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Well, the more expensive driving a car is, the better! That being said, I'm pretty sure that liability insurance for a family is not USD 20K, unless your idea

Well, the more expensive driving a car is, the better! That being said, I'm pretty sure that liability insurance for a family is not USD 20K, unless your idea of 'family' is, well, pretty extensive? Collision insurance? Sure, with EVs becoming more popular, that will only go up. But, yeah, omelettes, eggs, blah...

baggy_trough 2y ago
> Well, the more expensive driving a car is, the better! What an astonishing statement.
- PreInternet01 2y ago
  Why? I'm against private car ownership. Ask me all about it...
  - scottLobster 2y ago
    No shit. And you're suggesting lots of financial pain for people who can't afford it in the name of your ideology.
    - PreInternet01 2y ago
      No, I'm not suggesting any kind of financial pain at all. Do I support the ability of people to travel to their job, shopping centers, or any destination they like? Absolutely! Do I think a privately owned vehicle, which spends 90%+ of its active life being parked in spaces that could be utilized much better otherwise, is the best way to achieve those abilities? Nope. Sorry.
      - scottLobster 2y ago
        Oh, so you're in favor of playing Sim-City with the infinite money cheat codes. Cool. Because if you were suggesting that in the real world then, at least in America, you're suggesting a complete overhaul of almost all transportation infrastructure and saying that no average person will have to spend an extra dollar to pay for it somehow. Is Mexico paying for it or something?
        PreInternet01 2y ago
        You're projecting harder than the average IMAX<tm> venue. Even in many parts of America (which are not that different from many parts of, say, France, which I'm very familiar with, thankyouverymuch), private car ownership is not an absolute requirement. Can people there get around with Public Transport<tm>? Nope. Do they require their Own Private Sardine Can At All Times<tm>? No, not necessarily either. And I'm firmly in the "No Sardine Cans Ever!" camp, and I have solutions. If you're somewhere else, that's fine with me, but you're not so convincing as you might feel...
        scottLobster 2y ago
        You have no solutions, you have fantasies about turning America into a false vision of France apparently. I've been to France as well, outside of major cities. Perhaps not as well traveled as you, but I remember seeing plenty of private cars in driveways and on roads as we passed by various dwellings. I doubt they'd take kindly to your suggestion either. Weren't there riots over the price of gasoline not that long ago? Whatever, be a flat-earther of transportation policy if you wish. You clearly aren't serious.
        mtalantikite 2y ago
        I mean it's not like we don't spend $100B+ per year on infrastructure, much of it for roads and other car based transport methods [1]. We could instead invest it in subway and other public transit infrastructure, rather than on exceptionally inefficient, expensive, and environmentally costly modes of transport. [1] https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/transportation-infrastructure/ https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/transportation-infra... -- note that rail expenditure isn't all public transport, the majority of US rail infrastructure is freight transport.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - lovich 2y ago
      All change from the status quo causes financial pain, usually for the people who can’t afford it. The OP also didn’t suggest or implement the change, but only commented that they liked the results with regard to car ownership and use
      - scottLobster 2y ago
        Oh, so it wasn't to be taken seriously. Well that's good, because if taken seriously you'd be talking about taking food out of my children's mouths to pay for your fantasy transportation infrastructure that wouldn't pay for itself due to population density, likely be poorly implemented while restricting my freedom of movement, and I make enough that I could eat those costs better than most. I'm annoyed at the terminally-online "I just discovered NotJustBikes and I'm "radicalized"" nature of the idea but there are tens of millions of people for whom it would be an existential issue. How about we eminent-domain wherever you live to build a train line? Oh that wouldn't be a problem for you? Congrats on being in the top 10% at least.
        ProfessorLayton 2y ago
        Having drivers pay their associated costs is not a fantasy transportation play. If driving becomes too expensive, then alternatives will be built, and that’s a good thing. No one is taking anything from your children.
        lovich 2y ago
        >How about we eminent-domain wherever you live to build a train line? Oh that wouldn't be a problem for you? Congrats on being in the top 10% at least. Nah, its not a problem because I'm fine contributing to society. If you need everything to stay exactly as it is or you think your life will fall apart, then I have no sympathy for you. I do believe if we need to do something like eminent domain then people should be compensated and cases like Kelo v. City of New London were pretty disgusting, but I am not going to pretend that we cant change because people were inconvenienced
  - baggy_trough 2y ago
    Sounds terrible, why would you be against that?
    - PreInternet01 2y ago
      'cause privately-owned cars are a significant contributor to mortality, and take up, like, 99% more space than is warranted? I mean, everyone (well mostly everyone) is absolutely mortified by commercial aviation, which, like, commits literally 0.01% of those sins on a global scale?
      - baggy_trough 2y ago
        If you think mostly everyone is absolutely mortified by commercial aviation, I think you must be in some sort of bubble. Nothing could be further from the truth.
      - lovich 2y ago
        I don’t agree with you on aviation, but on the car front you should also consider that they are an underutilized asset that sits idle for the vast majority of their existence.
      - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
        "Mortified" means "extremely embarrassed". You seem to mean "terrified".
  - janetmissed 2y ago
    Making using a car more expensive doesn't disincentivize car ownership or usage when there is no other alternative. Like you can't rely on public transportation, biking, or ride shares to get to your job in most parts of this country. The rising costs of the past few years haven't reduced personal car usage as much as its made the lives of people near the bottom of the income scale much more stressful and expensive.
    - otterley 2y ago
      > you can't rely on public transportation, biking, or ride shares to get to your job in most parts of this country Sounds like a problem we are all responsible for solving by voting for people who will address this problem.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Disincentives a suboptimal transportation option. Price signals are important, just like making it expensive to own property where the risk is too high. Automotive ownership and transportation is likely to never be as inexpensive as it previously was. You will either need to pay the cost or live somewhere you don’t need a car.
  - scottLobster 2y ago
    Yeah, as one of the vast majority of Americans who live in a car-dependent area and aren't made of money, have fun trying to force that on everyone. Also "suboptimal" is a matter of opinion.
    - RIMR 2y ago
      Personal automobiles are suboptimal in every measurable metric aside from your subjective "but I like owning a car" opinion.
      - scottLobster 2y ago
        If you confiscated my car tomorrow, I literally couldn't get to work or buy groceries. That isn't an optimization, it's a hard reality. Once you've built timely safe replacement infrastructure that can carry me from my home to my place of employment as fast or faster than my current commute, and take me to any of the shops I frequent, and do that for all of my neighbors, and do all of the above in a way that costs less than car ownership, we can talk.
        PreInternet01 2y ago
        Hey, I'm the guy who is 100% against private car ownership, and I don't want to "confiscate your car" (I mean, what would I do with that?) or encourage anyone to do so (unless, of course, they're the bank and you're a delinquent, don't want to upset the apple cart too much...). I want you to be able to reliably get transport to where-ever you need to go, an what-ever time you need to go there, without the need to keep a 1000-pound pile of junk in (semi-)public spaces at all times. Where I live, that's pretty much a possibility already. I want everyone to have that same freedom!
- RIMR 2y ago
  Driving is hideously inefficient. It should be the most expensive option, because taking a 2-ton machine with you everywhere you go should be considered a luxury.
  - neilalexander 2y ago
    Not everyone lives in cities, not everyone can afford to live in cities, not everyone lives in areas well connected by public transportation and not everyone can afford to live in areas well connected by public transportation.
    - mtalantikite 2y ago
      But all of these were policy choices over the past decades. We very much could have invested in public transit and built housing, but instead we decided most humans should have a car to go about daily life. Which, if we're optimizing for sending money to car, oil, and healthcare companies, I guess is a good strategy.
    - asoneth 2y ago
      > not everyone can afford to live in cities ... not everyone can afford to live in areas well connected by public transportation Looking at it from a theoretical standpoint, physically co-locating living space allows for a number of significant cost efficiencies compared to spreading the same number of people over a larger geographic area. For much of history it was the wealthy who could afford to live outside the cities while the poor had no such choice. My guess is that if suburban and rural residents actually paid the full cost of their roads and other infrastructure (and if zoning didn't prevent organic density from forming) that living in the suburbs (as I do) would become comparatively more expensive.
    - consteval 2y ago
      The reason those are all so expensive is because the money is being burned on less efficient transport, i.e. cars. Transporting the same amount of people via car requires A LOT more money, due to the nature of motor vehicles.
  - 2y ago
- maxwellg 2y ago
  Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

baggy_trough 2y ago

> Well, the more expensive driving a car is, the better! What an astonishing statement.

PreInternet01 2y ago
Why? I'm against private car ownership. Ask me all about it...
- scottLobster 2y ago
  No shit. And you're suggesting lots of financial pain for people who can't afford it in the name of your ideology.
  - PreInternet01 2y ago
    No, I'm not suggesting any kind of financial pain at all. Do I support the ability of people to travel to their job, shopping centers, or any destination they like? Absolutely! Do I think a privately owned vehicle, which spends 90%+ of its active life being parked in spaces that could be utilized much better otherwise, is the best way to achieve those abilities? Nope. Sorry.
    - scottLobster 2y ago
      Oh, so you're in favor of playing Sim-City with the infinite money cheat codes. Cool. Because if you were suggesting that in the real world then, at least in America, you're suggesting a complete overhaul of almost all transportation infrastructure and saying that no average person will have to spend an extra dollar to pay for it somehow. Is Mexico paying for it or something?
      - PreInternet01 2y ago
        You're projecting harder than the average IMAX<tm> venue. Even in many parts of America (which are not that different from many parts of, say, France, which I'm very familiar with, thankyouverymuch), private car ownership is not an absolute requirement. Can people there get around with Public Transport<tm>? Nope. Do they require their Own Private Sardine Can At All Times<tm>? No, not necessarily either. And I'm firmly in the "No Sardine Cans Ever!" camp, and I have solutions. If you're somewhere else, that's fine with me, but you're not so convincing as you might feel...
        scottLobster 2y ago
        You have no solutions, you have fantasies about turning America into a false vision of France apparently. I've been to France as well, outside of major cities. Perhaps not as well traveled as you, but I remember seeing plenty of private cars in driveways and on roads as we passed by various dwellings. I doubt they'd take kindly to your suggestion either. Weren't there riots over the price of gasoline not that long ago? Whatever, be a flat-earther of transportation policy if you wish. You clearly aren't serious.
      - mtalantikite 2y ago
        I mean it's not like we don't spend $100B+ per year on infrastructure, much of it for roads and other car based transport methods [1]. We could instead invest it in subway and other public transit infrastructure, rather than on exceptionally inefficient, expensive, and environmentally costly modes of transport. [1] https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/transportation-infrastructure/ https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/transportation-infra... -- note that rail expenditure isn't all public transport, the majority of US rail infrastructure is freight transport.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - lovich 2y ago
    All change from the status quo causes financial pain, usually for the people who can’t afford it. The OP also didn’t suggest or implement the change, but only commented that they liked the results with regard to car ownership and use
    - scottLobster 2y ago
      Oh, so it wasn't to be taken seriously. Well that's good, because if taken seriously you'd be talking about taking food out of my children's mouths to pay for your fantasy transportation infrastructure that wouldn't pay for itself due to population density, likely be poorly implemented while restricting my freedom of movement, and I make enough that I could eat those costs better than most. I'm annoyed at the terminally-online "I just discovered NotJustBikes and I'm "radicalized"" nature of the idea but there are tens of millions of people for whom it would be an existential issue. How about we eminent-domain wherever you live to build a train line? Oh that wouldn't be a problem for you? Congrats on being in the top 10% at least.
      - ProfessorLayton 2y ago
        Having drivers pay their associated costs is not a fantasy transportation play. If driving becomes too expensive, then alternatives will be built, and that’s a good thing. No one is taking anything from your children.
      - lovich 2y ago
        >How about we eminent-domain wherever you live to build a train line? Oh that wouldn't be a problem for you? Congrats on being in the top 10% at least. Nah, its not a problem because I'm fine contributing to society. If you need everything to stay exactly as it is or you think your life will fall apart, then I have no sympathy for you. I do believe if we need to do something like eminent domain then people should be compensated and cases like Kelo v. City of New London were pretty disgusting, but I am not going to pretend that we cant change because people were inconvenienced
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  Sounds terrible, why would you be against that?
  - PreInternet01 2y ago
    'cause privately-owned cars are a significant contributor to mortality, and take up, like, 99% more space than is warranted? I mean, everyone (well mostly everyone) is absolutely mortified by commercial aviation, which, like, commits literally 0.01% of those sins on a global scale?
    - baggy_trough 2y ago
      If you think mostly everyone is absolutely mortified by commercial aviation, I think you must be in some sort of bubble. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    - lovich 2y ago
      I don’t agree with you on aviation, but on the car front you should also consider that they are an underutilized asset that sits idle for the vast majority of their existence.
    - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
      "Mortified" means "extremely embarrassed". You seem to mean "terrified".
- janetmissed 2y ago
  Making using a car more expensive doesn't disincentivize car ownership or usage when there is no other alternative. Like you can't rely on public transportation, biking, or ride shares to get to your job in most parts of this country. The rising costs of the past few years haven't reduced personal car usage as much as its made the lives of people near the bottom of the income scale much more stressful and expensive.
  - otterley 2y ago
    > you can't rely on public transportation, biking, or ride shares to get to your job in most parts of this country Sounds like a problem we are all responsible for solving by voting for people who will address this problem.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Disincentives a suboptimal transportation option. Price signals are important, just like making it expensive to own property where the risk is too high. Automotive ownership and transportation is likely to never be as inexpensive as it previously was. You will either need to pay the cost or live somewhere you don’t need a car.
- scottLobster 2y ago
  Yeah, as one of the vast majority of Americans who live in a car-dependent area and aren't made of money, have fun trying to force that on everyone. Also "suboptimal" is a matter of opinion.
  - RIMR 2y ago
    Personal automobiles are suboptimal in every measurable metric aside from your subjective "but I like owning a car" opinion.
    - scottLobster 2y ago
      If you confiscated my car tomorrow, I literally couldn't get to work or buy groceries. That isn't an optimization, it's a hard reality. Once you've built timely safe replacement infrastructure that can carry me from my home to my place of employment as fast or faster than my current commute, and take me to any of the shops I frequent, and do that for all of my neighbors, and do all of the above in a way that costs less than car ownership, we can talk.
      - PreInternet01 2y ago
        Hey, I'm the guy who is 100% against private car ownership, and I don't want to "confiscate your car" (I mean, what would I do with that?) or encourage anyone to do so (unless, of course, they're the bank and you're a delinquent, don't want to upset the apple cart too much...). I want you to be able to reliably get transport to where-ever you need to go, an what-ever time you need to go there, without the need to keep a 1000-pound pile of junk in (semi-)public spaces at all times. Where I live, that's pretty much a possibility already. I want everyone to have that same freedom!
RIMR 2y ago
Driving is hideously inefficient. It should be the most expensive option, because taking a 2-ton machine with you everywhere you go should be considered a luxury.
- neilalexander 2y ago
  Not everyone lives in cities, not everyone can afford to live in cities, not everyone lives in areas well connected by public transportation and not everyone can afford to live in areas well connected by public transportation.
  - mtalantikite 2y ago
    But all of these were policy choices over the past decades. We very much could have invested in public transit and built housing, but instead we decided most humans should have a car to go about daily life. Which, if we're optimizing for sending money to car, oil, and healthcare companies, I guess is a good strategy.
  - asoneth 2y ago
    > not everyone can afford to live in cities ... not everyone can afford to live in areas well connected by public transportation Looking at it from a theoretical standpoint, physically co-locating living space allows for a number of significant cost efficiencies compared to spreading the same number of people over a larger geographic area. For much of history it was the wealthy who could afford to live outside the cities while the poor had no such choice. My guess is that if suburban and rural residents actually paid the full cost of their roads and other infrastructure (and if zoning didn't prevent organic density from forming) that living in the suburbs (as I do) would become comparatively more expensive.
  - consteval 2y ago
    The reason those are all so expensive is because the money is being burned on less efficient transport, i.e. cars. Transporting the same amount of people via car requires A LOT more money, due to the nature of motor vehicles.
- 2y ago
maxwellg 2y ago
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.