Why is it that people who drive automatically believe they are superior to everyone else? I live only ten minutes away from where I work, so I either ride a bike or walk. (Heck, gotta keep those donuts off the love handles ya know.) Yet, for some strange reason, there will always be this Alpha-male teen driving the truck his parents bought for him just racing down the street. As he goes blaring past me, not that I couldn't hear him coming from 10 miles away, he roars out the window, "Get a job ya bum!"
And if that isn't enough to make me rethink the idea of the human race. These are the same type of people who have a death wish in my opinion. They must have one as they're the ones you see not using their blinkers, not wearing seat belts, running red lights and street racing with their "friends".
I ride, or walk, to work for one reason: I don't feel like paying that much for gas when it is much easier, and quicker, for me to ride or walk everywhere I want to go. Over the last year, I saved up enough money to afford an H3. (Go me! Gas guzzler here I come!) Not that I bought it. My girlfriend doesn't like the look of them.
So, in hopes that all those teens get the chance to mature, maybe the age for getting your drivers licence be determined by how mature you act when you are in public?
I don't know, Aerick, I do drive when I have to, but I also live in a rural area where even the nearest store is 5 miles away, and that's a little corner store, my nearest grocery store is roughly 15 miles 'down the road' from me. On the other hand, I do use signals, I insist that everyone in my vehicle be 'buckled up', etc. I happen to agree that it'd be nice if licenses for driving were issued after you passed not only a vision test, written test, and road test, but also a test to determine if you're mature enough to fully understand that by getting behind the wheel you're effectively wielding a ton of steel that could all too easily kill people, including those in your vehicle.. of course, I also strongly support the idea of a maximum age for being allowed to drive... too many old folks who can legally see, albeit with STRONG corrective lenses and tunnel vision, but no longer have depth perseption nor a concept of the speed limit or road courtesy are still on the roads, especially out here.
Posted By: Thyrr on
09/20/06 at 07:41 PM
Well, as much as I hate driving, it's pretty much impractical to walk or bike everywhere unless you live in the middle of the city. If you can walk and only be mildly inconvenienced, that's great, but not necessarily true for most of the United States.
In some circles, being thrifty is seen as being "cheap". Going out of your way to save money lowers your status. Some people care about that.
Re: Walking and Biking
Posted By: Vanquish on
09/22/06 at 02:47 AM
Well, I finally moved into our city, albeit a small city, but a city none the less. I used to live 20 minutes out of the town out in the country, so it would have been dumb to try and walk it or ride a bicycle. Now that I live in a nice neighborhood in the middle of town, I hear a lot of the complaints from my neighbors and the rest of the city about our sidewalks and bicycle lanes. Never thinking to walk through town or ride a bicycle, I never noticed that, we hardly have any sidewalks at all through the city, and we have no bicycle lanes whatsoever. So, even if now that I live in the city I wanted to walk somewhere or ride my bicycle, it would be rather dangerous as I would be right next to highway traffic.
Though, our city council promises that in the near future (2010) we will make way for new streets, made with a bicycle lane, and all roads will have 5 feet wide sidewalks. Though, what will probably happen is what happened last year and we will never get it.
Just when our city raises enough money to do our extensive roadwork and opening up a lot of the very busy streets from 2 lanes to 4 lanes a nice big Hurricane Katrina has to come, and ruin everything, thus making the city spend money on what is needed at the moment instead of our new street system.
GO AWAY HURRICANES AND TORNADOES, WE ARE TIRED OF YOU AND DON'T WISH FOR YOU TO VISIT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
driving
Posted By: Rudeboyrave on
09/22/06 at 11:30 PM
Get a job ya bum!
kidding!
:)
Elitist Bipeds
Posted By: Desharei on
09/23/06 at 08:01 AM
It's more the reverse in my area. I'm in the suburbs of "typical Yankee New England." On nice days, if we don't need to do the "weekly grocery" trip, most of us just walk to the supermarket for our small items. I'm planning on canvasing the neighborhood to try and get a petition going, for the supermarket to provide us with a bike rack outside their main doors. LOTS of bicycle riders around here, and we're all damned proud of our $500 hybrid mountainbikes (ok mine was only $350, but it was on sale and I couldn't turn down those awesome shock absorbers on the front fork, even though no one ever actually uses all 21 speeds of these things).
There are 4 senior housing communities within walking distance, one of which contains the town's Senior Community Center. So there are a whole boatload of walking old people in the 'hood, and we take a lot of pride in seeing these 80+ men and women hoofing it with such vigor (well - not quite vigor, but y'know, just sayin...).
The town hall area is a block from another supermarket, and just off the highway, and we have one of those pre-civil-war graveyards across from the town hall's central building, so it's a great place for families to congregate during the summer. There's even one guy who builds a small ice-skating rink for the residents every winter for the kids. So a lot of people who live -near- but not too close will drive to the supermarket parking lot and walk from there to wherever they want to be.
Furthermore! The county has an old train route that had been abandoned by the railroad companies, and a bunch of people pooled their resources together and turned the entire route into a walking trail. People come from all parts of the state just to enjoy it now, and it boasts some of the most gorgeous fall foliage in the United States.
Walking and bicycling is not looked down on here; most who don't do one or the other wish they did and are envious of those of us who do.
Added for Truth
Posted By: Desharei on
09/23/06 at 08:04 AM
Summary of my previous post: Move to New England if you want to be one of the cool kids.
Desharei and New England
Posted By: Vanquish on
09/23/06 at 09:27 PM
Are you sure you aren't a travel agent?
Well, anyways your comment just closed the deal as to where my family and I will be going the next small vacation we go on. I've always wanted to travel up to New England to see all its sites, but always found some reason not to go there and to travel somewhere else. But, hearing it first hand from someone who lives there makes it sound just a little better, and I will have to bring my wife and daughter up there to learn a little of the history that can be found there.
Posted By: Desharei on
09/27/06 at 07:31 AM
Caveat Emptor, Vanquish. There's a downside to living in New England. A few, actually. I'll divulge personal info for the first time here and tell you I live in Connecticut.
We are one of the most expensive states in the nation to live in. Our minimum wage is among the highest but it doesn't put a dent in the average mortgage payment. Gas and cigarettes are taxed taxed taxed taxed taxed... The average rental in my south-central part of the state is $800. This is per month, does -not- include utilities. It would include 2 bedrooms and if you're lucky, a laundry room in the facilities but not in your own apartment. And that's in a "working class" neighborhood, where there's an actual crime rate worth mentioning (not too bad but mentionable, regardless), where you probably would have to park your car on the street and not in a parking lot. In the nicer parts of the state you'll be looking at rents of around $1500/month for the same type of flat or townhouse, on average. Though the real estate market has finally leveled off and started to drop, you can expect to pay $250,000 for a 1/4 acre lot with a 7-room circa-1950's cape cod, no basement, one outbuilding (a storage shed), 2-car garage, in a reasonably decent neighborhood and passable education system.
Winters here are only awesome if you love sub-zero wind-chill and snowstorms that cover the ground with 2 feet of snow in less than 24 hours. Although some winters we just get the cold, with little or no snow at all.
Hurricanes here aren't -as- significant as they are in the southeastern states, but when we get them, they can level entire neighborhoods and render the entire state powerless for up to a week.
4-wheel-drive is pretty much a must up this way, though we still laugh at people who drive Hummers . At $2.55 a gallon for the cheap stuff (today's cheapest rate in my area), that means unless you earn $100k per year *minimum* you ain't gonna be commuting with your vehicle any serious distance from home to work. And that's assuming you have no kids and your spouse works too.
Those are the downsides. If income/job security is even remotely an issue, I'd do some serious research on each of our states. Connecticut also has income tax by the way, and New York has 2 different income taxes - state and city. But New York isn't New England anyway so that shouldn't be an issue. My recommendations (IF you like bone-shattering cold winters): Vermont or New Hampshire. Connecticut is amazing, and other than winter, I absolutely love it here. But I'm looking forward to my hubby's retirement in 10 years so we can get the heck outta here and live in the desert somewhere out west :)
Posted By: Thyrr on
09/27/06 at 03:24 PM
California -- in metro areas, at least -- is also pretty bad as far as housing prices go. And living outside of these areas is like living in another state (if you think about the east coast) as far as commuting distance is concerned. The median housing price is $800k in the Silicon Valley, and that's for about 3-4 bedrooms. The Bay Area as a whole runs $650k, although you could live in the cheap areas for about $300k. Rent and gas are about the same as you quoted, though, oddly enough. I wonder if the bubble's ever going to burst.
I like cops. Honest.
Posted By: Aerick on
09/29/06 at 10:57 AM
Oi....just got done working two fifty plus hours at work. And the only thing I can think is that I'm glad that I can now afford to move "closer" to where I work.
The only bad thing....now that I'm going to be living closer, they probably won't need me as such.
Just Thursday, I saw someone run a red light right across the stree from where I work. The nice thing: a cop was in the turning lane coming the other way. Immediately you hear the sirens blaring and the lights flashing. It makes a little tingle inside to know that I wasn't crossing the street at that time.
