Just need to vent...

• Well, I'll just say that I don't want to end up like the 13-year-old girl on her bike a few blocks from here, killed by a pickup.
• Or the young neighbor lady crossing the 35-mph highway that's goes through town very close to here, killed by an SUV that was turning left onto the highway.
• Or the neighbor who was in a nearby pizza place parking lot, who got his legs messed up when ran over by an SUV.
• Or the guy on the bike going down the highway, killed by the young driver who turned right and drove right over him in his pickup.
• Or my buddy I used to work with, who got killed on his bike by a friend of his who didn't see him from in his pickup on a 15-mph street in the next town from here.
• Or the couple who we met in the hospital after being hit by a Jeep down on Main Street as they were crossing to go to a restaurant.
• Or the teenage girl a few blocks south of here who got hit crossing the street and has suffered brain damage ever since.

And those are just the ones I can think of that happened near here.

Will wearing bright colors and having lots of lights be enough to walk and bike around a place like this, a small town with 25 mph streets? Since COVID I've had three people hit my car here in town, and I was stopped those three times for valid reasons, like waiting at a red stoplight. If I had been on a bike I would have been a goner.

 

Obviously.
Just remember, If you're not having fun, then you're not doing it right.
I have to drive more or less for a living - since travel to and from my job sites consumes a majority of my time....and you know what?

I still LOVE to drive.
I still go on drives JUST to drive, and maybe take in a sunrise on the beach - or see a park I haven't been to before.
Yes...I have to share the roads with my fellow humans, but part of the fun for me is the challenge of keeping them from swapping paint with me.
Most people are not quite as good at driving as they think that they are - and I include myself in this analysis since age is taking a toll on things like vision and reflexes.
Probably mental agility as well if I'm being completely honest.
I'm probably drifting towards the left of the sample group - but I still LOVE the ABILITY to decide....FOR MYSELF.....the ability to drive myself hundreds of miles in a day if I want to.
Or?
No miles at all.

Diving private passenger cars is like a democratic republic.
It's the worst way to do things excepting for all of the ways that have been tried before it.

 

What can I do to make it more fun? I do miss driving a manual. But I don't see that happening ever again because I'm not trading my Avalon hybrid in for a Nissan Versa unless my Avalon were totaled.

I also want to go for bike rides, but don't feel that it's safe anymore, regardless of how much fluorescent neon clothing and lights. I guess I could drive my bike out to a bike path. But I kind of would like to be able to just ride my bike to work, but even my wife says that would be to dangerous.

Cars are just tools to get us from point A to point B. I guess I'm happy I can do that. Driving isn't the worst thing in the world. I just don't like all the downsides and feeling like there is no alternative unless I moved to some other country.

I'm overweight and need to walk and get exercise. Biking and walking down the street don't feel like options anymore because people are too crazy.

I'd like to get to know my neighbors better and be a better neighbor. Bus rides are kind of nice in that regard. But I still have to walk a greater distance to get to the closest bus stop than the farthest distance the town bus can take me here in town.

When traveling long distances. I'd like to be able to do something other than stare at the road in front of me, like reading or playing a card game.

 

Sometimes you're either on an interstate or you're bound by work rules not to travel 'out of route.'
In these cases I use audiobooks, podcast aggregators or YouToob in 'audio only mode' - which does require a $15 subscription to be able to 'load and go' and turn off the screen......unless you want to be one of the sociopaths that drive around watching their phones or modified infotainment systems.
Libraries have scads of audiobooks.
You can buy a $50 burner phone with 1TB storage and load days worth of podcasts to listen to.
If you're not bound to a route?
Get off the interstate and drive on a US highway.....or even a county road.

In Colorado, you're already on third base when it comes to beautiful scenery......

 

Thank you.

TBH, driving isn't the end of the world. I must admit sometimes I kind of enjoy it. But overall, no amount of audiobooks or podcasts are going to change my opinion of the car-centric world we live in nor how I'm basically forced to participate in it.

Thanks for the ideas. All I really needed was to just vent my frustrations. I'll be fine.

I have to drive to Colorado Springs and then to Denver and Aurora later this week. I tried figuring out if I could do it by bus. But seeing how bus services are segmented (Bustang, Greyhound, RTA, etc.) it's a bit too complicated to figure out how to make it work. Plus, I'm still unsure if I can even reach the places I need to go by bus even if I could line up bus schedules, so I'll just take my car again. I'll try to get my wife to cooperate and put something on the radio as we drive. Mambo usually cheers me up. I'd like to listen to some amateur radio podcasts but I know that's not going to fly. Maybe we could also make some time for seeing something interesting so it isn't just about going to appointments.

Thanks for listening to me and wish me luck on my 12 hours or more of driving in my Toyota Avalon that's so short I can get rear-ended in twice in one day.

 

I listen to Tom & Ray and their vintage broadcasts of Car Talk on long drives. Wife and kids strongly disapprove so only when I drive solo.

For some reason, cannot post link. Just search for: NPR podcast car talk

 

I would avoid Denver until Thursday....I'm in Monument (south of Denver) and we are predicted to get around 7-inches of snow starting tomorrow night. Denver is expected to get around 5-inches...won't be fun up there!!

This is why I have a 4x4 Tundra.

 

No offense, but 4x4 pickups are for sissies. Or, they're for people who figure it's worth the extra cost to not have to put on tire chains like me.

Maybe I'll throw on the studded snow tires this afternoon or tomorrow morning. That's why I keep them an a separate set of rims so they're easy to just swap over.

Another thing I miss: small, lightweight cars with excessive weight distribution over the drive wheels. IIRC, our 1985 Golf had a weight distribution of around 70/30. At that rate you'd only get 30% more drive traction if it had AWD. That's one of the downsides of so many vehicles trying to hit that 50/50 weight distribution, they're less likely to oversteer or understeer but they don't do as well in the snow. The rear-engine VW Beetle we owned also had lots of weight bias over the drive wheels. Not only did those types of cars do well in the snow, they were also light enough that you could push them out of a snowbank by hand if need be.

But today's solution is: buy a gargantuan AWD or 4WD pickup or SUV. And if you get stuck in one of those your only choice is to call a tow truck. Safer? Maybe. But if we have to rely on so many services in order to have to freedom to drive anywhere, are we really free?

 

Actually encountered in a certain state's tax code:

"(3) is or will be at least sixty-five (65) years of age on or before December 31 of the calendar year immediately preceding the current calendar year;"​

... somebody explain to me how "or will be" is necessary there ...

 

I'd much rather just turn a knob to 4-Wheel High than to be lying out in the snow putting snow chains on a vehicle!!

I do keep a heavy duty tow strap to pull out vehicles like yours out of the ditch or snow bank!!!

 

I'm trying to remember if I ever actually needed someone to pull me out from being stuck in the snow somewhere, but I can't think of any instances. A couple of times I did get some help to push the car out of some deep snow though. One time I did have all the passengers stand in the back of the bus and jump in unison so I could get enough traction to get going from a bus stop with a couple feet of snow in and with automatic chains that weren't working.

I have pulled a couple of cars out of being stuck in the snow with my 2WD cars, but, of course, with tire chains on.

My parents, grandparents and myself all have lived in the Colorado mountains all our lives and none of us have ever owned an AWD or 4WD vehicle. Don't get me wrong, AWD and 4WD are better in the snow, objectively speaking. But, IMO, 2WD can go anywhere AWD or 4WD can as far as public roads are concerned. The only difference is it takes more effort with 2WD.

I suppose if I ever have the money to afford a 4WD or AWD vehicle I might do that someday. But with the way the economy is, I don't think that will ever happen. So it's 2WD for me, which works.

 

When I drove for the county there was only one of the big snow plows that drove all 6 axles, All of the tandems and single axles only turned the rear wheels. It's kind of ironic when the snow plow that pushes the snow off the road is only RWD, which is especially the case for the single axle truckes.

When I drove the pickup snowplows on the smaller routes I would try to stay in RWD. If I started spinning tires I knew that I needed to put sand-salt down on that patch of road.

 

The snowiest place I've ever lived was Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska....1990-1995. They get so much moisture up from the North Pacific that they have to use huge snow blowers to blow snow from the snow banks into trucks to be hauled away.

Our last winter, 1995, was the worst. The snow banks on my driveway were so high (easily over 9-feet high) that I had to walk each shovel of snow out to the road.

That's the only place I've lived where I had studded snow tires on all four wheels....had to in order to make it up a hill to get into work. (Mission Essential folks have no "snow days" off!)

 

Yeah, going from 2,000 ft altitude to 4500 ft altitude then having to put chains on, then take chains off & on & off again gets real old real fast. Even though it feels really nice to get back in the cab & warm your frozen numb fingers up.

.

 

True. Although in my case, not having a car payment and not having a car that gets poor fuel mileage also feel really nice.

When the wheels fall off of my Avalon I'll consider an AWD. But until then I'm not spending $5,000 or better to trade in my reliable Avalon for an AWD vehicle just so I can get out less often to put chains on.

 

The Avalon is my favorite Toyota sedan of all time....sad they actually thought they could replace it with the Crown....nope!

When I was dating my future wife, in the late 70's, her family had the first Toyota I'd ever seen (we were a Ford and Chevy family). This was in Maine. It was a late-70's light-blue Cressida that ran like a clock and even had some pep from it's in-line 6-cylinder. Anyway, we were stationed the Philippines and then in Texas and we went home and Mom had given that Cressida to her daughter and had a new, white Avalon and I fell in love with it...always looked for excuses to borrow it! We have a railroad crossing there and the Avalon would glide across that and make zero noises and you could barely feel it with the suspension. Quite a few years later, we went home to Maine and the white Avalon was given to another daughter and the blue Cressida, going on 300,000 miles, was driven by a granddaughter but the salty roads in Maine had turned it into a rust bucket....so sad! I've always said only two things will kill a Toyota that's been maintained.....car accidents and rust....else they'll just run and run.

Oh the newer Avalon is, still, being driving by my sister-in-law....I believe it was a 2002 but purrs like a kitten....GREAT cars! (Also getting rusty.)