15 Reasons Why I Won't Own a Car

Can't sleep. Too pissed off about computers. So I figured I'd get up and rant about something else. At least it's a rant I've been thinking of writing for quite a while.

I almost wish that I wanted a car, so I could get a weird French compressed air car, but thankfully I have no interest whatsoever in owning a car, and hopefully I never will. I've now been car-free for 18 years. One of the few excellent pieces of advice my step-father gave me that I actually listened to: "You don't want a car, they're nothing but trouble." Last time I owned a car I was 19, a '63 Chevy Belair, like this one, which, rumor has it, was last seen being pushed off the Rimrocks of Billings, MT. Good riddance.

True, I now live in NYC, where it's more impactical to have a car than not, and I don't begrudge friends living in places like Montana, LA, Maine, Maryland and elsewhere for having cars, where it would be completley impractical not to. That said, I did manage four years in SF without one. That wasn't completely impractical, though it certainly gave me a different impression of California. But by that time I'd lived long enough without one that I wanted to see how far I could push it. We rented cars periodically to get out of town, got really good at the buses, took a lot of taxis, and I was in extremely good shape from biking all across town over those hills. We probably would have enjoyed the Bay Area more were we more mobile, but I have no regrets.

Here are 15 reasons why not:

1. I don't have to spend thousands of dollars buying a car.

2. I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars a year on insurance.

3. I don't have to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars a year on unexpected repairs.

4. I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars a year on parking tickets, towing, speeding tickets and the like.

5. I don't have to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on gasoline every year.

6. I don't get stuck in traffic or suffer from road rage.

7. I don't have to drive around the block for half an hour looking for parking.

8. I don't have to worry about having one more drink for the road, if I feel like it.

9. I don't have to worry about accidentally, heaven forbid, running over someone's child.

10. I don't have to worry about some jerk at the mall putting a huge scratch or dent in my perfect, beloved paint-job.

11. I don't have to feel guilty for being totally in love with a stupid car.

12. I don't have to feel guilty about further increasing the riches and power of Saudi Arabian princes and Texas Republican oil oligarchs.

13. I don't have to feel guilty about rewarding GM and the rest of the bastards for perpetrating one of the most dastardly conspiracies of the modern age (the destruction of public transportation in this country).

14. I don't have to feel guilty about ripping a hole bigger and bigger in the ozone layer as a gift to future generations (here's an idea: don't drive the SUV to the mall; shop online!)

15. To what extent I am in good shape at all anymore is still thanks to biking.

The only real downside is I have to suffer being such a sanctimonious prick all the time.