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Comment by blauditore | Hacker News Reader

Tangential, but: Cars are in part so problematic because they are a means of transportation designed for a handful of people, but mostly used by a single person. All the alternatives are either unpopular to most people (like bikes, or public transport), or obscure (small one-person cars). Especially the US just converged to this impractical de-facto standard in size and shape.

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The alternatives are impractical due to all the space cars and their infrastructure consume (walking, transit), or due to the danger cars pose (bicycles, motorbikes, small cars).

The US has converged because we are trapped in a vicious cycle.

The cycle would have broken in 2008 if we hadn't bailed out the auto manufacturers. Pro-free market until the moment it counts.

Wait, what would that have changed? Are you imagining that we’d have fewer cars in America in 2025 if we hadn’t bailed out the manufacturers in 2008?

Obviously it's not instantaneous, and you still have imports wanting to fill the vacuum, but a collapse of the US auto industry means 1) lower replacement rate in the near term as the remainders try to ramp up production, 2) difficulty servicing the legacy fleet, and 3) a massive blow in terms of sentiment and outlook. In this hypothetical, an American institution blew itself up and made a lot of people's lives more difficult. Do you think they earn that trust back easily? Or is it a post-bust clarity moment, where people finally have a moment to think about how much money is poured into their personal cars and auto infrastructure writ large?

Because, I mean, we did see something similar to that with the pandemic and a mass shift in perspectives on work culture, which corporations had to fight mightily to hobble. You also saw a similar shift during the Great Depression, and it took banks literal generations to rebuild their reputation with the public. In both cases, you saw massive ramifications for the way in which people lived.

I do think that no auto bailouts in 2008 ends America's love affair with the car as we knew it. So, yes, fewer cars. Or maybe, at least, different cars.

Why would not Toyota et al have just filled the high-demand vacuum?

This isn't a compelling alternative future theory at all.

I already addressed that. It takes time to ramp up production. In the meantime, Americans would have wanted action on the part of their political reps. The obvious out for those reps would have been expanded mass transit, as production costs and timing for a bus or train are going to be more advantageous than the amount required to put the equivalent number of people in cars.

If you want to pass judgment, please try to understand the argument first.

It seems extremely presumptive to think the thousands of jurisdictions across the US would somehow bid out, contract, receive, and begin operating fleets before Toyota et al simply scaled up or redirected shipments.

The much more specialized, lower scale, less adaptive manufacturers of public transit vehicles would face an even more severe form of the same problem Toyota would have, except they'd encounter it after years of normal procurement slowness.

That seems very unlikely to me. I think these car companies would all have been purchased for pennies on the dollar, likely by foreign companies in part, and would be making just as many cars today.

It depends. Part of the calculus for the original bailout was the homeland security aspect of potentially turning over companies and the market to foreign competitors, which doesn't go away just because the federal government misses its window to save GM et al. I don't know that such a purchase is a quick process. Either way, it's disruptive to production.

Almost 25% of Americans are rural as well… bikes and public transportation are never going to work for them. In fact, cars don’t always work for rural folks - a lot of them benefit from (if not outright need) trucks.

If we could solve transportation for 75% of the U.S., I would be pleased.

I always get confused by people saying public transportation makes no sense for rural people. I think it makes more sense, provided you use the right kind of public transportation for the right kind of rural community.

A large, spread-out community? Perhaps not so much.

But a small town where 80% of the people commute to surrounding cities? That'd be a great case for 1 or more commuter train, depending on direction and demand.

That is the UK basicially. You need some connecting dots probably to make it worthwhile.

But even then if the train is hourly you need to be organized. No going out ona whim.

It’s second nature very quickly. Our train into Oxford leaves at ten past the hour. You find yourself thinking “oh, I’ll aim for the ten past eleven” an hour or two beforehand and organise your morning accordingly. It’s absolutely no hardship.

A century ago, it was somewhat normal for any American town over 10,000 people to have at least one streetcar. Most towns also had an interurban connection to the next (larger) town, which would then have more streetcars, long-distance train connections, etc.

This is despite urbanization being lower then than it is now[1]. Some of that is because Americans became wealthier and demanded private alternatives to mass transit, but a lot of it is because we chose, as policy, to deprioritize effective mass transit.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...

Truck are popular because of culture, not a necessity. Unless you're working a farm or something like regularly hauling dirt, than they are less practical than a sedan even.

I disagree, something I learned pretty quick when we moved out of the city. How do you haul your trash to the dump when there is no pickup service in your area? How do you acquire a replacement dishwasher, oven, refrigerator, or big screen TV when you are outside the delivery area of the appliance store? Need a cord of firewood? A bed of mulch? Topsoil for the garden? 2x4s for a deck or workbench? Etc. Etc.

Trucks become more practical in rural areas because of the lack of amenities that exist around cities and towns.

They're popular in cities and suburbs where they are useless. I said they were useful out in farmlands. Half of what you said can fit in an SUV anyway. There is not place like that anywhere near where I live and trucks are still extremely common, most of my friends have one. They're all white collar. Most have bed covers or a trunk installed in the bed. I find it's really funny when people buy trucks and put a ton of effort into making the bed almost as useful as a trunk.

Additional to your point:

1. Women do not find guys in tiny cars to be attractive

2. Cars in America are becoming an arms race in terms of danger to others (tall front grills, heavier)

3. Liability/Regulation is too low. We'd see safety go up if we made the minimum insurance $5M , instead of $30000. Also if our police actually enforced traffic laws, including tags and insurance.

Public transportation in a lot of places isn’t safe especially when traveling with women or children

Women and children aren’t inherently dangerous. If you just avoid eye contact and keep to yourself, you should be fine

Must not be enough cops to either stand around and do nothing or beat the wrong guy to death then.

This is just simply not true, not if you compare apples to apples. Cars are the most dangerous form of transportation and nothing even comes close. You're 100x more likely to die in a car above the subway in NYC than on the subway. Thats not an exaggeration, that's the actual figure.

And then people invariably talk about theft or getting beat up, forgetting that most car accidents don't kill, they injure. And they're extremely expensive.

Cars might FEEL safer because you're in a little box away from everyone else. But it's the exact same everyone else. Still the same amount of crazies and sociopaths.

Except now, they're also in little steel boxes that weight 2,000 pounds going faster than any human was ever meant to go. And they're in full control.

> obscure (small one-person cars)

I believe it's called motorbike or scooter. Very popular in Asia.

also Europe. Everywhere but in the USA where there's no other transport options besides the road. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Despite this, cars will be the best - cheapest, fastest - means of transportation to most of the society until we have transparent crruptionless (AI?) governments. Apart a few cases - extreme distances (air), multimillion metro areas, handful of asian coutries due to culture - public transport is a mostly failed idea.

> public transport is a mostly failed idea.

Citation needed. I have been to many cities where I would never drive a car, but public transport is fine.

Public transportation is a no go because there are too many drug addicts, and violent lunatics out there. When I worked in the city in Miami, I enjoyed taking the train into the city. It was stress free and a fun quiet time. But then homeless started harassing the stairs and it became terrible.

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