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Uber is proof that people, especially younger gen are more likely to use ride sharing services than car ownership.
I must admit the lesser people that hate driving on the road the better.
Auto accidents have surpass other natural causes of death, eventually it may become the #1 cause of deaths.
Auto accident death rates have been dropping since 1980. Both in total number and per capita or per miles driven.
They aren't remotely near the death rates of smoking, obesity, cardio vascular etc. About 33,000 people died in auto accidents in 2012. Compare to 595,000 deaths due to heart disease in 2010.
What's happened is not that the younger people prefer the bus, walking or bikes, it's that they no longer depend on the car for their social interaction due to the cell phone. My kids, who were at the beginning of the cell phone generation (X) would not be seen on a bus after the freshman year in high school, because everyone else was driving. They also spent all of their social time driving around in cars full of friends. As texting evolved, getting together in person became less important after school, so for the millennials, cars are no longer any more than just transportation. For many of those that are now adults and taking the bus, it is also a financial issue, because the younger boomers are no longer buying them a new car on their 16th birthday as they did as recently as the 1990s. Car prices and insurance costs have gotten too expensive for that in most families. This is a real problem for the car manufacturers and eventually for the oil companies, with the end result being
another huge number of lost jobs.
If nothing else, they can continue using their cell phones while riding the bus.
Me.. I've been in suburban/rural-ish areas. I've needed a car at times to buy groceries or get to work.
Or Houston for that matter. I live 20 miles outside of town and I have never met anyone who doesn't own a car. It is impossible to get around here without one. Maybe if you are living downtown you could get by riding the filthy buses with the drug addicts and bums, but if you aren't smack dab in the middle of the city, you must have a car.
I ride the public buses, and it's obvious this poster doesn't ride the buses!
Public buses are too expensive for the, so-called, bums/drug addicts to ride! $5 for an all-day bus pass here in Las Vegas, and that's hard enough for even the working poor to afford every day!
You run into a whole variety of people riding buses today! I have a car, but I simply enjoy taking the bus instead as it gives me time to read. I do run into a number of Millenials on the buses, all riveted to their Smartphones or music devices!
Public transit is great for the user. The cost of the fare is a pittance of the actual cost. If riders actually paid all of the costs no one would ride. If you want to be righteous about it take a look at the actual costs.
As more and more workers become resigned to minimum wage jobs, it's become Hobson's choice but to subsidize public transit. Workers can't get to work, then? Close down the businesses heavily dependent on those that can't afford to buy/maintain a car?
I ride the public buses, and many of those I talk to riding the buses simply can't even afford to dream of owning a car, let alone maintain one, and? They must get to work somehow! Some of these low-wage workers were "knocked out of the loop" facing one expensive rapair job to their car, or an expensive traffic fine can do the same!
Those that should be subsidizing public transit more are those businesses heavily dependent on minimum wage workers who can't afford a car!
Auto accident death rates have been dropping since 1980. Both in total number and per capita or per miles driven.
But! There are those involved in car accidents who will never walk again, never work again, end up paraplegics/quadriplegics, end up on disability, have never-ending issues with pain, we're talking about the unseen aftermaths to accidents. And the billions we spend on them every year!
The dead? They're the lucky ones! No pain there! No additional costs to the taxpayers!
I currently work in a LTC/Rehab facility, one of my patients was in a near-fatal car accident 15 years ago, left a paraplegic, has been on Medicaid eversince, and she could be on it for another 30 years! And she's still facing another operation!
I live around Indianapolis. A bus system is our only transit option, it doesn't run late at night, nor does it run in much but the core city. If you have a need to get outside your neighborhood or go somewhere at night, it won't work. Smaller towns in Indiana are probably worse.
If you want to travel long distances, you need an automobile. If you are in small town or rural America, you need an automobile. A few urban, save the earth hipster types don't change the reality of the situation.
But! There are those involved in car accidents who will never walk again, never work again, end up paraplegics/quadriplegics, end up on disability, have never-ending issues with pain, we're talking about the unseen aftermaths to accidents. And the billions we spend on them every year!
The dead? They're the lucky ones! No pain there! No additional costs to the taxpayers!
I currently work in a LTC/Rehab facility, one of my patients was in a near-fatal car accident 15 years ago, left a paraplegic, has been on Medicaid eversince, and she could be on it for another 30 years! And she's still facing another operation!
Piecemeal anecdotes don't mean much. Over half a million Americans DIE each year because of heart disease. How many people are barely alive with heart disease?
Car accidents can't be ignored. But they aren't even a top 10 cause of death in the US.
Gen Y spans roughly 15-35 years of age, which is as big of a gap as you can get. Between high schoolers, college students, just graduated, singles, married and parents of babies through teens, there are going to be lots of opinions. The younger crowd has always preferred cities; this is just history repeating itself.
This generation is quickly becoming middle-aged however, and the numbers don't lie. Someone also did a study on the 2010 census and the data shows Gen Y has been suburbanizing since then. (Google "millennials suburbanizing".) Also record car sales? Who would've thought?
Nothing to see here folks... These special snowflakes are simply falling in line just like those boring folks before them. Gen Z is the one to watch now.
I am a software guy, since 1981. That is what I do for a living. I like both software and hardware. I like cars because they are incredible machines that give me freedom.
Just because older people did more work with their hands than younger people is just an indicator of technology evolution.
I disagree that today's youth are software people. Most of them have no idea what powers the things they use and like.
Agreed, it IS the evolution of technology. Let's explore that further. Industrialization first started to matter in the US in around the mid-19th century. The first gadgets were crude, with manufacturing and design not far removed from use and maintenance. As technology evolved, it not only become more capable and complex, but the user became less of a tinkerer and maintainer. The user became a consumer of black-box technology. This evolution is quite palpable with cars. From the Model T, to the 57 Chevy, to the 1980s Toyota, to the supercomputer-on-wheels of today, there's a steady disconnect from the user to the machine. In 1920, a car owner was almost by definition a more or less expert. Approaching 2020, in some cars we can't even replace the battery without having a special code linking the battery to the car's electrical system, available only to the dealer.
Up through around 1970, drivers could be competent home-mechanics, affecting quite substantial repairs and upgrades to their cars without specialized knowledge or tools. Car performance evolved, as did car complexity, but the latter remained tractable for a reasonably adept home mechanic. After around 1970, there was a knee in the curve of technology evolution. The Millennial disaffection with cars is simply a response to the fact that the vehicles of their own youth have become too black-box, too inaccessible for tinkering. Thus they don't develop a penchant for tinkering. And so we have a downward spiral of disconnection between user and technology.
If you became a software-guy in 1981, you were around early enough, that the cars of your youth were accessible to the home mechanic. It was possible to amass mechanical skills, put them to work, feel the satisfaction of one's labor, and thus positively reinforce. 40+ years later, such opportunities have become rare.
I saw this trend myself in the 1990s, when car "customization" shifted away from installing superchargers and high-lift cams, to thumping stereo systems and oversized wheels. The youth culture moved away from the essence of speed, to the illusion of speed. The next step is to forego any pursuit of speed, real or illusory.
It's quite true that most of today's youth are not software developers. "By software guy" I meant not somebody who writes batch-scripts in Catia or even Matlab functions. I meant somebody who looks for solutions in Google instead of physical books, somebody who prefers to play a flight-simulator video game instead of building and flying an R/C model airplane, somebody who'd rather play chess on Xboard with internet-opponents rather than driving downtown to enter a chess tournament with flesh-and-blood opponents sitting across a table moving actual wooden pieces on a wooden board.
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