Okay, so lets just say that you are walking along the street and a person walks up to you. They offer you a free, brand new car. For the sake of this poll, lets say a mid-range vehicle of the type you would normally drive, be that an SUV, a mini-van, a truck or a sedan.
There is a catch. The vehicle will be covered in gaudy corporate logos and painted a bright color to match the logo. Think NASCAR. You are not allowed to paint over the logos or alter the outer appearance of the vehicle in any way. You do not get to choose what logos appear on the car and will not know ahead of time which ones they are (just that they are “family friendly”).
That’s pretty much how I feel about it but when I asked a group of friends, two would not accept. One because he would want to drive around in it. One because she didn’t want to be an advertisement for random corporations.
I have a car and the payments don’t put me out as much as the random annoying questions and comments about the logo on my car would. And I am poor. It is possible I am not much of a people person, but a logo on my car seems like it would be an invitation to the anti-corporation loonies of my fair city to come up to me and start ranting. I am in Northern California, there are a lot of those fine folks here.
BUT I would have to see what I was advertising first. If it were cigarettes or beer or something I don’t like or don’t want to be associated with, I wouldn’t accept.
A free car is a free car and I wouldn’t turn it down. I’d still keep my other vehicle for situations where I would object to a logo covered car. If the logo’s I ended up with were objectionable I could park it and just use it when i needed to haul fertilizer or something.
If I was required to drive it a minimum number of miles or had to rid myself of other vehicles it wouldn’t really be free.
I’d accept in a second. A new truck is a new truck. What do I care what it advertises? If I don’t like the products, I can always bad-mouth them whenever I can. Few people are going to be swayed just by a truck with ads on it, no matter what the sponsors of NASCAR think.
I’d take it, although I might cringe mightily when seeing what the logo’s were. Bright ugly colors I can deal with, but say it was a Toyota covered with Toyota logs, I’d be in big trouble since I work for Ford.
My husband, OTOH, immediately refused, stating that he’d rather be poor making payments than be a ‘corporate tool’.
Now what does “family friendly” mean? Is it McDonalds and Bell, or is it fundamentalist churches and anti-abortion groups? (I guess the latter wouldn’t be likely where I live, but we never know.) If the former, I wouldn’t have a problem driving the car, but I also don’t have a car, have never had one and don’t really need one either. So I’d have to ask myself if I really want the expense that even a free car would represent. I’d probably end up taking it; even if I don’t need it it’d be useful to me.
If it was for causes I had a strong moral objection to, then maybe I wouldn’t agree. My list of such is very small, so I expect I would have no problem.
I have never learned to drive, though, so it would be wasted.