Fuck Cars

One of my neighbors bought a new car recently. And by new I mean brand spanking new. The thing is an absolute tank, it weighs almost 2.6 tons, fucking giant ass wheels, wide and high SUV kind of thing from BMW. It's the M3 variant as well, so that means they paid double for no reason because BMW. This thing is a gas guzzler and imho way too expensive to buy and own.

The thing is, these are a couple of boomers who don't work and never go anywhere. They are oldish and can't drive or park very well. They always had issues parking their car and people in the street kept two parking spaces free for them so they could just aim for the middle and still be sort of in the space. With the new car, it's much worse.

He can't walk very well and the new car is too large for him to easily get into. He can't drive it, since it's too big. So she's the one who drives it, but since it's so big and heavy and it's all automated and stuff she's afraid of it and hardly ever drives it. Now this isn't a self driving car or anything like that, I don't think it has any automatic features at all except for the transmission. Hell if it could park itself that would actually be useful. She's talking about the combined accelerator and brake pedal. Which I was caught out on the first time I drove a car with one of those, but you get the hang of it within no time.

It's a hybrid, since they usually do short trips, for example down to the shops and back (about 500m away, I usually walk or use my bicycle). They were told hybrids are ideal since for short slow trips in town it can drive all electric which saves on gas. It's a plug in, so that's easy right and they even have solar panels. The thing is, they don't have a private drive like most houses here have, they always park on the street. So they have no way of plugging it in. I asked about it and they said it's not a problem. She just goes on a drive every now and again, give it the boot on the freeway and the car charges the battery. I just about fell over at how dumb of a statement this was. I pointed out at that point it's less efficient than just driving to the shop on gas and the electricity from the gas is so much more expensive than from the solar panels. They didn't understand.

However the real kicker is, they kept their old car. A shitty 10 year old made in Korea SUV (nothing wrong with that, I drive a 10 year old car as well). He uses it almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day to pop down to the shops. He's the one who usually does that and he can't drive the new car, so he uses the old car. I think it's his way of dealing with the fact he can't walk very well, so he does these little shopping trips, often coming back with one thing and then going again later in the day for another thing. And yes they now take up 3-4 parking spaces and see nothing wrong with this, as boomers are the most selfish people alive and are physically incapable of seeing things from any other point of view.

I think these old boomers were somehow talked into getting a 100K car which they can't really use, doesn't suit them at all and is left to just sit there. It's probably the same for many people who buy these gas guzzlers. They get talked into it because the car is shiny and flashy and has all the features. They can't think that far ahead. And realistically if you can afford to buy a brand new car, you probably have no issue paying for the gas.