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09/28/2004 Archived Entry: "Contemplating carlessness"

I LOVE THE FREEDOM OF HAVING A TRUCK or car. Being able to just pick up and GO at will is so American, so me -- and so necessary, these days with everything so spread out. Yet every few years I also contemplate the possible joys of living vehicleless:

• Saving thousands of dollars in truck repairs
  
• Never having to worry about the day I have to buy a new vehicle -- and can't afford to
  
• Being able to forego the damned government license without fear
  
• Not bearing either the cost or the gross privacy violations of auto insurance
  
• No $100-per-month expenses for gasoline
  
• No stupid (and again, privacy violating) vehicle registration
  
• No "black-box" spy devices, ever
  
• No speed cameras or red-light cams
  
• No gummint vehicle inspections
  
• No checkpoints
  
• Not supporting anybody's wars for oil
  

Right now, with the truck in the shop for the fourth day in the last week, I'm back to such pleasant contemplations. Well, they're pleasant for about 10 minutes, when reality sets in. I'm sure a body can live without a vehicle in an urban area, but for country life, I don't know how anyone does it.

I can walk to the nearby small town for almost everything I need in daily life. That's the good part. It's a tough walk; but doable. Library. Post office. Grocery store. All the necessities of life.

But those monthly stock-up trips to Costco that take three hours by truck take all day by what passes for "alternative transport" around here. And I just picture myself carrying three 40-pound bags of dogfood, a giant tub of kitty litter, and several cases of bulk foods onto a bus! Bumming rides in exchange for gas money is a possibility of course, but my independent, hermity nature rebels against seeking favors (or for that matter, spending hours in some chatty local's vehicle, listening to tales of their painful pancreas or errant offspring).

And what about emergency trips to the vet? Leave my doggies without transport? Oh no!

And speaking of doggies and me and long-distance transport, there'd be no desert sojourn without a good, sturdy, weather-proof, long-range vehicle, either.

When I get in these moods where I simply can't face re-registering, re-upping that costly (government-ordered) and invasive insurance, and otherwise putting myself at the service of government in the cause of transportation freedom, I look around at other options:

Transport trikes

Cargo bikes

Bike trailers

Rhoades Cars
(Love their product; hate their insistance on snoopy info before giving prices.)

Segways

But every time my thoughts drift off in those directions, I try to picture myself transporting a sick dog to the vet in a driving rainstorm. That costly, government-intrusive truck looks appealing again.

I wouldn't mind everything else, even the occasional chock-a-ta-pocketa transmission noise, if only so much &^%$#@!ing government would just not come with the package.

Posted by Claire @ 09:13 AM CST
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