{"id":211237595,"date":"2011-09-11T21:06:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T21:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=211237595"},"modified":"2011-09-11T21:06:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T21:06:35","slug":"mans-greatest-mistake-cars-are-brilliant-but-they-are-a-brilliant-mistake-and-deep-down-we-all-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=211237595","title":{"rendered":"Man’s Greatest Mistake CARS ARE BRILLIANT, BUT THEY ARE A BRILLIANT MISTAKE, AND DEEP DOWN, WE ALL KNOW IT\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

[B’ Spokes: I’ve been having a time argument with my Mom for my 13 mile (one way) commute. Mom:”But it takes you (almost) an hour to bike there and it would only take you a half hour by car (doing 60 mph most of the way.)” Yet my Mom spends an hour in a gym every day so to do the equivalent there would be no time savings what so ever!<\/b><\/p>\n

It comes down to a choice of doing only one hour of gym time and then have to zoom around like you are crazy or two hours of fun relaxed bike time. Just because you are doing 60+mph does not mean you are saving any time at all. And I’ll note I have done the trip in 40 minutes by bike and because of rush hour traffic the trip has taken 40 minutes by car. The time gap is closing.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Are Cars Really Our Greatest Mistake?<\/p>\n

By mike Filed in $ The True Cost of Cars Tagged with accidents, economics, neighbourhoods, waste<\/p>\n

Definitely.<\/p>\n

But let me to qualify that just a little. I don\u2019t mean Man\u2019s greatest mistake ever. And I don\u2019t count human foibles or innate weaknesses as mistakes.<\/p>\n

What I am talking about is our ongoing rational choice, right now, to spend our physical resources, time and creative energy doing one thing rather than another.<\/p>\n

A mistake, by this definition, must also be an opportunity. A chance to do things differently. And yes, in these terms, the increasingly universal spread of the private motor car is undoubtedly Man\u2019s greatest mistake. And our greatest opportunity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

People drive to shopping malls for a car-free experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oddly, part of the problem in making the case against the car is that the arguments are so numerous and diverse that they become confusing, overwhelming.<\/p>\n

20 million deaths from road accidents in 15 years, for example; that\u2019s more than were killed in World War One<\/a>. And don\u2019t forget the 200 million people seriously injured. The majority of them our children and youngsters. It is a truly, truly horrific mass slaughter. And entirely avoidable.<\/p>\n

Or our lost sense of community; the constant noise and the danger from cars stops kids playing and parents chatting<\/a>. Cars physically prevent communication between people. They are by far the most conspicuous symbol of wealth and so are deeply divisive.<\/p>\n

Or the fact that these hugely expensive, high-tech assets spend 96% of the time idle and cluttering up the place<\/a>. We live in rich societies, but it doesn\u2019t feel like it because our wealth sits around, depreciating in car parks, front gardens and at the side of the road.<\/p>\n

Or the land use \u2013 look around what used to be a green and pleasant land and you\u2019ll see mainly tarmac<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or the inflationary pressure on all our main commodities, including food<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or the health impact of the obesity crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or the deaths from air pollution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or the oil wars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you see what I mean? The car is so dominant in our economics and in our public space that we are faced with a many headed beast. It is the combination of these massive detriments that adds up to what is by far our our biggest mistake.<\/p>\n

And other crimes could be added to the charge sheet, but the one that really sums it up for me is this: the cost to our time.
\n<\/span>
\nTime is our most precious personal resource. Given time, anyone can achieve anything. Cars are meant to make life faster and allow us to do more, to get more out of life. It is deeply ironic then, that cars actually suck up vast amounts of people\u2019s time, apparently without us noticing.<\/p>\n

It takes time to research, purchase, insure, tax, maintain, clean, fill with petrol, plan routes, drive ourselves around, find parking spaces, deal with breakdowns, accidents and tickets and generally worry about our cars. People don\u2019t keep tabs on all this time and compare it to journey time saved, we don\u2019t tend to think that way.<\/p>\n

But even if we did keep careful notes and tot it up, we would still be ignoring the car\u2019s biggest drain on our time. Because we\u2019ve got to pay for our cars somehow and for most people that means working to earn the money. On average we spend around a quarter of our income on running a car. So we spend about 1 to 1.5 days every week working for the car. As we earn more we simply \u2018upgrade\u2019 the car. It\u2019s amazing really, the power of marketing and peer pressure.<\/p>\n

Now if you are a real car enthusiast, a hobbyist, it\u2019s kind of understandable that you should devote so much of your life to your car. As for the rest of us, wouldn\u2019t we rather save the time and work 3.5 days instead of 5? Imagine what we could do with that time. At very least, shouldn\u2019t our society and infrastructure be arranged to give us that genuine choice?<\/p>\n

So, by a whisker, and out of several strong contenders, that\u2019s my personal favourite reason that the car is Man\u2019s greatest mistake. What\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n


\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.mansgreatestmistake.com\/the-true-cost-of-cars\/are-cars-really-our-greatest-mistake<\/a>oldId.20110911210635579<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[B’ Spokes: I’ve been having a time argument with my Mom for my 13 mile (one way) commute. Mom:”But it takes you (almost) an hour to bike there and it would only take you a half hour by car (doing 60 mph most of the way.)” Yet my Mom spends an hour in a gym … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Man’s Greatest Mistake CARS ARE BRILLIANT, BUT THEY ARE A BRILLIANT MISTAKE, AND DEEP DOWN, WE ALL KNOW IT\u2026”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211237595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211237595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=211237595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211237595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=211237595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=211237595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=211237595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}