10 miles into the 600-mile drive to visit my sister for Christmas, my car's transmission* went belly up. Fortunately we had a plan B and were still able to celebrate the holidays with family, but the spectre of having to pay for a new transmission loomed. Having to buy a whole new car would have been terrifying indeed.
Cars are prohibitively expensive. It's stupid how much we've forced ourselves to depend on them.
https://www.newsweek.com/americans-can-no-longer-afford-their-cars-1859929
@DrTCombs my radicalization resulted directly from a blown engine in my car in 1999
@bikepedantic I can relate. Mine began when my car was totaled by a runaway canoe in 2001.
@DrTCombs I want to hear more about that "runaway canoe"
@CathyTuttle I wish I still had pictures!
I was working at #DavidsonCollege at the time. I was away on a work trip, and left my car at the downhill end of a giant parking lot at work. On the uphill end was a trailer full of canoes, insufficiently chocked. . My car was one of the only cars in the entire lot, and it was directly downhill of the canoe trailer, so when a wind picked up and blew the trailer off its chocks, it headed straight for my car with a big head of steam...
@CathyTuttle It wasn't a very big check though, so it took me a while to find a replacement. In the meantime, I looked at the bike I'd been using for years for recreation and exercise and a light bulb went off.
@hydropsyche
I lived across campus in staff housing, so it was kind of absurd that I drove at all!
@CathyTuttle
@DrTCombs @CathyTuttle Assuming you lived in town, Davidson is actually a pretty okay place to be a bike commuter. If you were coming from Mooresville or Huntersville, I am so sorry.