I heard this the other day and thought it had some merit. Surely in the western world at least there are already enuff cars on the road. They used to make cars to last a lifetime - what happened to all of them? Even the tinny shit they make now which seems designed to only last 10-15 years could have an extended life with the proper care.

The emphasis given to safety in cars these days just seems like another way of making people feel as tho they need to 'upgrade'. The singlemost important safety feature one could have in a car is driving safely. Do we really need to ditch our Morris Minors in favour of side air-bags and intrusion bars?

I thought the advent of plastic cars was going to lead to less fuel burned, but the problem there is designing the plastics with the necessary "BUILT in Obsolescence"
so beloved of the consumer society.
Forcing people to, listen to another twinz rant etc etc etc,

..........the answer lies with the Chinese and Indians.

I don't suck up this car fantasy at all. (And Morry Minors are crap, dude, get a motorised rickshaw).

If you are in a COUPLESY situation, or want a girlfriend, hey lo, you NEED a car. Women expect that (any women here feel free to contradict me, with reasons, go right ahead).

I HATE cars. When I exited my last relationship I felt like THANKING her for keeping the car (I rarely got to drive it anyways, but ahm, I digress).

WALKING is great. You feel great. No I don't have kids. But yes I have access to a public transport system.

Cars STINK. They're stupidly expensive. People worry about them getting stolen or damaged. Not to mention the other expenses.

They KILL people. Got a fear of spiders (or even sharks)? How many people you know died from animal bites? Why aren't YOU terrified of cars?

SURE when you're young enough to have no notion of mortality they are FUN.

There are MORE of them on NZ roads than ever. About 50% more (it seems) than 20 years ago. Maybe more.

We don't NEED them. My home stereo is fine thanks, and if you want to visit me, text or phone me instead. It's 3000% cheaper, AND I'll be happier to "see" you.

I LOVE driving. Recklessly! I speed and shunt other drivers off the road. I have a leather steering wheel and pedals. In my LOUNGE that is. THat's what Playstation is for.
If I NEED to travel (god forbid) I take the bus.

TTTAAXXII!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK. I'll just continue driving my gas-guzzling 4X4 'tank' then. <_<

If you like...
Years ago the 'chattering classes' complained long and hard about the farmers and their Land/Range Rovers. Despite their obvious uses in muddy fields carrying 101 items back and forth.
Now in the City, they call them 'The Chelsea Tractor'.

In China and India, bikes were a favourite form of transport.........do I really need to go on ???

Yes. And I tell ya, all the ex-pat poms that come over here buy the big 4X4's and move into what we call 'lifestyle blocks' - which are basically miniature farms. I think they are all dying to be 'lord of the manor' in some respects. The funny things is, they are essentially 'farmer-wannabes' and yet many of them cannot stand the sight of animals getting hurt ie. killed. Go figure. :confused:















Mind you, the above statement is a gross generalisation based on a handful of observed incidents.

How is this a class or "foreigner" subject? Are you guys kidding?

See MES and seagulls ??

Money.(And aspirations)

Money. Pah, it's the answer to every question (what was that movie - Vanilla Sky?).

I reckon "joy of motoring" has consumer rubber to burn though. Is that imposed?


ahh...and "aspirations" now....now there's a complexion.....

all cars, & I mean all of them, were once new.
Even those shitty clapped out things.
Somebody once said "this is the car I want, in this colour.."

world is mad.

...for about 30 seconds.

That's what I dont understand - people buy a car for $50,000 and then sell it after a few years. Christ, I dont spend 100 bucks without some guaruntee of value-for-money. If i was gonna spend that amount of money on a car I would want it to last a lifetime.

The big swindle we call consumerism encourages us to throw stuff away, and therein lies the problem.

To reiterate: its madness. :(

aye.
given our isolation & shiftwork, we need 2 cars these days.
We have a 91 Subaru and an 07 VW Polo diesel.
if the VW don't go 15 yrs, I will be pissed off.
Cars don't rust here like they do in the Old Dart.

Still, after spending nowt on the super roo, recently everything went wrong at once, and we had to cough up $3000 for a cascade of injuries it suffered.

'You are BusMan, You are BikeMan.'. Devolved.

Your email dropped in value 27% after you sent it, but if you look after it and upgrade the content within the next two years of careful use, I can guarantee I will trade you an email I wrote 12 months ago, that has only been replied to once, for 68% of your original purchase price, plus allowable concessions.
It will smell as new as tonight's first taxi ride, drive differently to your own car, AND you will be allowed to shag your girlfriend within three months on the same seat your new puppy travelled on. WE promise!!!!

We are the Maniac Car Poachers: we may not be from Swansea but YOU LOVE US, YOU LOVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





Um, any chance of a ride home?

Is that lift free ?

American Scientist--March/April.
The cars and trucks plying America,s roads and highways generate roughly 20% of the nations carbon dioxide.
Yet the fuel economy of the New-car-fleet has not risen since the late 1980,s when it exceeded 27·5 miles per gallon.
If a typical car could drop 10% of its Mass, its fuel economy would increase by upto 8%.
Designers are aware of this relation, and after federal fuel-economy standards were first enacted, carmakers almost eliminated cars weighing over 4,000lbs.
40% in 1975 to 3% in 1980.
But in the late 1980,s 'light trucks' and 'SUV,s'increased to 32% of todays market.
-----------
The article collates accident figures to prove that the idea that a heavier vehicle is safer, is in fact wrong.
The biggest reductions in injury are occuring due to new side-impact 'Airbags' and other features.
Most SUV,s in fact have a high rate of roll-over in accidents.

Well I'm a bit sceptical about these claims; I still feel safer in a tank than I do in a tin can.

Before 'De-Regulation' was king, there was a limit placed on how far trucks could travel - further than 300kms or something then you had to send it by rail. Nowadays, there are so many trucks on the road and the rail network is under-utilised. I think they should return to those restrictions. It would certainly save on road maintenance, not to mention the CO2 emissions.

The thing is that our economies are addicted to manufacturing and selling cars, the same as they are to military contracting and subcontracting and (in the States) construction, maintenance and catering to prisons.

Once economies become dependent on certain industries, you can be sure they're not going to go away any time soon.

So it's all well and good to say "let's just stop making and buying cars and use the ones we have," but this isn't Cuba. Tens of thousands of employees and their families depend on this industry.

Hold on a bit snarfy,
Whats proposed here is reducing the fuel consumption by making cars from carbon composites, and reducing their weight.
Combine this with Hydrogen engines and electric vehicles, and the potential for Jobs is huge;
If the industry was made to reduce waste and invest more in the future and less in pumping up stockholders dividends, change could be gradual and positive.
If they dont our children/grandchildren are in for a hell of a bump in the futures road.
Expect when the oil starts to run out for Govt,s to lie about how much is left--it will always be the problem for the next administration.
No Govt really cares about anything further ahead than 5 years.

The Full ARTICLE here. Page 3, has a relative safety to you the driver, versus the Risk to the 'other' driver, for various types of vehicle.
Better than the 'new scientist' website, about half of this one is free.
Not to be confused with 'Scientific American', which is no longer a proper science magazine.

Oh I see.

Sorry, I didn't understand exactly what the idea was here.

That is part of the problem- you feel safe so you take risks.

And also part of the problem with us as a species- we pay more attention to our feelings than cold hard statisticial fact.

I take the same amount of risk that everyone else does when driving - irrespective of vehicle type.

Here's a cold, hard fact: a 300kg object striking a a one tonne object will always come off 2nd best - whatever one does to protect oneself within those confines is a separate matter entirely.

They probably thought the same about the tobacco industry.

The dairy industry said "Go to work on an egg". If the bus service isn't that good, you still might need a car to get there. :zip:

You have no way of knowing that, unless you are telling me that every decision you make is entirely concious- in which case you should get yourself to a research lab because you are unique- You are demonstrating the second part of my point, rather neatly.

I don't know which 'they' you mean, but the tobacco industry didn't 'go away'.

But I know what you mean.

But things have a tendency to get entrenched, don't you think?

Yeah, I could've chosen a better example, but u get my drift.

Our society is hardly as dependant on tobacco as it is on motoring. But just because something is more entrenched doesnt mean that we shouldn't tackle it? All that it means is it will take longer to solve.

We have to start somewhere, and scaling back the car industry may not be such a poor option. As for all the job-losses, there's no good reason why other jobs could not be found. Its simply a matter of doing it properly.

Well I'm not sure we're talking about the same sort of 'risk' here. By 'the same risk as everyone' I mean statistically. As soon as you start driving there is a 1/1000 (or wotevaitis) chance of an accident. Of course, how one drives will affect ur chances as well, but since I consider myself to be a driver similar to 99% of other road users I dont really distinguish between another person's risk and mine - the difference, statistcally speaking, would be infinitesimal.

why the hell did the dairy industry say go to work on an egg :wacko:

Because milkmen use to deliver eggs as well as milk/yoghurt/bread etc and the 'Trade' of milkmen was at risk, and needed a bit of advertising.
Also they pretend your eggs will be fresher if a milkmen leaves them on your doorstep at 5 in the morning.

How about tackling with high taxes and then plowing the taxes into a public transport system that works?

because the f*cking public transport system is privately owned. they'd love to get their hands on more tax payer's money.

public transport - the clue is in the name. some things work when they are privately owned - PUBLIC transport is not one of them.

or maybe i'm just a communist-uh/part-time worker.

rant over.

:D

Taxes are incredibly high. Diesel is now approx £5.40 a gallon. That is outrageous. Ten quid doesn't even buy you two gallons of fuel. As for ploughing the money into public transport, Labour said that they would improve our public transport no end in 1997, and they would invest in an integrated transport system. Has anyone seen any evidence of this?

So it costs me a lot more to drive my car - which I love to do because my life extends beyond my home and the local town centre - and it costs a lot more for household energy and food. Having paid up for those three necessities, I have bugger all money to spend on anything else.

If there are lots of people like me who cannot afford to buy anything, what exactly will all those people do for work when their jobs are freed up after their car related industry goes for a crap.

Cars are wonderful things. I don't like all of them, but we get immense benefit from owning one. I can go where I want when I want. Fantastic.

Power to the people!

If the thing twinz found is right, then it isn't infinitesimal or it wouldn't show up. the 1/1000 is an average of all drivers- some will have a higher chance, others lowers, dependent on all sorts of factors- this is why some people pay more for car insurance than others. Not that the increased chance taking is the only thing influencing your chances of having an accident.

That just about sums it up for many people I'm sure. 'Road Trips' are increasingly a thing of the past 'round here. <_<

This food crisis-caused by dependance on oil to feed cattle (fertiliser) to feed rich people ..in the west and the developing countries

obscene

Good. It's a start.