If you're looking for a fun and informative program to watch you should check out Adam Ruins Everything on the TRU channel.
Adam Connover picks a (controversial) subject on each episode and 'ruins' some (or all) assumptions you might have (in a funny way) and some might really surprise you.
In my Adam Ruined everything series I go through the episodes and the items that he 'ruins'.
Episode 1 was about : Giving and donating
Episode 2 was about : Security
Note : if you want to watch the episode first, spoiler alert
Episode 3 is about :
Why is it that if you want to buy a new car you HAVE to go to a car dealership? That's a valid point that Adam's addressing.
It is much more convenient to go to a big store that sells all kinds of cars from all kinds of brands like a big Car Ikea but without the assemble-it-yourself part. Or by just going to a webstore and buy it like you buy any other product?
I just browsed to the website from Renault. I made a configuration for the Renault Megane Estate and when I was finished I only had the following options : Print - Save - Share
It would be much more efficient for Renault if I could press the button : Order now and then select the dealership I want to pick it up (or why not have it delivered at your house like any other packages you order?). All dealerships are offering the same prices anyway and whenever you've bought your car at the dealership they have to order it at Renault anyway because the Renault dealer isn't owned by Renault so I'd be doing online what the dealer would do. And by cutting the middle-man it would possibly cause the cars to cost less too.
But here comes the problem. Adam addresses this in the topic for the US, but I found this online for the EU (coming from 2013) :
These kind of laws are making it really hard to get a more efficient business-model for buying/selling cars since ALL the power is in the hands of the car-brands making an Ikea-like car-mega-store virtually impossible.
A century ago, the streets were a public place and you could walk and go anywhere you'd please. But when the car was invented, everybody just went driving on their top speed through the crowded streets causing all kinds of horrific accidents.
People started protesting against the cars, so they came up with laws stating that the street is for cars instead of pedestrians and today just crossing the street is good for a hefty fine.
And it kind of undermined the efficiency of Public Transportation while it can be the solution to a lot of traffic problems.
1 bus here in The Netherlands can roughly carry 24 passengers. if you have 3 busses driving behind each other you'd have 3 busses driving behind each other. Have 72 people drive in their own car behind each other it would quickly give you a traffic jam when you're not on a highway. So it would be more efficient to get a good transportation system where there are a fair amount of buslines going to all kinds of places and have a fast transfer to a different bus. It could make the roads less crowded, traveling (during rush hour) more quickly and efficient, it'd be more green (since you have co2 neutral busses now too) and there are many more pros that I could mention.
BUT! to get to a situation like that would mean to pass some not-so popular changes that won't happen very fast because it would mean a big change in how you live your life.
This leaves us with a system that is too expensive while having less cars would also mean less parking spots which means that the areas that would become available could be used for other purposes.
And now comes the next problem : Traffic (jams)
A lot of nature is getting destroyed here to build more roads. People believe that building more roads will mean less jams but usually more roads means more cars on that road so that still leaves us with traffic jams.
A good example in The Netherlands is the A2. Between Utrecht and Amsterdam it contains 5 lanes in 1 direction and 5 lanes in the other direction and still is packed with cars in traffic jams all the time. what if we'd make it 7 lanes? My prediction would be : still traffic jams.
Which also is what Adam is telling.
Cars get into accidents. No matter how much rules you make and how much fines are handed out to people breaking them.
According the Adam around 80% of the drivers think themselves as a better than average driver. (Me included hehe)
But being (overly)confident makes you pay less attention and inattention can cause the accident to happen. And today you have a lot of people using their smartphones while driving making everybody paying even less attention to what's happening around them.
And a study shows that when cars get safer and the rules and situations are presented as safer people will actually drive less safe because of it. And yes, there are technologies that pushes the brake for you when a pedestrian suddenly shows up in front of your car or when a car in front of you suddenly hits the brake etc. but those technologies are usually only available on the more expensive cars so the majority doesn't have those solutions available to them.
You can drive your car to wherever you want to go but it does cost a lot just to own the car.
I've calculated what my car would cost for a year.
This is just for owning the car. When I start to drive, I have to add the fuel to the calculation as well as maintenance and repairs. I'm on the road a lot so I have at least 2 maintenance appointments in a year and a month ago the air conditioning had a malfunction that caused it to leak fluid and eventually fried the battery. It took them a week to find the malfunction and to repair it. I don't even want to know what that would've cost me. (one of the pros of having a lease...)
According to Adam, a car cost roughly 9000,- a year in the USA. The average family spends around 20% of their yearly income on transportation. That more than what's spent on food. And for the poorest families is 32%.
I already mentioned in my post that there are more options to travel than cars alone. While cars can be the perfect way of transportation in some cases, more money should be invested in public transportation making it more affordable and efficient so you actually have a choice of how you want to travel.
Adam shows a place in Los Angeles where you can find a small park where there used to be a road because they'd build a subway. And if a place as crowded (and defined by cars) as LA can implement such great changes, other places should be able to do that too.
