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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

I find there are a number of things I cannot do without someone having a car.

1) Go hiking, snowboarding, mountain biking 2) Drive fast on road courses 3) Come home from the airport after midnight 4) Purchase more than 2 bags of groceries (including TP, laundry detergent et al) 5) Go on road trips 6) Isolate myself from the mentally ill or obnoxious behaviors and smells I'm surrounded by, including their fecal matter 7) Isolate myself from the constant crime that I am surrounded by 8) Isolate myself from the constant excessive sound that I am surrounded by 9) Easily move around tools and supplies to maintain my home

on and on it goes. A life without a car is a life of either hiring everything out (expensive), doing without (no hikes for me) or constantly renting (what's the point?)

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If you live in a walkable area, that means a city, and if you ever want to get out of the city you’ll need a car, or a serious dedication to biking. There are exceptions, I had no trouble getting out of the city on foot in Boulder for example, the bus will even take you out to semi-rural areas.

A motorcycle is one potential solution but they are incredibly dangerous and not very practical in many parts of the country due to weather.

Yeah I actually have a motorcycle as a way to deal with #2 :P I accept the risk. All the gear all the time.

Have you considered that "isolating" yourself from the people in your community who are most in need has had a negative impact on both you and your community? And that you may vastly overestimate the presence of crime and homelessness because of this isolation?

As someone who does take public transit on a daily basis and occasionally interacts with the homeless and petty criminals, the dehumanization of people in your own community in your comment is absolutely astounding. These people are your neighbors, whether they smell bad, have become victims of addiction, or have turned to petty crime.

I'm not the person you're responding to but I share that person's sentiment.

Some people don't like other people. Regardless of whether my neighbors are nice people who have an excess of delicious baked goods or meth addicts, I don't want to interact with them and I have no obligation to them just because of our proximity.

It's perfectly okay to not like being around people, especially people with obnoxious behaviors (whether they are because of a mental illness or otherwise) or people that smell bad.

I live without a car, and yet I manage to do all[1] of the things you mention by biking, using public transit and rental cars/vans/trucks on occasion.

I thought it would be really annoying to live without a car, but it's actually quite nice, and I save so much money on fuel and maintenance.

[1] aside from the road courses. I race gocarts for fun instead.

I agree that gocarts are hella fun!

My posting said > without someone having a car.

Care to share how you go snowboarding, #3 and #5-8 ?

I have read mr money mustache write a lot about what can be accomplished by a bicycle + trailer. But even he still has a low cost car.

Snowboarding? Pack my stuff, take the train to the airport, fly to country with mountains, take train to ski resort town, go snowboarding. Optionally rent a car if necessary.

Road trips? Rent a car, or fly somewhere interesting and rent a car locally.

#5-8 I handle by not being needlessly paranoid and distrustful of other people. "The mentally ill and their obnoxious smells and fecal matter", seriously?

Obviously when you have a car right there, you tend to gravitate towards it, when all you have is a hammer etc.

I'm sure there's also a big cultural aspect to it. I also thought it would be hell to not have a car anymore, but it has turned out to rather easy and straight forward.

> "The mentally ill and their obnoxious smells and fecal matter", seriously?

Come to SF sometime. I literally have to dodge poop daily.

Unless you're paying for a private track, #2 makes the road less safe for others that want to use it and cost more to repair. It's the textbook example of abusing the commons.

They specifically say "road courses".

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