kickstart

I suppose it makes a difference where one lives, and what one chooses to believe, but in my daily encounters with other people, cycling has a much better image than some here are presenting.

1983

Good lord...trolling motors are abuzz here, all converged on one hapless thread.

chewybrian 

Have you read many other threads in here? Because...

1983

Doesn't load...

chewybrian 

Maybe I was just trolling you...

1983

That didn't load either.

Mobile 155

I don't dispute the diversity. Still that diversity includes all of the reasons I mentioned in my post. My answer to the question was based on what I believe personally could cause someone like myself to get a car after years without one.

I should admit that I don't dispute the perceptions of the car free. When trying to picture the one advocating home free, air condition free and even the joys low wage part time work I get a mental picture as well. The perception may be incorrect but to a degree is it not understandable?

Still how different s believing that finiancial success might also lead to giving up car free for many? Remember the thread on choosing to live on one side of the city where a person was car free but only low pay or part time? The other side of the city was higher full time pay but you had to have a car? If you remember the thread you might remember the choices "most" from this forum made. So I don't believe I was out of line.

chewybrian 

You have to go to settings on your tool bar and choose 'disable firewall'; then it will load up for you.

1983

I'm not using Firewall browser, I'm using Internet Explorer.

chewybrian 

I can understand how you come to your conclusion about the make-up of the forum, but it is not through logic or careful consideration, I would say.

The idea that we are all drunk, poor hispters is a frequent Ad hominem attack used in this forum. I do not recall that thread about the fantasy city, but I assume from your tone that people would tend to choose a car and money over no car and no money (a false dilemma, at best!). Your mental picture above fits the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. I never said that having tons of money would not entice many of us to get a car. In fact, I said it surely would make me choose to drive. Are you attacking a straw man, then?

Sorry if I seem to be picking on you. You seem to be among the more reasonable and fair of the 'other side' But why not put on your thinking cap and make a real argument for the car, instead of dwelling on preconceived notions?

cooker

It sounds like you're just talking about one specific person here. There are a lot of people here with a wide range of opinions. There is no group think despite some posters' claim to the contrary.

Roody

You made the point a lot more calmly than I did, thanks very much. Strangely enough, those top two pictures were once posted here by a troll to "demonstrate" what kind of people are carfree. This stereotype is as puzzling as it could be. It seems to me that most CF people, at least the ones who post here, may have some unconventional ideas, but their habits (other than transportation) are not at all eccentric. They look and probably smell just like the average middle class person in ther location.

Roody

Yes, I think it's understandable for someone who hasn't had much exposure to the ideas represented here at times. Yes, there is much under the sun that you haven't even dreamed of. Respectable people, including many religious leaders and influential philosophers, have espoused the ideas of simple, non-materialistic living. Socrates, Thoreau, Buddha, St Francis, Pope Francis, Warren Buffet (), Gandhi, etc., etc....

Mobile 155

Truthfully I get only a fraction of my opinions about who is car free or why from this forum. I have been involved in chat sites long enough to realize they are anything but reality. Most opinions tend to be presented from the far ends of the spectrum and bare only a shadow of what the poster does or doesn't do in real life. The question was asked of what would cause someone to give up being car free and from observation, experience and reading I believe my reasoning valid.

When I first moved where I now live I got involved in a car light lifestyle. I associate with many car light, car heavy and car free people. I have about 84 of the aforementioned different people on my mailing list. So I understand the diversity. But I also understand the tendency of the more extreme sides of the debates to become over sensitive. As an example:

For a while I joined the local green coalition that included many of the beliefs we talk about in these forums. One faction in the coalition was cycling. A sub faction of that was car free, cyclists and users of public transportation. We used to attend community meetings to express issues the coalition and one such meeting was to address the death of 10 cyclists in one year in the area.

After the meeting I joined some of the cyclists and made contact with the police and emergency services that had responded to those Ten fatalities. My fervor for cycling justice Fell off somewhat when it was reviewed to us that eight of the ten where hit crossing a 4 lane highway between 1 and 3 am after leaving a bar. Two were hit by right hook drivers in daylight turning into a driveway and were not alcohol related.

It is easier to understand the reasons for the perceptions when faced with real world examples that Internet ones. Even the ones I just related are only real world to me or the people I was dealing with.

Add to all of this that the car free in the coalition tended to get cars once their financial positions healed. All but one car free in the group anyway.

So I understand perceptions verses reality.

and while I may have pointed out some of the reasons people have used to become car free I didn't say they were the only reasons. So even if the were a minority, as this forum is a minority of cyclists, they none the less are the visual examples that so many see in every day life. My answer was towards what circumstances would I see as a reason to give up being car free. It is nothing more than a postulation and not a stake driven into the heart of believers.

Mobile 155

Before we debate my reading library are you about to interject philosophy and Religion into being car free? If so I think they will move it before we get in another page.

I-Like-To-Bike

The reality of this picture is that it has nothing to do with living car free, especially since it is a picture of Nick Nolte who doesn't share the car free attribute, after he was arrested for drunken driving.
Nick Nolte '02 MUG SHOT | The Smoking Gun
Nick Nolte, 70, talks about THAT DUI photo | abc7.com

Can YOU be specific about which posts and/or posters made claim to a perception that anyone choosing to go without a car looked like the pictures YOU posted, or is that another perception based on unscientific noticing?

chewybrian 

Mobile155,

I appreciate you taking my comments in the spirit intended. Yes, some here can be called 'believers', but that does not make them perfect. They may aspire to live a simple life for philosophical reasons, but that does not mean they might not have weak moments and take the easy way out. They put those confessional booths in the church for a reason...

I think a lot of folks here are more pragmatic, and I am in that group. I don't feel any shame in saying I would get a car if I had money to burn. However, the car might fall a lot further down the priority list for me than most. I could have had a car at any point over the last 7 years or so, but other budget items are priorities for me. There was also a point where losing weight, and then training for events were important to me, and not having a car 'forced' me to train for my goals. I could buy a car today, but funds for saving and investing seem more critical for now.

Where I fall into the believer category is on the issue of subsidy or special status for cars. We should not design our cities under the assumption that everyone could or should be driving all the time. And, we should not make the cost of driving artificially low, thereby encouraging more driving than would otherwise take place.

I suspect there are more people in here like me than what you would call the true believers. I don't think these positions are extreme at all. That's all I'm sayin'.

chewybrian 

Mobile 155

Then to a degree we have a meeting of the minds. Though I tend see personal transportation as more of a benifit to society than you might.

I have had my personal struggles with the automotive industry, insurance industry and big oil. That being said I tend to find my own solutions rather than join a movement. If I don't like fast food I don't eat fast food. I don't tend to start or join a movement to ban fast food. And I am not sure most people aren't like this themselves.

I will grant you this, becoming car light has saved me money from all three of the industries I mentioned. I just went almost two months on one tank of gas, my insurance is based on less than 9000 miles a year and I have a small economy car. Yes I have had to deal with them but on a more equitable basis.

Walter S

I don't know how common or rare we are, but there are those of us that have plenty of money to afford a car with hardly a measurable impact on our standard of living and retirement plans. And yet we choose not to.

kickstart

We need to assign value to our endeavors to give ourselves value, because in the bigger scheme of things our sum total is an insignificant fragment in time and space.

cooker

Some people go car free DUE to DUI - DUH.

I-Like-To-Bike

Some people do all kinds of things, however it appears that only one has made a claim that the pictures posted on this thread represent some LCF posters perceptions' of anyone choosing to go without a car.

I-Like-To-Bike

And you are a good example. Congratulations. Some others have also discovered that driving and owning a car does not always require great financial sacrifice, unless already strapped for income, especially when not driving an average of 15,000 miles a year and purchasing a new car every 3-5 years taking the big depreciation hit.

PhotoJoe 

True-dat!

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!