My Daughter, the Motorist -- Part 4
In recent posts, I've explored the mind-bending experience of your oldest child becoming a motorist. It's gone well from the perspective of how she drives and how courteous she is. As a bike commuter trying to change the world (or at least Intown Atlanta), I'm still reconciling my role in encouraging her use of the automobile. In this post, I'm exploring some unchallenged assumptions I've recently become more aware of.
First, we've gotten my 16-year-old a credit card. When you're on the road, broken down, you'll want to have access to funds to pay for fuel or towing without having to carry around wads of cash. I used to carry my bike in the back of the car for emergencies, but today you carry around a credit card. I don't mind she learns to be responsible with this priviledge, but I found it interesting that the use of a car became so closely related to an instrument of incurring debt.
Second, since I ride my bike to work, I had 'forgotten' that most people own a car so they can get to work. My daughter has just started her job when she turned 16. The job is less than a half-mile away, but because she's a young female working after dark, she drives. Safety for a young attractive female is a real issue and I support her use of the car to get to work. I'm at a loss to suggest otherwise.
Last -- and this is something I've touched on in Driver's License Part 2 -- the car has become so entangled in the way we schedule our lives. We don't give ourselves enough time to wait for the bus, to walk, or to take a shower after riding into the office. By shaving minutes here and there -- and time is indeed precious -- we incur the expense of an automobile.
The question I'm asking is, how do we spend the minutes we're saving by taking the car. Do we spend time in the gym getting the exercise we've missed? Do we plop down in front of the TV to decompress from sitting in traffic? Do we make one more phone call and send another email so we can get a raise, then celebrate the raise by getting a nicer car?
Life is about choices, and choices often are about overcoming inertia, the inertia of doing things as they have been done. I'm learning just how much inertia we set in motion when we put our children behind the wheel of a car.
Labels: Driver's License
posted by Jett @ 7:38 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I have an embarrassing secret.
My daughter can not ride a bike.
She's only 7, but still, all of her peers know how to ride. She really enjoys riding on the trailer bike behind me, but she absolutely refuses to get on a bicycle and learn how to ride it. *sigh*
My oldest just turned 16 and thankfully she's seen enough of Atlanta that she isn't interested in driving.
Fritz, both my daughters took a long time to walk and now they are speed demons on the soccer field. Maybe she's saving up for a surprise.
Evan, is your daughter getting around on a bike? Atlanta's traffic deserves healthy respect and especially on the freeways. She might be another case of caution turning into excellence.
I find it interesting that the automobile is continually assumed to be safer than other means of transportation, especially when one considers that right around 42000 people per annum lose their lives in motor vehicle crashes in the US. It continues to astound me that highway deaths are not seen as a public health problem. I don't bring this up to criticize anyone personally, but I think it's almost universally a factor in the decision of whether to drive or use some other mode of transportation.
I especially like your last point about what happens to the time we "save" owing to the use of motor vehicles. I've read several arguments that cycling is faster than driving, especially when one factors in the time spent earning money to offset the higher cost of owning an auto.
Time is one thing, but what do you think about the other effects of driving? Physical well-being, money, clean air, social interaction, judicious land use—all sacrificed to some degree for the sake of motor vehicle transportation. I continue to ask myself whether the negatives are worth the positives, and who it is that truly benefits from our transportation system...
Mauricio, you bring up a great point about perceived safety. I've been looking at the statistics measuring the relative likelihood of death or injury of various activities and agree with you that driving or riding in a car is one of the most dangerous things most people do. I had to dig a little bit in this vehicular cycling article, but it ties together a number of surprising facts with the research that supports those facts. Even adjusted for the number of hours spent performing the activity, bike use is safer than car use. This is in the middle of a helmet-use FAQ that is interesting as well.
In my daughter's case, the safety issue arises because my wife organizes an off-duty police patrol and she hears about every violent crime in detail. I can speak to this logically, but logic sometimes bounces off of fear.
The cost and wastefulness of a car, my over-whelming sense of loss while stuck in traffic, the joy I find in riding my bike, and how much younger I feel provide a balance sheet with no ambiguity.
Wow. I've been commuting by bike since the 80s and I don't run into very many people with that attitude. Good for you Jett...
Thanks for your kind words. There aren't many who've been commuting by bike that have your length of experience. I'm glad you're sharing it.
I just learned you're the chincicle guy I had run across recently. This is the sort of fun made possible by getting out in real-life instead living inside the cabin of your automobile. Good stuff.
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