January 18, 2007
I hate Personal Transport
I could probably write a novella about why I think the idea of personal transportation is inefficient and ignorant, but I’ll try to stay focused. I woke up to some drama this morning that solidified in my mind the idea of never having a vehicle again.
Ring, ring! Sup guys, your RV is being towed right now. Throw on pants, drive fast, arrive as the whole fucking street is blocked off in order to tow my 36′ motorhome. Cop gives me the South Dakota registration rigmarole and tells me to call the towing company. Sigh. The rest of the day was spent securing an advance on my credit card, borrowing money for the 4 days it will take for that money to be deposited, making the registration be legal again, and scooping up the RV and parking it further away. Goodbye $1,000 that I don’t have. Hello new credit card debt (that I was already planning on using to get a laptop)!
Well, at least we managed time to blog. *insert genuine LOL* It’s our day job, after all.
I began to think about all the aspects of vehicles and how EVERY SINGLE ONE is a scam.
Registration: Mis-allocated funds (more so depending on the state) and an excuse to further help Big Brother.
Smog: Depending on the state, the rules can be thicker than the smoggy skies. SUVs and old beaters (like my car) get breaks, but even in “stringent” California, we still don’t have any real standards. But we still have to pay a lot to get them tested so we can pretend we give a crap about the environment.
Insurance: Never once needed it, but making a claim often raises your rates and you get to try to bust through red tape and get what’s coming to you, something you probably already paid for out of pocket. over time Oh, and it’s state mandated, too. Why can’t I just have a savings account, jerks?
Gas: That one’s quite obvious.
Repairs: Unless you become your own expert, mechanics are only too happy to charge you like they’re performing rocket science. It kills me that caveman technology like the combustible engine is so expensive to fix once you turn the task over to someone else.
Have I missed anything? Yah, I’m sure I have. I just remembered how much publications like to charge for listing your vehicle for sale. And autos as status symbols. And parking. And traffic. The list could go on forever…
I’m down to one scooter, one old car, and the RV. The latter 2 are for sale, and I hope to be down the one lovely red scooter ASAP. And then, I’m never going back. Scooters and maybe motorcycles, but never anything bigger. Life’s too short to mess around with this life-dominating mechanical beasts. We decided to stay in the heart of the city so it would be easy to live that way. I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can roll up my right jean leg and hit the streets on my BMX bike…