my partner likes to eat in her car.
I like to camp in bear country.
we share but there are definitely assigned vehicles. Also cutely I bought hers for her and she bought mine for me and we both love that.
no she drives a small commuter vehicle and i'm in a van. So if she needs the van she'll take it but she has heard me warn her enough times that a bear will hike 30,000 miles to tear the door off my van for a taco bell wrapper that she doesn't eat in it. She mostly just uses her car.
This entire post will age poorly if we ever transition out of this incredibly self-indulgent and wasteful period of human civilization.
We should have walkable neighborhoods, mass transit of gleaming efficiency, bike lanes as priority, we should be encouraging socializing and creating spaces for people to gather that aren't profit-driven, but with plans to create comfort and recreation to better the people and foster a sense of belonging to a community. It's absurd we all live in places with lots of people but have no sense of belonging to a community. This goes against literally millions of years of our own evolutionary history. We NEED community to function and have healthy minds.
I mean, it's not likely to happen. But maybe when the next great apocalyptic event happens the survivors can try to remake things with a little more planning. After the whole period of darkness and cannibalism of course.
We should have walkable neighborhoods, mass transit of gleaming efficiency, bike lanes as priority, we should be encouraging socializing and creating spaces for people to gather that aren't profit-driven, but with plans to create comfort and recreation to better the people and foster a sense of belonging to a community.
Not everyone wants to be packed like sardines. That's the beauty of individualism. You might think this sounds like some sort of utopia, but to me this sounds like hell.
The suburban hellscape that is most residential coded zones is far, far more sardine-like than what I'm describing, which is an environment far more like many cities in Europe that evolved to be, and have been maintained as walkable cities. The reason you're repulsed by the idea of urban environments is specifically because you're used to American residential areas that are hard, brutal and packed next to busy highways and multi-lane avenues that are constantly packed with people trying to get to and from work, with huge parking lots that act like hot deserts in the sun, with sprawl and noise and pollution and no good reason to leave your sardine can because there's nowhere to get to within 30 minutes of walking except more sardine cans.
If a neighborhood is designed to be walkable, you will have condos and apartments and medium to high-density living spaces, sure, but you will have an entirely different aesthetic and atmosphere around it so it feels more welcoming, and encourages community.
If you're opposed to community entirely, that's your prerogative, there are still vast, vast tracts of land across the world you can live in and be left alone, and that's fine. My comment isn't addressing that lifestyle, because for MOST people, cities represent opportunity, safety and essential services. We can't look down at the vast bulk of humanity who want to live around other people just because you yourself are bothered by your own memories and experiences of city life.
Commendable. But many of us live where cars are the only practical way to get around. My wife and I both drive 30 minutes to get to work.
Roads are 55mph here, seldom any traffic, so it's more like 2 hours by bike. For us anyway.
My wife and I share the cars like this. Is it so weird? We usually select the best car for the job at hand.
What if it was a daily commute for both you and your wife? Would you play eeny miny moe with the cars every morning?
Good point. She commutes a few days per week, but I'm 100/% work from home. Can't say I miss commuting.
Yea, why is this such a surprise. Especially with kids or groceries. Different trips require different transportation needs.
Same. And the best car at hand is the EV one, 100pct of the time. Whoever goes out takes that car. In the off chance the second person need to go out at the same time, they take the older crappy car.
Wow what a couple of freaks. I bet they probably even sleep in the same bed. Who tf does stuff like that. This is the biggest scandal that has ever been posted on lemmy.
Yeah, but they almost certainly have their own "side" of the bed. What kind of monsters wouldn't?
I also want to hear about psychopaths that grab the nearest side and conk out. Or, hell, sleep crossways idk. This is some real chaotic neutral shit.
They're probably some generational rich that randomly choose a bedroom to sleep in at night or something
I love my wife, she can't drive for shit though, nor does she respect vehicle maintenence, much less asthetic care.
Nope.
Also, she's literally told me she'd be afraid to drive my car precisely because I keep it so nice and she doesn't want to be responsible for fucking it up.
I fell into this trap. We have a nice, fancy, efficient EV that's my daily driver, and a larger, less efficient gas vehicle that doubles as the family car/road trip machine that she dailies. We work roughly the same distance from our offices, but on days when she has to go across town on an errand, she takes the EV. It makes sense to save gas and whatnot.
Rims are fucked. I think she's rubbed them on every available curb in a 25 mile radius. She doesn't care. Fuck me for wanting a nice car I guess.
Likewise mine. I bought an electric car to replace her Honda to save the poor Jazz from her gear changing technique
We have two cars, but the electric gets used most by a long way as electrons are much less costly than diesel
It's not that we grab whichever car, just we're not in America and don't need to travel by car all the time and whoever chooses a car second gets the Subaru
This is one thing I love about having old but reliable cars. Our bigger family car that my wife drives is banged up in so many ways but I can just ignore it. As long as the mirrors work I don’t have to worry about how many scratches are on the housing, and as long as the tires hold air it’s easier to ignore the wheels that look like somebody was practicing their angle grinder technique.
And then with my little commuter car, even though I like to park far away and I don’t drive into shit, I still don’t have to worry about other people or keeping it looking clean, etc.
In general I find it liberating and good for the ol’ mental health to not obsess over superficial qualities of material possessions. So if I can make it easier to do that, it’s a win.
How else are you supposed to get to work? The bus takes 2 and a half hours and you will get there late and have to leave early. God I wish the bus was viable.
Where I live that's not even the problem any more, and not because it was fixed either. You have to leave early regardless to have time to get stuck in traffic, find the only parking spot is far away, then walk 10 min in the rain, then dry off for work.
For years we didn't have our own sides of the bed, but then one day we got a bed side table and that all came to an end.
My parents have "the new minivan" and "the old minivan," I guess that's what happens when you adopt four kids and two dogs.
We have two cars and they are both kinda mine. He bike commutes and way prefers it. I work two hours away though and have always driven more. So generally I take the van if I’m going to be at work for a few days, I’ve got it camperized, or the bmw if it’s a there and back, or other trips like that. Since I’m gone for a few days at a time he still needs a car for some errands, otherwise we’d just have the van. I do all the organizing for service work and cleaning, and general car stuff as well.
My car has a clutch. My wife can’t drive it. It’s exhausting when something goes wrong with her car.
I've yet to find anything in this world that is more zen or fun than driving a Miata on a winding country road with my dog in the passenger seat.
I have extremely high anxiety and can attest that it took a lot of time and effort to master a stick shift. It's definitely valid that your wife doesn't want to go through that struggle.
I forced myself. My first car was a 1992 Pontiac with a manual transmission. I didn’t even know how to drive it off the lot haha. I just wanted the damn thing.
Similar situation for me! I bought a Mazda6 and learned to drive it on the 30 min drive home. Had a buddy follow me to keep cars off my ass. It's definitely a skill I'm glad I learned, and I'm sad to see manual transmissions die off as EVs come into popularity. And honestly my daily driver is an EV now. But I still miss the precise level of control that comes with a manual, especially in Winter.
There are whole countries where virtually everybody has to learn manual, even anxious people.
They just don't have the crutch of automatic gearboxes to fall back on.
Throw her on a hill and she'll see that it's way easier than she expects to find the catch. I'm also pretty high strung, generally speaking, and when I couldn't get a hang of changing gears, the moment would devolve into sheer panic and make everything worse as I snubbed the engine with each attempt. And this was during parking lot practice with someone's old car that they were planning on junking anyways, so no need for that level of stress whatsoever.
But then I was taken to a little incline where I could clearly /feel it/ for the first time and after that, I just "got it".
Depends on the person. I had an ex I spent about 4 hours in a parking lot trying to teach and she never got the take off down. I think some people are incapable of driving a standard.
Not that I'm condoning this, but, take the keys to the other car away, and give them a headstart and I bet they'd figure it out precisely one commute's time away from their next shift at work.
I think part of the difficulty is people 'learning' to drive stick in a parking lot. That's good for 30 minutes, but you won't actually get a feel for it unless you properly drive around.
Honestly though, I think if someone is actually incapable of driving a manual transmission car, then they probably shouldn't have a license in the first place, it shows such a lack of fine motor control that it brings in to question their ability to manage other aspects of driving.
I just can't feel that point where the clutch engages/disengages so I keep stalling at take off or grinding the gears when shifting. Haven't tried again in a decade.
You're supposed to push the clutch fully to the floor when shifting. You should never grind gears unless you're about to money shift or something.
That could be the problem. I was told to shift when I felt the clutch take the power off the engine, and then give it a little gas when I feel the gears remesh. It was also on a 30 year old Peterbilt 5/10 speed hi/lo truck with everything worn out, so probably not the best thing to learn on
Learning on a transmission with >6 speeds is hard mode, they do take a little more thinking with the gear pattern than in a car. Synchro versions are not that hard if you're used to a regular manual but adding another thing to learn is not ideal when starting out. If it was a non-synchro variant then good luck getting someone to pick that up without a few solid hours of learning time.
If you were being taught by someone used to heavy trucks it makes sense why they didn't tell you to push the pedal right in - on many (all?) non synchro transmissions pushing the clutch all the way in brakes the input shaft and if you're moving you then have to resynchronise it with the gear speed in order to get into gear.
Note you don't actually have to push the clutch in all the way in a car either, all that really matters is getting it past the point where the clutch is fully disengaged. After all the clutch plate is either touching the flywheel to some degree or it's not touching, once it stops making contact pushing it further away doesn't make a difference. When first starting out though it's easier to just push the pedal all the way in - save thinking about finer details until you're comfortable with the basics.
Yeah no, you're better off learning on a car. And just know that what you will do at the beginning is different from what experienced drivers do, as they'll have developed a "feeling" for the car that you don't have yet, so just do it by the book.
My dad worked nights and Mom was a SAHM who also did some freelance stuff from home. They basically had a first come/first served system, and honestly didn't have many conflicts so the second car (usually the one they've had longer) was rarely used. That was perfect when I started driving in high school, because I could usually use that car (even if it was a few years older than I was)
My brother talked them into buying a used Mitsubishi Eclipse back when it was still kinda cool (an '03 model purchased in 2007?). Mom ended up really liking that car and it's not really practical for the handyman stuff my dad does in his retirement, so now they have assigned cars.
Lol, my wife and I happily drive whichever car, unless there's a specific reason we need to take a specific car. Equally we definitely have cars we think of as "ours"
We share a single car between family members. And we do not live in the same household or even the same cities / towns.
My wife and I have only vaguely assigned vehicles. There's whatever she wants to drive and what I normally drive to work.
I drive my partners car and my partner drives my partners car because my car is a PoS 2000 Ford Sudan with a frame bent to shit LOL
She definitely has her car and I have mine. Mine’s over a decade old with over 100k miles, and hers is a year old. I think her car is really neat, but there’s a lot I don’t like about it. Too much tech, too many weird quirks in the systems, and it’s a little compact for my height. I’m glad she likes her car, but we definitely have assigned cars.
ok one or both partners hate cars. Neither can survive without a car if the other one doesn't have a car. That is a colossal failure, but we'll move on.