Comments on: Losing my Religion (of Car Worship)

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 02:32:44 +0000

I realized earlier this week that my 35-year love affair with cars is over while talking to my insurer about rates for my son when he gets his license. I’m very close to deciding to give up my car when he starts driving regularly to school and other places. I’m just tired of all of the expense and work to maintain all of the vehicles to the point that I can’t stand the thought of adding another to the fleet. Besides, I enjoy my bike more than my car.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:11:43 +0000

I wonder if car-love is less problematic for women. I’ve owned several cars and they were more or less what I considered a necessary expense that sucked money away from things or activities I found more desirable – like a house, nice shoes, marathon entry fees and original art. When it comes to car ownership (we are car-lite), my only interest in fuel efficency, price and reliability. I am the Mr. Spock of potential car buyers and car sales people have not power over me in the least. The less I have to spend on the owning and operating a car is all I care about. I’ll also admit that before I started dating my husband, I was very anxious that he not turn out to be the owner of a flashy or unnecessarily large truck or SUV. I was relieved to find he drove an old Jeep Cherokee (and even more relieved that it didn’t contain either a child seat or floor boards filled with cheese-fish crackers), which seemed a logical vehicle for a recent Colorado ski-town transplant.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 04:59:12 +0000

I was 15.75 years old. Through ridiculously hard word in restaurants and backyards, I had saved enough to buy a used car. I was giddy with anticipation. Then, my dad’s friend Ken said “the last time I felt rich was before I owned a car.” That took the wind out of my sails. He was right — I did feel rich and it was the last time!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 01:53:53 +0000

I’m losing it very slowly over the years. My longing for a hot car died in high school, opting instead for practicality. I’ve owned mostly vans and station wagons over the years. Most of them were old when I got them and cost a lot to keep them running. Right now I’m in Asia and drive my 1992 Honda Accord to haul the family to church every Sunday morning. Other than that it stays parked 99.9% of the time. I either ride my bike or scooter for everything else. When we return to the USA I imagine we’ll need a car, mostly for the wife and my last at-home teenager. But I’ll still be on my bike and scooter.

By: Ted Johnson

Ted Johnson — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 17:42:44 +0000

Seriously. I came across this photo recently, which is what spurred me to think about my evolution from a car worshipper to a critic of car-centric societies.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:42:52 +0000

Seriously you are that kid in the picture?

By: squeakycyclist

squeakycyclist — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 04:59:51 +0000

Speaking of buried cars. I was going to link you to my scan of an old newspaper article about a buried Ferrari, but I found an online article!

http://jalopnik.com/5872514/the-true-story-of-how-a-ferrari-ended-up-buried-in-someones-yard

I WISH I could afford the car to which my identity aspires. And motorcycle. And bike.

By: Ted Johnson

Ted Johnson — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:47:11 +0000

Ray: I’m “car denying.” My wife owns a car. It’s in her name.

Now that I think of it, my truck was a Nissan but it was when they still put “Datsun” on the lower left side of the tailgates so people would know that Nissan was the new name for Datsun. I never had trouble with that truck, but I never tested its MPG that I can remember.

By: Jeff Gardner

Jeff Gardner — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:26:55 +0000

The traits of car worship seem less of religion and more of the actions of a drug addict. Even now I remain amazed at at the car-at-any-cost choices made by most people for all parts of the spector: vehicle; fuel; maintenance; casual acceptance of loss of liberty through voluntary licensure.

All for the transport non-event between point A and the trip’s real objective, point B. Most of which, stats once showed, are 8 miles or less away — perfect bicycle distances. Yet so many folks, without much of a second thought, will give a large percentage of the year’s earnings to make such modest excursions.

Sounds more like crack to me than it does communion.

By: Ted Johnson

Ted Johnson — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 23:08:33 +0000

I didn’t mean to say that I didn’t like cars.

I’ve just changed so that my identity no longer needs one. I figured others would have the same experience.

Suppose that I was raised Hindu, but then lost faith. I could still appreciate Hindu art, and understand the relevance to my culture, couldn’t I?

BTW: Hindus have their own form of car worship, called Car Puja:
http://hinduism.about.com/od/prayersmantras/ss/carpuja.htm