some particular car model is or what kind of fuel it uses or what mileage it gets.
Not really different, just the extra irony of someone small needing a vehicle so needlessly large!
Also note that I wasn’t criticizing the woman. As I mentioned above, more likely than not it was the husband who chose the giant behemoth as the family vehicle.
In my [fairly affluent] neighborhood, the women have definitely taken over from the men in terms of “I need a large 3-row SUV because minivans aren’t cool”. Men are more likely to be driving Wranglers or Broncos now. There’s probably some element of “I want this Wrangler honey, you can take the Denali” but I think the women like the big tanks for the prestige/status.
What worries me is the 16-year-olds driving their hand-me-down Tahoes or Cayennes.
I know what you’re saying, but I have to do the Doper thing. I have an uncle who is 6’5" and he really wanted a Honda Fit but he would not fit inside it. He could not sit up straight in the driver’s seat. So he bought a Civic instead.
And he used to be in the Navy! I can’t imagine him squished into a submarine.
I think in this geographic area men driving cars are frequently assumed to be emasculated, and a pox on you for driving a foreign car. My best friend’s Dad worked for Ford and I was not permitted to park my Honda in his driveway. My Mom used to work at GM, last I knew she was driving a Ford F150, which is not that ridiculous of a truck, but my point is, the local culture is both truck crazy and American Made crazy, whether or not those things actually make the most sense, as a consumer, to buy.
Not everyone adheres to this, but a lot do. My grandmother drives a big red Ford truck and my grandfather drives a Civic. My grandpa is a very talented and experienced tinkerer of cars so I stayed l trusted his judgement and bought a Honda.
Europe has reduced the arms race to larger cars not only by taxing gasoline at a higher level, but also by having more restrictive licensing for larger cars
RE Kenobi’s 15 year old Mustang
I bought one new in '01 and put 190,000 miles on it before selling it. Had the original AC and clutch (it was a 5-speed) . Quite rusty at 16 yrs old (Ohio winters) but reliable as a hammer. Even the upholstery looked good!
Sound like the various types of cars I routinely blow past in my BMW on the two-lane highway in my wife’s home town.
The thing is, it actually wasn’t that expensive as far as BMWs go.
It’s probably a topic for a separate thread, but I’ve noticed both in personal experience and through work for a municipal government, that there’s a pretty significant number of people who are self-appointed adjudicators of how tax money should be spent. They’re usually older, more conservative, and possessed of a massive dose of busy-bodiness. They’re often surprisingly heartless and harsh when they’re acting in their gadfly role- they’ll probably say something like “Well, they should have invested for retirement better. It’s not the <city/state/county>'s job to provide a ride for them with public money.”
Not because they like waste and excess, or because they’re totally unsympathetic, but because they feel like they’ve got some sort of near holy mission to make sure public money is spent “properly” in their eyes.
Some of the time it’s just ignorance that looks like potential racism. Lots of people here vote against public transit because they live in the parts of town where it isn’t well developed, they already have cars, and they see no need for it because it’s something other people elsewhere want. They can’t conceive that others may actually need the buses, and usually think of it as a “free ride” of sorts (our public transit system does charge a minor fare) for people who should be more prudent with their money so as to afford a car.
Cue all those same people then whining about what a burden it is to have to drive their aged parents all over town because they’re not safe to drive anymore (not to mention having to drive their pre-driving-age children everywhere). And then, a few decades down the road, whining that their own kids are trying to make them stop driving for safety reasons but they won’t comply because then they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. (And a nonzero percentage of those unsafe elderly drivers will be out on the roads actually causing accidents because they can’t drive safely anymore but refuse to stop trying.)
Speaking of “luxury”, the assumption that EVERY competent adult should ALWAYS be expected to meet ALL their local transportation needs by operating a large, powerful, expensive and highly-dangerous-especially-at-high-speeds personal vehicle is an unrealistic luxury of absolutely delusional proportions at the community and society level. Heavy machinery operation is a serious responsibility demanding knowledge, skills, physical dexterity and mental acuity that should absolutely not be expected of all adults at all times. The fact that we automatically expect so many people to manage it so often, irrespective of their personal circumstances and conditions, is a big part of why we have so many traffic accidents.
Yeah, and I know I’m at higher risk of car accidents because of ADHD. I have done some boneheaded things - fortunately no accidents. It has made me extremely hypervigilant as as driver but I still have lapses. There’s a reason people with ADHD don’t live as long.
If I could minimize that risk I would.
At least my son’s school is just down the road so now I can walk him there.
That’s great! (Once again, though, I want to disclaim and reject any attempt to shame or critique any individuals caught in the gears of American automotive culture who are for whatever reason stuck with relying on individual car trips more than they might ideally prefer. This is a very built-in systemic issue, it’s not any particular driver’s or car owner’s fault, and I apologize for any impression that I’m trying to put blame on any individual for somehow “doing transportation wrong”.)
I can also walk to Dairy Queen now… which may become an issue.
I’ve got mixed feelings about public transit.
On one hand, I can see the need for it that some people have, especially lower income people. It’s a legitimate public service that really does help people.
On the other hand, I’ve been a public transit rider a couple times in my life, and the general implementation leaves a LOT to be desired in most cases. I really did NOT like the fixed schedule that didn’t quite fit how I worked and lived. And I especially did not like the way that it was unreliable- if anything went wrong anywhere, I was late to wherever I was going. Often involving hanging around in extreme heat, rain, cold, etc… waiting on the damned train. And the other passengers were frequently smelly, loud, obnoxious, and impolite. And there were too many of them crammed in most of the time. I eventually got tired of being late to my kids’ school functions, standing out in the cold/heat waiting on the train, and then when I got on, being crammed in with stinky, obnoxious people who were talking loudly on their phones and/or watching movies on their devices with the volume up.
I can completely see why many people do NOT want to ride public transportation. It’s unreliable, it’s inconvenient, it’s chock full of reeking homeless people and lower class people who don’t act with decorum, and it’s often crowded. Anybody sane, not impoverished, and who isn’t ideologically motivated, who lives/works where parking is available is almost always going to choose to drive themselves.
There’s a set of left-wing do-gooders who seem to think the ideal is for everyone to live in high rise apartments and walk/take the bus/subway everywhere, who don’t understand that only they think this way, and for a lot of people that sounds hellish. So there’s a LOT of blowback to both suggestions when it comes up as a potential public policy.
Only if you drive.
Judging by my inlaws, it seems to be a sense that they somehow “earned it” when it comes to their entitlements (like Social Security or tax rebates or my wife’s aunt who receives some sort of military pension from her late husband), and yet other people haven’t. And yet they get upset when I point out my wife’s aunt didn’t actually serve in Nam.
OTOH, a lot of these people live in rural areas with not much of an actual tax base not many services provided by taxes beyond basic (or even substandard) roads, schools, and police. So often, yeah, they do feel (perhaps rightly so) that those tax dollars should be going to services that benefit the whole community rather than a select (if needy) few.