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Uh oh no gas? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/memes@slrpnk.net
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[–] 11 points 2 months ago (20 children)

Nice privilege. A lot of the rest of us don't have a choice.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Nice privilege

    Oh yeah, so privileged to have grown up unable to afford to learn to drive a car

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Yes, it is a privilege. I grew up in a rural area (about 60 miles away from the nearest city) with no access to public transportation or services. It would take FOUR HOURS to walk to my nearest friend's house. I also grew up dirt poor and couldn't afford driving school. So, I had to convince friends to show me how to drive, or get friends' parent to show me, and eventually during my senior year, I convinced one of my teachers to let me take the behind the wheel test in his car. All of this because without a license where I grew up, you're never going ANYWHERE. No job, no friends, no mobility to get out of a shitty rural town. So yes, to not have had to do all of that, that is indeed privilege

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Friends with cars, teachers that let you fucking borrow their car?! Yeah, didn't have any of those options. Even if I did, didn't have the money to buy one or get insured.

    The test its self is also pretty difficult here, you are not passing it on a couple hours driving a friends car as practice.

    I didn't have that. If something was going on 50 miles away, I didn't go.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Friends with cars, yes. And teachers who pitied me, yes. But it certainly want a couple of hours. We're talking about years of sneaking out in the middle of the night and driving friend's cars on dirt roads. I didn't own a vehicle for another decade after that.

    I don't know about where you grew up, but what I grew up, even if you crossed that 60 mile trek to the nearest city, you'd still need a car to get to most places, because it's fuckoff big and not well connected

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  • [–] -3 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    Gasoline powered car ownership is not mandated by law and every country has cities where a car-free lifestyle is possible.

    It appears you chose to move to a small town near Des Moines. North of you are the Twin Cities where you can live car free with public transit or a bicycle if you are physically capable.

    So yes, you do have a choice. The privilege is the money for a car.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    I grew up in a small town in the west country, UK. No car was due to financial necessity. If I wanted to go somewhere it was by bike or I just didn't go. Yeah that probably did make it harder to find a job, though on the flip side it also meant literally any full time job pays enough to live comfortably.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    There's a reason the overwhelming majority of trips in Minneapolis happen by car. There's like 3 cities in the US where not having a car or motorcycle doesn't put you at a massive disadvantage, those are NYC, DC, and maybe Boston or Chicago.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    Plenty of people in the Twin Cities live with only a bike and public transit. I was one of them and I never felt the massive disadvantage you write about. You just need to choose to live in an appropriate location.

    Again, it's a choice.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    You just need to choose to live in an appropriate location.

    Again, it's a choice.

    You just need to relocate, find affordable housing (lol), find a new job at that new place, convince your partner, potentially rip away your kids from their environment, move far away from family and friends, find a completely new social circle and then you'll finally be able to live car-free! Except all the times you'll now have to rent one.

    Like, seriously? It is not always just a choice, you're just god damn privileged to be easily able to move. Let alone to a pricy place with quality infrastructure.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    No one said choices are easy. That doesn't mean they aren't choices.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    It's ignorance here. Your ignorance is showing.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Please explain my ignorance. It sounds like a group of people trying to justify lifestyle choices and pretending they are powerless.

    I have even been told how horrible it is to live without a car in a city where I literally lived without a car without issue.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Again.. aye dude

    It is not a choice for many.

    My friend down in SC occasionally wants to kill themselves because they cant find work, dont have transportation, and the bike they got, is terrifying to ride on the roads around them.

    I was born in the middle of no where new england. I did make it to a small city once, for one decade, (and never owned a car) until homelessness had me back in the sticks (they had a bed open).

    I wanted to move to New Haven. I cant afford New Haven, and life dropped me back east again anyway.

    Ive never had much choice in where I lived. Just the same as how I kinda just fell into emoloyment, not really chosing that either, but taking what you can get.

    please stop telling everyone they have a choice. We have choices for a lot of things. Moving, just isnt one of them always, def not for everyone. Many like you get choice (maybe they waste it) but also many like me dont. I aint got moving money. Glad you got to have agency in your life, I really didnt, and I know I am not the only one.

    Bikes are dope, trains, public transport, fuck I feel like my area could benefit from a trolly just the way the roads are. But, Ive got none of that here. If I drive up to the university, I could take a bus to the capital city that takes half the day for a 40min car ride. Thats- thats what I got access to. Gotta cross six lanes of stroad to get the the nearest grocery; gotta take a highway to the second closest. Its numbscull shit out here.

    Someone being like, "you could move you have choice" is really like a slap in the face, and you said it not once (and I let it go) but twice. naw boo. My choice was New Haven, and I never made it.

    The answer isnt "everyone move to cities". The answer is to bring public transport and bike infrastructure out into the suburbs and beyond.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    How much is rent?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    How much does it cost to buy, maintain, fuel, park, and insure a gasoline car?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Depends massively on the car and your willingness to learn about them. My last car before I fled the US was a 2006 camery I inherited that only needed oil changes, tires/rotations, a battery, brakes, plugs, and a timing chain, and got ~28mpg. The timing chain, plugs, brakes, and tires were done by a mechanic friend, so not a whole lot given that I had it for like a decade, total cost was probably about what I sold it for.

    My sister on the other hand insists on buying the least maintainable and fuel efficient cars possible on shit credit and I shutter to think what the monthly effective cost of ownership is, probably in the high hundreds.

    My current mode of transportation when I'm not in China or Japan is a bike I paid 500 for and gets 100mpg. I put about 60 dollars into a new clutch, chain, sprockets, plug, and foot pegs. It could use a new bore, rings, piston, bearings, transmission, and something is causing a weak spark before its warmed up, and it'll need new tires in a few thousand km, but it's carried me across SEA twice, so none of it's critical, its just the parts are showing signs of abuse.

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