Hard News: No end of mileage
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Being able to get around isn't really a panacea. It's kind of basic.
Hence:
"People forget what a life-transforming event getting your own car is when you are 15 or 16, but I don't. I had the first car in my social group, and it was fantastic. We were free to visit anyone anywhere anytime. It was Independence Day when I got my third hand Morris 1100."
Amen to that. It was akin to getting my first pushbike, and waaay less dangerous. I'm kind of amused that people are so bitter on racers and so keen on pushbikes, but for opposite reasons. They hate the cars because they are dangerous and love the bikes because they are convenient. But the real truth is that the bikes are much more dangerous and the cars are much more convenient. And we let kids on the road with bikes at any age, no license.
The only time I've ever been injured in a road accident was on a pushbike. Nearly broke my neck. Another consequence of a hilly city is that whilst you can't go very fast up a hill you can go damned fast down it. Typically dressed in lycra and polystyrene. Real safe.
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People forget what a life-transforming event getting your own car is when you are 15 or 16, but I don't.
Maybe it would have been, but I didn't bother at that age (and I lived in a part of Christchurch without much public transport - it was just a given that we'd bike everywhere). I do remember at the age of 25 or 26, when I got my driver's license and first car (having been transferred to Auckland against my will) that it certainly was a "life-transforming event": I suddenly had to worry about parking and registration and maintenance and petrol and counting my drinks and peak-hour traffic and keeping my eyes open (I was a shift worker) and insurance, when I'd never had to bother with those before. It hardly felt like a liberation.
its a plain fact humans LOVE cars
And I love champagne too, but I'm not going to demand that society organise itself in such a way to make it as cheap and easy for me to enjoy as possible. A car on its own is not going to be any use to you: you need a whole infrastructure of roads and parking and petrol stations to enable your convenience. And that convenience comes at the expense of others, as the liveability of cities gets sacrificed to make more room for an incredibly space-inefficient form of transport.
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I think in our national obsession with whining we forget how much richer we are in consumer goods compared to our parents world, and how much cheaper they are.
I think that's why we're whining! In our day it was a clapped out third hand car - these days they're buying new imports that are waaay more impressive.
NB - I just discovered my 1986 round trip ticket to London: $2235. It's still the same price, or cheaper, for todays kids. (Which begs the question - why don't more of them leave?) -
"I suddenly had to worry about parking and registration and maintenance and petrol and counting my drinks and peak-hour traffic and keeping my eyes open (I was a shift worker) and insurance, when I'd never had to bother with those before."
Somebody else's problem until then? I had plenty of mates who expected Mr Taxi Man to keep them in their unlicensed bliss, but eventually they wised up.
"And I love champagne too, but I'm not going to demand that society organise itself in such a way to make it as cheap and easy for me to enjoy as possible."
I am. And I don't even drink.
"And that convenience comes at the expense of others, as the liveability of cities gets sacrificed to make more room for an incredibly space-inefficient form of transport."
Nah. The two work in tandem. Sure we need public transport. I'm all for it, how else can I get people off MY roads.
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To whoever said 'driving is not a right', it is. Like sex, duck shooting and loud music. In a society ruled by law, everything that isn't a crime is a right. It may be reasonably restricted, but essentially if you're an adult, pass your test and haven't been banned by a court, you have the *right* to drive.
That was me! However you don't require a license for either sex or loud music (of which I'm involved in both - but not duck hunting!) and your ability to do either isn't regulated by the government. However both driving and duck hunting do require licensing, and proof that you are capable, understand your responsibilities and accept that there will be possible repercussions if you fail to meet those responsibilities (in the form of no longer being allowed to perform the action) - your "right" can be revoked (making in my minds eye a privledge).
However I was more commenting on the attitudes which this sort of belief encourages. What I was trying to get across was that many teenagers treat driving like it is a right (including getting pissed off and feeling hard done by when they break the rules and loose their license and car) as opposed to a privledge - and it's that attitude which I was more interested in.
Cuba Street Bypass :
It's added on about 11 minutes each direction for what used to be a 24 minute walk into work for myself and my partner. We're also both VERY glad that we no longer live on Wallace Street (mt cook) which seems have gotten worse and worse. Most of the taxi drivers I chat with (of which about half a dozen live on my street) are pretty grumpy about it - apparently a lot more time at the lights waiting and certain intersections can take up to 3 light changes to get through.Meh/
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BTW, road death rates in NZ are not way out of line with other countries. We're about the same per km as Germany or the USA. Given that we have pretty dodgy roads, I'd suggest that means that NZ driving behaviour isn't all that bad really.
Actually it's not much lower than the death rate on this island I'm on right now (last year 390 with some 4 million here), and you should see how they drive over here. I actually enjoy the roads here at times but they are complete mayhem, due to the failure of any party to enforce any rules. They exist, but are ignored (and you can drink and drive). Dodging 8 year olds on motorbikes is a daily routine.
Encounters with the traffic police are not uncommon but usually have little to do with the rules.....
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Oh and seeing as everyone is mentioning their first cars I'll chuck mine in too (yes I did own one!).
My first car was a 1974 Austin Mini - british house green (ie I think it had been painted with green house paint from Britan).
Great little car, more like a go-kart with a roof to be honest. Cheap, easy to fix (I know nothing about engines and could still work out what to do), low cost on warrents...
The best thing was I could push start it on my own (being a 5'9" skinny white boy this was amazing!). Was a bit lite weight though at times, when parked on the top of Mt Vic I'd often have to roll it back onto it's wheels in the morning...
Got munched by a truck whilst parked (glad I wasn't in what was left of it!)
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(Which begs the question - why don't more of them leave?)
If memory serves, some commenter on Kiwiblog said earlier that in fact, 1 in 4 Kiwis do leave.
So it must be true!
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Scott, I think you'll find sex and loud music are both regulated. You have to be 16 for sex, and complaining neighbors can shut your music down and confiscate your stereo, just like that.
Your right/privilege point is lost on me. All rights are also privileges. All rights can also be revoked. But IMHO you need a bloody good reason, and 'the youth these days can't handle responsibility' isn't good enough.
Not meaning to gloat but the Auckland motorway improvements are starting to open and they're saving me a lot of time. I hope you guys get some of that soon down in Windington.
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Being able to get around isn't really a panacea. It's kind of basic.
Right, but that's something you factor into a decision to move to a particular place. As in, I don't live in Wanaka. Not because I have any dislike of the place or because I think Wellington is more scenic, but because I can't really afford or justify the helicopter and private jet I would need to be able to get to the stuff I want to do in a convenient manner.
The question here is whether teenagers, collectively, are responsible enough to be in charge of extremely heavy pieces of metal flying around the place at astonishing speeds. If you can argue that they are, then sure - give them cars. But trying to argue that, safety and good sense be damned, they just need them... well, that seems rather irrelevant. The only reason they need them is because they're living in a place that assumes they're going to be available.
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Scott u lucky bugga. Minis were out of my price range.
Simon, heh, that puts it in perspective. A place where people ride motorbikes without helmets all the time, and famous for lawless driving, has similar death rates. My experience of driving in Thailand was similar. Bangkok seemed crazy till you got the hang of it, and got over yourself. Then you just go with the flow, buddhist style, and it was actually a lot less stressful than Auckland where every fuxor wants to have a go at you about some minor transgression of the rules.
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Who said:
its a plain fact humans LOVE cars?
Were you trying to be funny?
Coz that is just a dumb statement. As Tom points out "Humans" don't love anything. I doubt you can pick one thing (not vital to survival like breathing) that all humans love.
I like cars for their form and grace when assembled by mastercrafts people in much the same way I like art, architecture and good food. but i don't care what gets me from A to B (with all due environmental concerns, selah)
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Somebody else's problem until then? I had plenty of mates who expected Mr Taxi Man to keep them in their unlicensed bliss, but eventually they wised up
A friend of the family maintained (in the 1960s) that it was far cheaper to take taxis everywhere (everywhere), than to own a car.
And having done that for most of the 90s (with a few instances where I rented a vehicle to go longer distances), I believe the comparison still stands.
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Finn, your argument can be extended to say that noone should live in NZ.
I don't think teenagers needs are irrelevant at all. They are exactly as relevant as yours, probably more so because they have to live here longer.
Of course there's the question of maturity. But personally I think 12 would be old enough, if we lived in a society that had always been that way. You can't learn to drive without doing it, and delaying it just....delays it.
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Kids in Taranaki? Fuck 'em, it'd be good for them to get out while they can and this just provides another illustration for parents as to why trying to raise teenagers in rural or semi-rural areas is a bad idea in the first place. Maybe having to drive their kids to and from all their social functions would help outline why it'd be an idea to move into a decent-sized town.
It wouldn't hurt to point out here that at least one of our 'decent sized towns' has public transport that sucks incredibly for anything involving a social life. Bigger does not magically solve the problem of having to drive your kids around.
And I don't know if public transport substantially solves problems around boy racers. Most public transport is winding up or well gone to bed by the times these late teen/early post teens are out doing their boy racer type things.
Cars as status symbols is nothing new. It was a whole thing in Happy Days so it must be real. Back in the days however it was parking that you did with your car, now it's making them go really fast and loud.
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Better late than never: cars "liberate" you from your cash pretty darn quick, but having said that for the last 2 weeks I've been driving instead of catching the bus as per usual and its great.
Not because of other passengers (hardly ever had a problem with them in Auckland ... 99% are of the "sit silently and stare straight ahead" variety) but because buses are so damn slow. Between the torturous routes, the constant stops, and the the walks at either end of the voyage .... errrggg!
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Nobody Important: My Morris wasn't clapped out! sure, it was an attractive shade of bile green and you had to get the universals done every 1000 miles, but it had a radio, a heater and most of all IT WAS A BABE MAGNET. Clapped out cars are not babe magnets. Ergo, my Morris was not clapped out.
Tom Beard: You South Islanders just don't know how to have fun. Sternly Presbyterian cyclists clutching champers for the vicar do not long survive in the snakepit of Northern traffic. They just get run over by an SUV being driven with all the joie de vive of our fine combination of Teutonic aggression and Italian fatalism. And anyway, while a bottle of Cristal might be of some use to a 15 year old guy with his hat tipped to some young lady, its bugger all use to him if he can't get to her house first...
I think that you are pissing in the wind to be honest - that entire infrastructure you speak of employs something like 20% of all economic activity in NZ. And those people are voters.
The point I am making is that unless you acknowledge that people love their cars, and they are far more convenient than public transport will ever be (Your personal chariot is sitting in the driveway awaiting your every transport whim, for chrissakes!) you are not going to come up with viable solutions for getting them out of them. Appealing to human altruism might work with some grim ex-south islanders, but not with most polyester Jafa's. Getting people out of their cars will require draconian measures on tolling, congestion charging, and taxes. And that will simply guarantee you'll get voted out at the next election, and fair enough to. Dealing with getting around efficiently is not the same as hating cars because they are some sort of eco-sin against spoil sport urban greenies.
My view is public transport in Auckland will work if it acknowledges the centrality of the car outside the commute from the 'burbs to the work hubs.
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Somebody else's problem until then? I had plenty of mates who expected Mr Taxi Man to keep them in their unlicensed bliss, but eventually they wised up.
Amazing assumption you make: the whole point of it was that I didn't need a car to live most of my life, so it wasn't anyone else's problem. If I did need one, there were taxis (proper, paid-for ones, not sponging off mates as you seem to imply, and still cheaper than owning a car).
Being able to get around isn't really a panacea. It's kind of basic.
No it isn't: you only need to "get around" if the things you need are far apart. My needs to get around, apart from within a 1km radius, are pretty minimal, and the few times that I need to leave the CBD, public transport generally suffices. I wish it were better, and the more people get away from the idea that the "love affair with the car" is natural and immutable, the more chance we'll have of building sustainable cities.
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WS,
I live in one of a few areas in chch, in which, every weekend ( in our case, every weekend for the past FOUR years ) we have been kept awake, suffered property damage ( stones through windows arson, "tagging " ,letterboxes smashed every weekend etc etc etc ) theft, and assaults ( one on a 74 year old who refused to let a group of Boy racers into her home at 1 am to use her phone, one on a local woman who tried to take a photo of an offending car ) - all from "boy racers". As regular as clockwork, every friday and saturday night, hundreds of these MORONS arrive in our area..bottles smashing onto the roads from speeding cars. The cars are so loud you can hear their stupid convoys coming from about 3 km away.There is no sleeping through the racket they make. Speeds they reach are horrendous. The damage they do is appalling. Locals attempting to pass through their gatherings have had their cars attacked with bottles and rocks and have been followed home by groups of 'boy racers' and harrassed. This behaviour usually carries on until 2 in the morning. Unless you live with this problem you have NO idea of how bad this problem is - these people are not benign ,they are moronic thugs on wheels . As my neighbours often say " we'd rather live next door to a gang than put up with these little shits ".
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Finn, it was actually a diss on Russell.
Right. That's it - I'm leaving. Oh. Hang on ...
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I've got to agree with Ben, re push-bikes. When I was at varsity I used to push-bike everywhere (after my bus fare to town went from 30c to 80c in 1 fell swoop - March 1983). I was young and reckless (as many teenagers are), and as it turns out, lucky. I never had a major accident (though I have a significant list of very serious near misses - with buses being many of them).
However, the danger of cycling is now a major factor for me not riding more. When I was younger, the danger was not a factor, but the cost of owning a car was. Once I starting working, I could afford a car. The push bike has only been used occasionally since.
Auckland will never be a great city for cycling around.
Cheers,
Brent. -
I doubt you can pick one thing (not vital to survival like breathing) that all humans love.
How about ... love?
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See? There you again Tom Beard - "the more chance we'll have of building sustainable cities." You are (now its my turn to use the phrase du jour) conflating sustainability with what sort of transport options work best for a small city, and what people want.
Sustainability and convenience are not, alas, always bedfellows.
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However, the danger of cycling is now a major factor for me not riding more. When I was younger, the danger was not a factor, but the cost of owning a car was. Once I starting working, I could afford a car. The push bike has only been used occasionally since.
Auckland will never be a great city for cycling around.
I came back from riding everywhere in London (usually in aggressive cycle-courier style) to Auckland, took possession of my bike off the boat -- and hated it.
I did get back on the bike, and kind of enjoyed getting up Chinaman's Hill, but, for various reasons, it isn't a pushbike town. I was fascinated when I visited Amsterdam again in 2001 and hired a sit-up bike, by how much I enjoyed riding like that, in that lovely town.
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I didn't get my licence till I was 27 and circumstances dictated I grow up. I still hit the Human Powered Vehicle sites all the time.
Someone mentioned guns earlier.
Why doesn't the gun licence extend to competence?
An annual shooting test to ensure the duckies are dispatched in one and not limp along in agony up some sheltered stream.
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