What if 14 years old was the new driving age?
This is an idle thought as I unwind for the night and is not something I am making the case for. This is a complicated issue and there is a lot of stuff to consider and think about.
The driving age was set decades ago when technology and growing up were very different. I wonder what would happen if we dropped the driving age to 14 (using high school as the gate age.) Given the technological development, video gaming, teenagers are much more advanced and cars are (in many ways) antiquated technology compared to computers.
It would result in more fatal crashes both as a simple by-product of more drivers being on the road, and of course of the cultural shift for the younger drivers on the road. Far less important, but an issue to think about none-the-less: school infrastructures are not built for supporting this additional influx of drivers. Heck, I was in high school and the parking spaces on campus couldn't even serve both seniors and juniors. So, adding freshmen and sophomores is not something schools can handle.
As an upside, it enables employment (for those families in desperate need of it but which have excess vehicles). I am not pushing for rollback of child labor protections at all, but acknowledging some kids at 14 years old already do work, and more would if transportation was available. Also the added drivers would stir the economy through additional demand for vehicles. If 1 in 500 of the drivers has the means or family able to purchase a car (new or used), based on an estimate that there are 4 million 14 year olds in the US today, that puts 8,000 additional vehicles on the road.
Anyways, just a rambling thought before I crawl into bed.
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The Engorgement of the American Vehicle
This is a very good piece on Slate discussing the history of trucks, sales, and designs over the year. Here's an excerpt from the intro:
In 1977, SUVs and trucks together represented 23 percent of American new car sales; today they comprise more than 80 percent. Meanwhile, the models themselves keep getting larger. These four-wheeled behemoths started as niche vehicles, meant to allow certain groups of people to accomplish specific tasks. Today they have become a fixture of everyday American life. They are also linked to myriad societal ills, from crash deaths to climate change to social inequality. Bigger cars make each of those problems harder to solve.
The story of car bloat—the continually expanding size of the typical American automobile—is one of carmaker profit, shifting consumer preferences, and loophole-riddled auto regulations. It is also a story of hidden costs: to the planet, to taxpayers, and to the American families whose lives have been shattered by a crash that could have been avoided, or at least mitigated, with a smaller vehicle.
But this story is far from over, and its ending far from certain. The auto industry plans to keep foisting ever-larger vehicles on the American public. The question is whether it will be allowed to.
While the following is undoubtedly true, it's also casting too fair a light on car companies. Serving consumer need is a chicken/egg problem, and often people discover wants or tastes after having something offered to them.
The responsibility for car bloat cannot be placed entirely on automakers. Some car buyers clearly prefer larger, heavier models, which can provide more space as well as a perceived edge over other, smaller cars on the road. Bailo thinks that customer preferences have been the dominant factor behind vehicle expansion. "People are larger now than they used to be, and they have more stuff they want to haul around," she told me. "Automakers are fundamentally giving people what they want."
The author continues:
What deserves the most blame? Disentangling the influence of automaker choices, consumer preferences, and federal policy on car bloat is a daunting task for even the most meticulous of researchers. But if nothing else, one thing is clear: The "engorgement of the American vehicle," as University of Iowa law professor Greg Shill has called it, has been a defining trend of the automotive market over the last 40 years. We are only starting to reckon with its consequences.
The article goes on to discuss the various ways the larger trucks are problematic, from the most obvious threat of collisions, to the impact on visibility for the driver, to pollution, etc. Overall a great piece, and hopefully the tide of articles and coverage of truck sizes will drive some sort of change and regulation around it.
There was also a great piece on Axios about trucks, "How pickup trucks became so imposing." It featured two graphics which really struck me and stuck with me:
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Washington state has highest gas prices in country
Experts say Washington's price surge is linked to the state's latest, most-ambitious efforts to battle climate change, specifically the new carbon-pricing program launched this year that charges businesses for the greenhouse gases they emit. The first two quarterly auctions of emission allowances raked in more than $850 million.
Now oil companies are choosing to pass on the compliance fees, the experts say. Those costs add up to about 50 cents per gallon for the consumer, according to the Oil Price Information Service, a Dow Jones company that collects fuel-pricing information for many clients, including AAA. The state Department of Ecology, which oversees the carbon-pricing program, says it's aware of oil companies passing on the costs but has no power to stop it.
And here-in lies the rub. When the businesses are not things people can easily opt out of, they are rife for this sort of exploitation.
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"How to Quit Cars"
The article is a high level review and summary of two books: Carmageddon by Daniel Knowles and Henry Grabar’s Paved Paradise.
Carmageddon by
Paved Paradise by
I strongly agree with the thrust of this article. Ending cars and changing the perspective from necessity to outright evil. Sadly, as the article explains, it is not an easily solved thing - especially in America.
My work is about to change offices. Out of curiousity I looked up the comparative commute times for me. If I drive my own car. I can make it in 20-30 minutes. Using public transit I'm looking at 75-90 minutes. Now, there is some attraction to this in that I am not paying for gas. The responsibility of driving is gone. I could even sit and work on the laptop or something possibly. But that difference in time is dramatic. If I could make the trip in 45-60 minutes I very much would make this change. But that length of commute increase is tough as it would require me to be away from home for an hour more each day.
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I had a dream last night that Seattle / King County held a car exchange program. Ala the sort you see about people turning in their guns. Not saying it is a good idea, but I thought it a notable dream.
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The Delorean Alpha
A beautiful car. But the site loses me when I discover it has NFT and a subscription model built in from the looks of it?
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As I sit here, realizing I forgot to bring lunch today, I am questioning what it would do to my fast food consumption to not allow myself to utilize drive thrus. Would being forced to get out of my car and go inside raise the bar for what I am willing to eat and thus push most fast food out of that range?
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Auto manufacturer family tree: Who owns what?
Australian website breaks down who owns who when it comes to the car brands of the world. I knew a lot of them, but definitely didn't know all of it.
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