JoeyBike

If a person's spouse owns a car and that car is not available to others except for extreme emergency purpose, that person is car-free. If both persons have relatively free access to the one car, that would be car-lite. To me anyway. Same as before we were married and were just "housemates". She has a car, I do not. If it is pouring down rain for my commute I can catch a taxi, maybe even catch a ride with a coworker, but using the wife's car is out of the question because it is her transport to work. Normally I just bike when the weather slacks off (info thanks to NEXRAD) or take the day off and use my home office. Been 25 years since I used anyone's car, or a taxi, to get to work regardless of what access I may or may not have to a car at the time.

JoeyBike

Not true. We have to eat regardless. The cost is a "wash". I have cycled 6000 miles in six months on a fully packed touring bike and ate less than I do sitting around the house. Exercise generally makes me less hungry. I have a T-shirt that reads 53 miles per burrito. Calculating our mileage based on a gallon of lard (yuck - but tastier than gasoline) we would get between 160 and 290 mpg. If we COULD consume and burn gasoline we could get 1100 mpg. Pure human efficiency at digesting food is about 25% but the mileage per calorie is still very high. Reference

Gasoline and Diesel fuels are highly efficient if you want to pull something or gain speed - as compared to other types of energy available to us now. I think a diesel/electric locomotive has the best fuel efficiency overall. A family car hauling one person is probably the worst fuel efficiency. As for moving one person on flat land with no load or time limit, a bicycle beats every mode of transport in terms of efficiency (miles per gallon/calorie converted to calories/metabolism) except for pure wind powered vehicles like sailboats. I can still get somewhere on my bike with zero wind - a sailing vessel cannot.

Modern gasoline engines have a maximum thermal efficiency of about 25% to 30% when used to power a car. In other words, even when the engine is operating at its point of maximum thermal efficiency, of the total heat energy released by the gasoline consumed, about 70-75% is rejected as heat without being turned into useful work, i.e. turning the crankshaft.


Image Reference: https://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211.fall...0page%203.html

I-Like-To-Bike

If you say so. Obviously "car free" has a flexible meaning, adaptable to fit all sorts of situations; just like "extreme emergency purpose."

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure they exist; this forum's "car free by god" posters are evidence. However, few if any of the political and sociological simple life sermonizers limit their complaints about the wicked wastrels of society to only those single childless 20-something's living in dense urban areas that don't adapt car free living. They paint their broad brush of disparagement on everybody, regardless of circumstances, that doesn't meet the high moral standards of car free living/simple life purity.

JoeyBike

Also when I was ten years old, my parents owned three cars. None were available for my use ever. I was car free. When I was 30, single, and living in an apartment I had access to taxis and rental cars but did not own a car - again...car free. Now I am married, still have access to taxis, rental cars, but not my wife's car (title in her name only) - still car free. Interpret as you will. If I found myself in need of a personal car, I would buy one and use it only when absolutely necessary. Then I will be car-light. Pretty simple.

JoeyBike

Don't want to get painted, step away from the canvass!

gerv 

I've read that on a bike you can do a mile on 35 calories. And I tend to believe this. I also believe that after many years of riding, my body is probably able to do this even more efficiently.

Lately my preferred fuel is muesli... I believe I'm doing around 500 miles a gallon.

Roody

Well, sometimes enthusiasm for an idea reads like disparagement of the opposing idea. Sometimes this might be the case, but most often it's not. I really don't see much of this disparagement here. You seem to be the only one who sees it, as I mentioned before.

AsanaCycles

its not easy to be "car free"

quick read: One Less Car

https://www.amazon.com/One-Less-Car-B.../dp/1592136133

I-Like-To-Bike

I'm sure you don't see anything that you don't want to see. And don't want anything posted that doesn't agree with your approved version of reality.

I-Like-To-Bike

OK, got it. If your wife performs some family chores with the family car or even picks up your video supplies on the way back from work (yeah I know, the car title's in her name, BFD), YOU haven't soiled your car-free credentials.

AsanaCycles

ironically, the car, not Auto-Mobile, for we are not auto mobile when confined in a car, but rather sat and dictated a paradigm.

anyways...
the most successful meme in human history is no doubt the car.
we have literally resurfaced the planet for this thing

its uncommon
its rare
its not normal
in the industrialized worlds, it is not common for a person(s) to head the demand of the worlds most successful meme.

JoeyBike

I do not own a car. I do not have free access to a car. I do not drive a car UNLESS i am doing something at the command of someone who owns a car (probably my wife). I can't decide "Oh...I don't feel like cycling today. Think I'll take the car" because I am car free i.e., I do not have one to use unless I rent one. I know that is hard to fathom. Yes, there is a car in the driveway of our house right now. If there was a medical emergency I am pretty sure my wife would drive me to a doctor or hand the keys over IF she was not away from home in HER car. Then I would call a taxi or ambulance.

If my wife came to me tonight and told me she was ditching her car too, I wouldn't care because I hate driving in the city anyway. I never drive by choice, so ditching it would be doing me a HUGE favor.

When I load up my bicycle with groceries and take them home do my actions somehow make my wife car-light? Hardly. When my wife gets the groceries with her car, does that make me car-light instead of car-free? I don't see it.

Car-light, to me, means I own a car but use it less because I bike/skate/bus whenever possible. Car-free, to me, means I do not own or have regular access to a car. If I ever need to drive somewhere, I am going to have to scrounge up a car from a friend, roommate, or rental agency. Therefore, a person who lives in NYC who does not own a car but takes a taxi or subway to work every single day is car-free. A car free person orders a pizza and the delivery person shows up in a car - he/she is still car-free. A car-less person who catches a ride in their roommates car every single day is still car-free. Maybe a hypocrite if they brag about being car-free, but they ARE car-free.

Roody

At one time we had stipulated a working definition of carfree and carlight. This reduced these exasperating semantic arguments.

IIRC, carfree meant that there was no car at all in the household, and no regular use of a borrowed or rented car.

Carlight referred to cases where somebody else in your house owned a car, but you did not regularly use it. Also, a person who owns a car but rarely uses it.

A car was defined as an automobile or light truck for personal use--not a vehicle used commercially.

i hope this is helpful.

charbucks

But... I love semantic arguments! If it's exasperating to you, feel free to refrain

By your definition, I'm car light. There is a truck in my household, belonging to my boyfriend. I can't drive the thing - I've never driven anything bigger than my Mum's Subaru Forester. When he goes away on business trips, it's as if it's not there. If I had an emergency situation where I absolutely needed a car, I would rent one, not take his truck.

For that matter, he's car light - he doesn't drive to work, or for groceries, or most other regular errands. Like Joey, I consider myself car free despite the presence of a car in my parking garage.

Also... I tick most of ILTB's little boxes. 20-something, urban, childless. Not single though . I also recognize that most people not in my situation do need a car. The people who confuse me are the ones who are in a very similar situation who believe they need one car per person.

Roody

Me too...if the participants know that's what they're having. But it's frustrating when people go around in circles needlessly, rather than agree on a definition.

JoeyBike

The definition of Car-Free is simple: My name is not on an auto title and I have to gain special permission to obtain auto driving privileges.

The definition of Car-Light: My name is on an auto title and/or I have relatively easy access to a motor vehicle (that I sometimes use) and a set of my own ignition keys.

Otherwise, almost no one in the USofA with an active credit card is actually Car-Free. I could call Enterprise Rental Agency and have a car delivered to me within a hour (weekdays), which would be WAY easier than trying to obtain my wife's car for a day. Because I have easy access to a hired car I somehow become Car-Light? Not to mention taxi cab service? That's just silly.

So I reject the forum definition of Car-Free as detailed in post #164, however, I will try to abide by that consensus when visiting the forum.

Smallwheels

Two dollars per mile is expensive when it comes to car ownership of a small car. It should be under sixty cents per mile to operate one. That includes all expenses.

Newspaperguy

The problem with your car-free definition comes when two people are married or living together and one of them has a vehicle in his or her name. If one routinely gets a ride from the other, or if one is able to use the car, the dynamic is not the same as a single person who does not own a car.

As for the car-light definition, it has always been difficult to come to a consensus on what this entails. The strictest definition I have seen is a person who does not own a vehicle but will rent one on rare occasions. The most relaxed definition seems to be a person who drives but also uses other forms of transportation to get around. And there are all sorts of other ways of determining what makes one car-light. Some average 200 kilometres a month of driving and call themselves car-light. Others average 1,000 kilometres of driving a month and also call themselves car-light.

The disagreements we have about the definition of car-light status will eventually raise the question as to whether car-light refers to a state of being with clear parameters or a move to less dependance on the automobile.

JoeyBike

Before I met my wife I was living in an efficiency apartment with a parking lot full of cars belonging to neighbors. If I needed a car, I rented one. After I got married I am living in a cottage with one car in the driveway belonging to my "housemate". If I need a car for personal use, I must rent one. My household might be considered car-light since there are two of us and only one car. But my wife uses her car for everything while I use her car for nothing*.

So my wife could hardly be considered car-light under any definition as she drives everywhere. Interesting how she and I automatically get stuck with the car-light label anyway.

*A few years ago my wife needed shoulder surgery. I drove her, in her car, to the hospital...waited for her to recover enough to go home...then drove her home in her car. So true, the dynamic is not exactly the same. It's the old Letter of the Law vs. Spirit of the Law argument.

From Post #164: A car is defined as an automobile or light truck for personal use--not a vehicle used commercially. Does this mean I could have a work truck in my driveway, drive it all day for work, and still be considered Car-light? Maybe even Car-Free? I am confused.

AsanaCycles

Got to read "One Less Car".
https://www.amazon.com/One-Less-Car-B.../dp/1592136133

Jared.

Who exactly? Most of the posters here seem to be pretty reasonable (in regards to being "hard liners" or completely devoid of any sense of understanding or acceptance).

For someone that demands such specificity in everyone else's posts, you seem to "paint a broad brush of disparagement" in yours.

Jared.

A lot of stuff changes when you get married, in your case it was going from car free to car light. An automobile is being used to accomplish tasks for the benefit of the household, which includes you. It doesn't cheapen your efforts/accomplishments in not using a personal vehicle.

Why also the emphasis on who has the title to the vehicle? I am the sole owner of the vehicle that my wife drives every day, I rarely use it. Name on the title is irrelevant.

Newspaperguy

I used to know a guy who drove a truck for work but did not drive at all for personal uses. His work driving was only work-related and he did not make any personal stops while driving for his job. He walked to work, drove for his shift and then walked home. To get around the city for himself, he either walked or took the transit. By definitions I have seen here, he would be considered car-free.

I should also mention he drove a tanker truck for a gasoline company.

Mobile 155

nCar free and car light has always been a subject for debate in this forum. But Roody's defination was more or less a consensus, maybe begrugingly by some to keep the debate down in so many threads.

But we have drifted away from what seemed to open the eyes of the OP and that was the cost suggested by Edmunds of the annual cost of a car. Edmunds is a massive car site and has thousands of listed forum members that all drive and while many will use the annual cost of car ownership in a debate few seem to agree with the numbers on anything but a new car. Something sites like Edmunds suggests happen every two or three year. But if you pay cash for the car and service it yourself you can cut that cost down considerably.

The eye opener seems to be based on cost verses income. To a person making 100k a year a car costing 30k doesn't seem all that bad. Thery still have 70k to spend on other things. And while they may waste, according to others, that 70k it is their to waste. While many of us will smile at the N+1 formula for bikes and many of us have a fleet of bikes we wonder how someone can have more than one car per person? It is the same as bicycle only on a grander scale. Even in the car forums, I used to post there for years, there is a debate between the "frugle" one car or economy car group and the N+1 car group. we are not that different here. We have a number that can't see why someone would need a "expensive" bike when they can get an old beater and ride it around. Economy car people can't see why someone would have a Porche SUV when a Chevy Aveo would get them from point A to point B. None of that is the point. The point is people will spend money on what they value. If that is a nice bike or several nice bikes if they can afford it that should be OK. If someone can afford a new car of two new cars, one for commuting and one for vacations and ski trips that should be fine as well. If they can't afford it then their financial problems fall on them and them alone.

In this forum many have decided not to work as many hours so they can have more time for their other preferences, that is a cost as well. Some have decided to pay more in rent than the cost of a house because they don't want the expense of driving a car. It is only where they have decided to spent their money rather than living outside of town. Who can say which idea is the best one?

ILTB's list may may have a point in that people living within some of his points are more likely to value car free living higher due to income, location and family status. Nothing wrong with that. There may also be exceptions to the listed observations. The problem comes when the ones that are within the list can't see how anyone outside the list will not see the solutions the same way as the car free do. (IMHO)The OP had his eyes opened at the expense of a car. Some others may have had them opened when they discovered the difference between renting or owning in a downtown area and in a Suburban Metro Area. But we all make decissions based on what we believe is beast for our own dreams and desires. It sould be clear than even in the car free forum one size does not fit all. In our society one size fitting all is even less likely.