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Monday, January 15, 2007

Why We’re Losing

posted by on January 15 at 11:15 AM

Four in ten Americans have a “personal bond” with their cars, and believe their car has a personality of its own. Three in ten think their car “has a gender,” with three times as many thinking of their cars as female (23 percent) than male (seven percent).

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1

Talk about materialism pushed over the edge. But since nearly half of Americans honestly think earth was created in 6 days I suppose we should not be shocked. Even me, the guy who has not owned a car for five years am thinking about getting one. Thank you Mayor Gridlock for never dealing with public transportation for people who live and work in Seattle.

Posted by Andrew | January 15, 2007 11:23 AM
2

what are we losing at?

Posted by ddv | January 15, 2007 11:58 AM
3

Color me ignorant but what does this post imply that we are "losing?" Brain cells?

Posted by frederick r | January 15, 2007 12:13 PM
4

Post 394457292 in a row that ECB swerves accross eight lanes of traffic to get gender into an otherwise interesting news item. Serioulsy, you should write college text books.

Posted by strangerdanger | January 15, 2007 12:21 PM
5

ddv: what are we losing at?

Good question. If the answer is the Iraq war, then perhaps the question should be, "What are we not winning at?" ;-)

Anyway, I don't think it's a bad thing to be attached to your car. Hey, I don't think it's a bad thing to be able to refer to "your car." To my eyes, the problem is not car ownership per se; the problem is car dependency. For example, having a good transit alternative to driving to work isn't a reason necessarily to sell your car; it is a reason to avoid driving your car during the harshest commute hours.

And if you do have a personal bond with your car, then sparing it the wear-and-tear and accident risk from having to drive it everywhere -- that kind of has its appeal.

Posted by cressona | January 15, 2007 12:25 PM
6

This morning I saw this news item on three "news" shows and they all referred to the same data points - basically saying, "You people who anthropomorphize your cars are weird!"

I have to agree. Weirdos!

Posted by Soupytwist | January 15, 2007 12:29 PM
7

hey cressona,

I hear you! I love my car, and have been struggling to come up with a great nickname (yes a female name). While I would never give up my car, I would love to leave it home everyday and take mass transit to work. but my commute does not lend itself to using our current system unless i want to take 1 hour 40 minutes to make the same 14 mile trip it takes me 35-40 minutes to make on my own (I do carpool!).

And your guess is as good as mine on what we are losing at. I think strangerdanger might be on to something with the hypothesis that it was a horrible example of gender inequality...

Posted by ddv | January 15, 2007 12:30 PM
8

My car, Suzy Greenberg, sits in front of my house at least five days a week. Sometimes Suzy and I go hiking on the weekends, because she is a Subaru Outback and enjoys that sort of thing. Suzy rarely if ever accompanies me to work in downtown Seattle. Suzy and I are not losing the Iraq war just because she happens to have a personality. As per Cressona, car/human bonding is not the same thing as car dependency.

Posted by giantladysquirrels | January 15, 2007 1:09 PM
9

if you anthopomorphize your car, the only type of person it can be is an obese, leathery skinned 43 year old woman (who looks at least 60) who has diabetes and lung cancer. the only appropriate names are 'greta,' 'turdbomb,' or 'bellevue.'

Posted by jamier | January 15, 2007 1:10 PM
10

Americans are hardly alone in anthropomorphizing their vechicles.

Guatemalans, for one, are famous for their glorious, so-called "chicken buses", all of which have their female names colorfully painted on the outside, along with prayers painted on the inside to protect their passengers from the fucking treacherous roads.

Additionally, romance languages (and possibly other) assign gender to any object. In French la voiture is female.

Posted by treacle | January 15, 2007 1:13 PM
11

where's jensen?

Posted by wf | January 15, 2007 1:21 PM
12

This attitude is fucking stupid. Lower emissions, fine (great, actually). No mom and daughter in one big gigantic Yukon XL, fine. But christ, you are never ever going to have a car-free city in America. New York has buses, subways, toll bridges, San Fran has BART and light rail, Vancouver has that weird robo-train, yada yada yada, and gee whiz, even when you have a somewhat decent transit system, people still use their cars. Some people can't bike (or can't take two hours to get to somewhere you can drive to in 15 minutes), some people have figured out that it's actually cheaper to use the gas than to pay a $1.50 or whatever it is now to get to where they're going, or they actually need to go to several different places that the buses do not fucking go in any reasonable amount of time. Groceries on a bus? For the average family? Nawww. My dad uses the bus to get to and from work and I wish Columbus had a better transit system, but jesus, unless you put a line running every 3 blocks every 3 minutes to any where you like for a buck, people are going to use their cars a good few days out of the week.

Posted by The CHZA | January 15, 2007 1:23 PM
13

ECB - Actually, the overall news is pretty good for those of us who advocate for more transit and other non-car choices for getting around. Check it out at http://pewresearch.org/social/pack.php?PackID=16.
Bear in mind that the AP-AOL Autos poll cited in the article you linked to does not include any cross-references to data points from prior years. The Pew Research Center polling, however, shows a negative trend in American attitudes towards cars and driving. What these trends signify is that public support will grow for investing more in transit and that more people will choose to live in walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods. Note to the car cheerleaders elsewhere in the comments: Cars can be fine. The problem is that the amount of public and private dollars we spend on them is way out of wack.

Posted by FoS | January 15, 2007 1:35 PM
14

I just spent three and half years restoring something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_T#TD

I'm going to call it Erica.


---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | January 15, 2007 2:16 PM
15

nice work Jensen. please tell me you actually will drive the car. I get really frustrated with all the people who spend loads of money to purchase or restore great autos only to leave them in the garage or show room forever. They are cars, for crying out loud, let 'em out to play!

I'm pining away for a '67 Shelby GT350 to get and restore....

~ddv

Posted by ddv | January 15, 2007 2:48 PM
16

My current ride is Jesus (pronounced hispanically, to badly coin a phrase) because I bought it from a X-tian lot and it still had a Jesus fish on it. Previous rides have included Beeker (named for the Muppet Show character because it had a funny-sounding horn), Roy (Plymouth Duster with redneck name), Otis (Dodge Dart, same reason), Henry (a dumpy LTD, named for Mr. Ford), and Gus (big tubby van), but beyond the silly names, they were always just machinery to me. Very useful machinery, but not people by any stretch (although those damned Chrysler random electronic quirks
can seem like it, sometimes).


Posted by Mr. X | January 15, 2007 2:54 PM
17

Iraq didn't even occur to me when I read the headline about that graph. I read it as something like "Why we're losing the battle for livable cities."

Anthropomosized cars that are considered part of the family are at least part of the problem. As the comments and the survey show, cars are very important many folks. They're more likely to pick a place to live that's friendly to the car and less likely to live in a transit-oriented neighborhoods.

And, yes, even in Seattle -- despite our decades-long transit mistakes -- it's possible to live and work in places where mass transit is a viable option for those of us who haven't adopted a car as part of the family.

Posted by Robin | January 15, 2007 3:05 PM
18

I call my Volvo Sven, but I don't think it's anything other than a car, and I only use him for things like dump runs and big grocery runs.

BUT, I am not above being a dork in these matters. I personally love to take the train, and have travelled across the country (and across Canada) via rail on several occassions.

Part of the fun (a very small part, but still part) are the names of the routes, most of which are left over from an earlier time, when the railroads competed with each other: Empire Builder, Lakeshore Limited, Southwest Chief, City of New Orleans, California Zephyr - all of them are attempts to give personality to generic rail equipment.

But of course, it's the scenery that draws me, and the names are somewhat evocative of that as well.

Posted by catalina vel-duray | January 15, 2007 3:45 PM
19

Robin @ 17,

The fact that people name their cars has nothing, no, make that less than nothing, to with where they choose to live.

Posted by Mr. X | January 15, 2007 4:14 PM
20

Oops - "to do"

Posted by Mr. X | January 15, 2007 4:15 PM
21

DDV Wrote:
"nice work Jensen."

Thank you, DDV. I will admit it looks best at ten paces. It would never win at a concours event, however it is solid and runs well.

I shipped it as a present to my wife's parents. They drove one when they were were dating and just after they were married. It was a huge and joyful surprise for them, and I am sure it will get regular use.

So for the moment, I too am looking for a new restoration project. I have a Lotus in mind, however we'll see.

Good luck with your search for the Shelby! It is truly an awesome
machine.


---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | January 15, 2007 5:21 PM
22

In keeping with naming things female, I've started calling shit Erica C. Barnett.

"I was running Greenlake at lunch and stepped in some erica, I wish dog owners would pick up after their pooches."

"I had Mexican food last night and have taken several Erica C. Barnetts today"

Posted by Interestingly enough | January 15, 2007 6:54 PM

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