Cars Cars Cars Cars @%$%^(*&%$@@

[Nuggler]

The tyme is come
For Nug and crew
To delve deeply
into things affecting
me
and you
The cost is riz
the fun is gone
memories of road trips
linger on
trips to the "states"
around, about and such
but things now cost
too ****ing much!:angry3:

The Nuggler clan drives an old econoheap, well past it's prime, just like the Nuggler clan, and
the feeling of someone having a secure hold on my wallet and me nackers both at the same time is starting to become, well, less of a treat.

So we are thinking, not seriously yet, of divesting ourselves of this money pit in the driveway, and resorting to .......walking......bicycle......taxi......bus........train.....and etc.

Firstly, we live a scant two blocks from a cash and carry wholesaler which also has kindly agreed to allow mere mortals to also buy from them as well as yer naberhood milk monger who charges you 2x, once for coming in, once for leaving. So I could WALK (ouch) there, and wheelie in a cart of some sort, all the groceries we would ever need.

A trip to "the mall" once a month for hair cuts, hair dooos, and a general outing could be accomplished via taxi........expensive, but not 75.00/month as in car insurance. One would not be able to dash out into the parking lot and drive home immediately, but rather have to WAIT (egad) for a cab. In the interim, whonose........one might strike up a conversation with perfect or imperfect strangers, and actually enjoy talking to someone other than the next door naybore
or the mormons or jehovas witnessess.........ya think?

I might miss chucking the canoe on the car, the fishin rods in same, and buggering off for a day, but really, I've done that. This year, to date, ain't wet a line yet. And don't miss it. This is probably why the "assholes that be" allow seniors and senioreetas to fish for free. They know you probably won't................Yep, Harpo, that there demographic study be payin off in spades........eyuk eyuk.

Once a month by bus instead of once a week by car to a neighbouring town to play music with me likewise old friends........Again........much less than the monthly insurance stipend. Hell, we might move there. Most of me ol buddies hereabouts is dead, in prison, or alcoholic, and no longer require my company.

Seriously folks, we could save a shipload of cash, but that's really not the point.
1. I don't enjoy driving any more, as much.
2. Hate winter driving and make any excuse not to do it......As in.....No ****ing way!! I ain't goin!!!
3. I absolutely resent the extreme hell out of being held hostage by insurance mongers and the oil cartels

That's about it. The autorant if you will. I know it could be done. Does the Nuggler clan have the nuts to do it???

Be forthcoming with your stories; do you or not own, how do you get around, and etc.
Might be an interesting thread..............meh.........maybe not..........

 

[MikeyDB]

I hear ya Nugg!



While I haven't owned nor driven a car for fifteen years, I have the "luxury" of living alone and within a block of a bus stop. Fortunately London has a transit system and there's really no difficulty in getting where I need to go... Mind you my doctors offices require I "cab-it" since they're not close enough to a bus route...

For folks with kids and people in rural communities, their options are much more limited.

We revelled in our "four-wheel-freedom" and built predatory industries out of insurance companies and gave governments the means to wring even more money out of us because we considered our personal "needs" ahead of the needs of the community. We didn't come to these conclusions on our own by any means.... We've been conditioned to believe that with automobile ownership comes....sexual allure......popularity.....substitute for congeniality and co-operative effort..... Our atmosphere and our infrastructure are victim to a self-interest cultivated in the name of greed.

It seems Canadians are far more willing to pay artificially inflated prices for gasoline than they are prepared to consider alternatives.

That will by happenstance of the intrusion of reality into their various levels of denial come to an end.

Too bad the only way we seem to learn is by losing what's most precious to us.

 

[Nuggler]

Mikey, you put it very eloquently.

Sometimes, it would appear, those living in large urban settings have "it"

The tiny ville of Backwater has no public transit, and so just getting about would be a challenge. One that could be overcome on a daily basis, but at no small inconvenience. And, I just wonder how long we would enjoy each others' company before going absolutely nutso for lack of distractions.

One might argue that, in the end, we're all dead, so what the ****! But still, would be nice to enjoy life. Guess what I'm saying is how long would it be before I walked into a used car lot?

Old habits would die a hard death.

Yathink??:-?

 

[MikeyDB]

Mornin Nugg....

OH by the way...you might get painted with the same brush that Durka is wielding....for even entertaining a discussion with a brain-dead simpering whiner like me....

Everything has to be simple and less that twenty-five words today. Simple black and white questions and answers.....

There's nothing to be examined or explained....either you see the world the way everyone else does...or you're a simpleminded cripple.....

Stop complaining Nugg! You had the opportunity to change your life and now that you realize you've made some lousy decisions...you whine and you simper and you pout and you complain....

Sorry for having rambled on so.....

Have a good one Nugg....even though you're burdened with mush for brains .... like me!

 

[karrie]

I tossed a basket and lock on my bike last night, so that I can bike out for groceries.

With kids in the house, no vehicle would get mighty pricey mighty quick. Taxis to whisk off to school for stomach flus, twisted ankles, or fist fights, would add up pretty fast. But, that doesn't mean I have to drive the thing on a regular basis. I'm hoping to start biking when I head for coffee, or pop out for groceries, to return movies... the simple little stuff. As it is, I try to save as many errands for one trip as possible. This will just help spread the number of trips out even further.

 

[MikeyDB]

Karrie

Do you shop at a gigantic "superstore" or at a local mom and pop grocery-store? While the automobile and its use are the immediate focus, the implications of why a car or truck are "necessary" to families today is a much larger question.....

Have we "saved" so much by buying at big-box stores and "super-markets" that the cost of fossil fuels to power our chariots has simply become part of the "new" way of life?

 

[Nuggler]

Yer bang on there Mike. And you put it much more eloquently than I.

After reading your post, it struck me that a twice yearly trip by train, plane, or bus to "wherever" would not be out of the question, as the surplus $'s could (not necessarily would) be tucked in the one sock without holes, and would accumulate to accommodate provincial, if not, world travel......not that I wanna go eh.

Oh, there's lotsa pluses, the only minus being "inconvenienced."

For me, the main inconvenience would be when bass fishing season opens and I would have to stand on shore.

8O

 

[tracy]

I lived without a car when I was in Toronto for the first and only time in my life since I was old enough to drive. It wasn't bad since the transit system is so good. Since moving to California though, I couldn't live without a car. I commute nearly 40 miles for work 3 days a week. But, on my days off I live in an area where I can walk to do almost everything except grocery shopping. With the weather so nice, I can't say I'm even tempted to drive much around home.

 

[lone wolf]

I lives in the boonies.... That means a five mile walk to the triple price shop - and fifteen more to real grocery getting. Only the Greyhound ventures past the end of my road. When? Only God knows. Those things are never on schedule. Today, I can do a Sudbury trip on less than five bucks worth of gas. Mister bus driver wants fifteen in and fifteen back. Damn! Would it ever be nice for ODSP to raise my minimum wage....

 

[Nuggler]

I tossed a basket and lock on my bike last night, so that I can bike out for groceries.

With kids in the house, no vehicle would get mighty pricey mighty quick. Taxis to whisk off to school for stomach flus, twisted ankles, or fist fights, would add up pretty fast. But, that doesn't mean I have to drive the thing on a regular basis. I'm hoping to start biking when I head for coffee, or pop out for groceries, to return movies... the simple little stuff. As it is, I try to save as many errands for one trip as possible. This will just help spread the number of trips out even further.

Thatsa good points there, Karrie. See, we NEED cars, sometimes. And when we needem, we needem.

Even if we drive just for necessities, and make one big trip do, the elephant still sits in the driveway, costing mega insurance/deprecation dollars.

Plus we are freakin spread out............way out..........

If we all lived in tight, rabbit warren cities, a la China, etc., we wouldn't NEED a car.

Or maybe it's all in our minds and we could do without if we had to.

I would move to a larger center if the car got gone. Up with Mike and we could do the bars on a more regular basis.........(if the wife would let me, eh)

????????????????????? ah the mental anguish!!:tard:

 

[darkbeaver]

Where is light rail, where is public transit, where is frieght rail? I am thinking about giving up my beat up old Ranger when the sticker expires. I hate driving like nuggler, it beats me up and it's expensive.

 

[darkbeaver]

Where is light rail, where is public transit, where is frieght rail? I am thinking about giving up my beat up old Ranger when the sticker expires. I hate driving like nuggler, it beats me up and it's expensive. It's cutting to far into my drugs and booze budget these days.

 

[lone wolf]

Where is light rail, where is public transit, where is frieght rail? I am thinking about giving up my beat up old Ranger when the sticker expires. I hate driving like nuggler, it beats me up and it's expensive. It's cutting to far into my drugs and booze budget these days.

Hmm.... I have a set of tracks two swamps, a beaver pond, a hundred trees and a mountain away (really, not all that far if the ticker was in better working order) A bit of ingenuity and a while with the torch I could fashion up a jitney that would ride those rails in to Sudbury. Only problem with that is CPR don't run on schedule either....

 

[MikeyDB]

Tracy

This is exactly the point I'm drawing to people's attention. We choose to go where there's a concentration of employment... and that's inevitably to an urban concentration. We choose to re-make and re-shape our lives to continue living them according to the "rules" established by consumerism and "wealth". Our social organizing principles have in the past hundred and fifty years had far less to do with the "individual"...(see another thread with that discussion ) than they have to do with concentrating the means of production and facilitating the process of resource management....to the end of making the wealthy even more money regardless of the sacrifices we have to make in our own lives! I lived in TO for a couple of years and found the transit system just wonderful.... but I couldn't take the pace and moved out.

Our societies and our cultures are shaped to accomodate consumption and focus our energies and our futures to suit the wealthy and the powerful. Sure there's a "chicken and egg" kind of question... "Would a university or institute of higher education locate where it would be difficult for people to commute...or would these opportunities at furthering education produce better results if established in urban enclaves..? When we concentrate the manufacturing processes of a consumer society in urban centers is that done because the rail lines and the infrastructure exist there to begin with...?

Anthopologically, societies and cultures arose close to water and this was for not only the advantage of an easily accessible crucial commodity but to facilitate trade and commerce.

Yes we put industry and manufacturing right beside the water resources we need to live...and yes we put tons upon tons of contaminants and garbage into our water supply...because we concentrate in large numbers....because we'd rather consume in the immediate than plan for the future...!?

 

[tracy]

It's definitely true Mikey. My job is one that really can only exist in bigger centers. I choose to work and live in 2 different large cities. My home is in a city with one of the busiest ports on the west coast. I see that it definitely keeps society the way it is and makes the rich richer, but it also makes my life easier. I don't want to live out in the boonies is the bottom line. Making cities more livable and better for the environment and the people within them is a really interesting task.

 

[Nuggler]

Where is light rail, where is public transit, where is frieght rail? I am thinking about giving up my beat up old Ranger when the sticker expires. I hate driving like nuggler, it beats me up and it's expensive.

So, Darkbeaver, you would be the man with whom I wish to talk.

I was looking at a Ranger today, sort of planning the next gut bucket, when this one gives up, and it looked like it might be powered by a 4 cyl. engine, with auto trans, with a "highway" gear.

Is this like yours? If so, how is yours re: gas consumption. And repairs in the long haul.

We used to have a GM 1500 Sierra, very old, but it was surprisingly good on gas (overdrive.)..........nothing like the Korean menace we have today, but all things being relative, it was pretty good.

Yah!! After all me rantin........Guess I'm gonna hafta geta nother one. And I want a little truck.

Used and cheap, yet good, good tires fer kikkin, etc.

Whadyathink?

8O

 

[#juan]

I have no patience with public transit so I'm going to be driving a car for a while yet. I'm hoping my next car will be a "plug-in Hybrid". Plug-ins have a lot more battery than the current crop of hybrids so the gas engine is used even less. They will be a boon to people who commute 30 km or less one way to work or school.

 

[tracy]

Have you seen the new Apteras that will be coming out next year? Only in California to start, but if they remain available and prove themselves to be good cars in 2 years I'll have one for sure!

 

[#juan]

Have you seen the new Apteras that will be coming out next year? Only in California to start, but if they remain available and prove themselves to be good cars in 2 years I'll have one for sure!

Have you looked at the Toyota Camry Hybrid. This car is rated by many people as the best hybrid out there. It is rated at at least fifty MPG city or highway but getting a couple more MPG in the city.

 

[tracy]

The Camrys are nice, but 50 isn't impressive compared to 300.