Man complains about the government forcing him to buy a new car so he and his wife can continue to do their 1km school run.
Man complains about the government forcing him to buy a new car so he and his wife can continue to do their 1km school run.
And I thought Americans were carbrained, holy shit.
(To be fair, he's not wrong in that this is intended to keep the auto companies and the government nice and fat -- but the obvious response to this is to agitate for better public transit, not railing against an environmentally sound policy.)
ITT: Some people want OOP's wife and kid to walk to school on what's essentially a highway. Others seem to realize that there might be a reason why OOP's wife needs the car, and given that OOP's done 65000 km in 15 years, he's not exactly doing a whole lot of driving with it.
There's also suggestions of using public transport, but if that even exists for their route, OOP's wife can't exactly just go walk on a bus, she could get gang raped, because this is Delhi.
We're not talking about a big SUV either. It's a tiny little hatchback, the most city-friendly car possible:
The situation sucks for everyone involved. Whereas in the west we're used to it being just a transit availability issue, in parts of the world there's also the safety issue. Yes, the famous gang-rape-set-on-fire-murder case was 13 years ago, but that doesn't mean Delhi is magically safe now. It's still a huge issue.
The has got to be an alternate route that is nicer than that, that's wild.
But I get that sone areas are incredibly car centric and leave you little choice.
The has got to be an alternate route that is nicer than that, that’s wild.
Well they could also be lying or exaggerating to make a point, but we don't really know.
But I get that sone areas are incredibly car centric and leave you little choice.
That's what I witnessed when I visited the US, though I went on the east coast so not as car centric as the rest of the country. Haven't been to India, so I'm not sure how bad it is there for real.
My own country isn't exactly the paragon of public transit, but it's good enough that you've got literal carbrains going "eh I could just take the bus to work and have a fun project car instead of a boring daily commuter". Walking is an option pretty much everywhere too, even the large stroads leading in and out of cities (essentially the highway continuing into the city, really), have sidewalks and pedestrian crossings. If I need to go 1 KM in any direction here, I walk
Don't complain about 1km school runs until you have tried to do it on foot - in Delhi. Using a car might be the only halfway safe method in that area.
Isn't it true that once a car is built, it's basically better for the environment to drive it until its wheels fall off instead of scrapping it to buy any new one (even electric) though ? He's right that a lot of the time these schemes are thinly veiled auto industry handouts to stimulate the economy, instead of actual environmental regulations.
for one this severely depends on when it was built, old cars basically just convert 90% of the fuel into air pollution and spew it straight out the exhaust pipe, while modern cars actually use the fuel to go forward and provided the catalytic converter is in good shape they filter out some of the nastiness.
Isn't it true that once a car is built, it's basically better for the environment to drive it until its wheels fall off instead of scrapping it
In terms of global warming; maybe. It depends on many factors when looking at a specific case. Another commenter already put some numbers together.
The environment, however, in this case is Dehli, a city with terrible air quality. Removing an active source of CO2, NOx, heavy metals, etc is good for that environment. Especially human lungs.
If the government provides safe and comfortable public transit instead.
Except that i10, even an old one, is not a big source of CO2 or NOx
Policies like these are almost never about overall environmental health. It's to address acute problems. Delhi has a lot of smog that causes health problems. That is the specific problem they're addressing
Every 35000 km or 21000 miles a gasoline car going on average 20km/l or 47mpg why H have produced the same amount of CO2 that it takes to make an electric car.
So if over the lifetime of the car you go less than 35000km you shouldn't be changing it with an electric. Otherwise please do 😁
The break even on carbon emissions from manufacture vs. daily use is somewhere between around 3 and 10 years. Big trucks on the low end.
The environmental break even period for EVs is getting shorter and shorter as the power grids get cleaner and cleaner.
It was a somewhat solid argument against buying new EVs to replace working ICE cars over 10 years ago, but now it's really not.
better for the environment
Yes.
Better for your nerves? No.
Also you have to keep your vehicle in a state where it can drive safely, which leads to maintenance costs that rise over time. But safe for your environment as in the people around you, whether you reach your destination alive is of less importance.
I'd be mad if the government forced me to get rid of my working car too. I think a better option would be to do something like not allow new gas cars to be manufactured or registered to people. Like stop issuing license plates for gas cars rather than forcing everyone to get rid of them.
Sounds like how the EU is usually doing this. Limit the companies, not the people directly.
Mmm but companies super don't like the govt touching their money printing machines and they are full of scary lawyers. Individuals on the other hand don't have time, money, lawyers or knowledge to fight back.
Sadly 1km is not the dumbest distant i have seen
Back when I walked my kids to school a parent who shared a fence with the school would drive them around a piece of grass the the front of the school and drop them of. The path through the grass was along side their side garden wall and shorter than the road they drove.
Of course it was a huge 4x4 to boot
I used to walk 500m round trip to nearby restaurant for lunch, everyone i met will comment on how far that is. Of course, i take it to heart and now drive my 4x4 there.
Nah just kidding, i now ride a bike, often 3.5km round trip for lunch.
Alright, so I'm not a regular here, I'm a Gearhead who lives in an Unfortunately car centric area. I like cars, I think they're neat, I HATE that we need them to commute.
I don't understand why cars are being banned after an arbitrary time limit. 15 years for petrol? Until year I drove a 30 year old petrol Toyota which pulled almost 50MPG on the highway, could have done better with some simple mods but I live in the mountains and needed the power for uphill.
I understand the desire to keep older more polluting vehicles off the road but arbitrarily declaring vehicles EOL because of their age is ridiculous.
Am I missing the point here? I'd appreciate some input because this feels like a bad move all around.
The government's purported logic is that emissions standards from 15 years ago were lax and are much tighter now and therefore vehicles of that age are contributing to pollution. On the face of it that makes sense; Delhi's AQI is one of the worst in the world, and emissions standards here were pretty meh until the 2010s.
In reality it's because the auto industry wants you to buy new cars. That's it. If the government was actually focused on limiting pollution they'd be investing heavily in efficient public transit and walking/biking infrastructure and enforcing things like a congestion tax to push people towards said options, but they're just offloading it on to regular people so they can make a fuckton of money without having to spend any.
all car bans should come with free bikes and public transport
1km 🤡
On the streets of New Delhi this will probably take just as long as walking. Need the AC though.
Longer. It takes about 12 minutes to walk 1km. A car in Delhi traffic will take about 20 minutes to cover that during the morning rush hour
Yeah it’s the heat, pollution, and safety (not sure about sidewalks there though) rather than distance. I used to live in a tropical country and walked just a little over 1km to work. I had to wear a running shirt and change into my actual shirt when I arrived at the office because I’ll be drenched in sweat. I also had to wear a mask because of the pollution.
It may not be carbrain so much as shitty car-centric infrastructure.
Certainly seems so. From the picture the OOP posted, it doesn't look like there's paved walkways
Honestly if he's done 65000 km in 15 years it may well be that he only uses it to drive routes where you literally can't walk, like this one.
This dude is the one living in a fool's paradise with infrastructure like that, and I say that as someone living in a fool's paradise with infrastructure only a little better than that.
What's this about? Government-mandated to reduce emissions? Switching to electric, or just "better" ICE cars?
AFAIK pollution is a serious problem in India's cities - but people like this guy are going to defend their "personal freedoms" (cleverly masked as economical concern) tooth and nail.
edit: I stand corrected. This is someone being upset about bad policy. Still, the "wife" and "1km", both suggesting this is a secondary vehicle, triggers me. Standard upper middleclass griping.
Government-mandated to reduce emissions?
On the surface, yes. In reality they're just offloading environmental responsibility on to citizens (and making them buy "better" ICE cars so the auto industry gets the profits) instead of improving and expanding public transit to make it easier to get around without a car.
Whoa! Cool it.
The mandate isn't from "government". Apparently, the government failed to do much about pollution, so a regulatory body was set up by the courts, which body did some good things (ban diesels) but also some hamhanded things like judge only based on technology age rather than the odometer. Throwing away a ton of steel and manufacturing that has had minimal utilization isn't going to help any.
You should've dissed the people who made scrapping the dedicated bus lane an election issue some years ago. I guess that never made it to the newspapers, and hence wasn't discussed online either.
But forcing someone to replace a working vehicle? What is the environmental impact of manufacturing a new car and disposing of the old one? At what point does that actually outweigh the impact of emissions from a slightly older car, if ever?
Bro your title is misleading.
Indian man upset that the government is forcing him to buy a new car
Your title makes the man sound like he's complaining about his wife
That's a fair point actually. I'll change it
Don’t forget to buy F1 tickets.
Haven't there been multiple cases of women getting gang raped on indian public transport?
Okay, that's horrible, but in a country with around 1.5 billion people things can be both incredibly rare and happen every week.
Public transit is not necessary for a 1km distance.
He also posted a photo of the road. It's 2 lanes of chaotic traffic in each direction, no sidewalk. You can't walk there, you'll get hit by something sooner or later. It supposedly also gets up to 44C (of course on an asphalt road the air temp might be higher than that). I choose to believe that because apparently the temperature record in New Delhi is over 50C.
I mean, I'm pretty sure I've heard of recent cases where women have been gang raped just walking down the street as well, but my comment was more referring to ops comment that they should be agitating for better public transport. I agree with the sentiment, but there might be a safety factor pushing the lady to drive. That's possibly true for walking too. Walking may also not be feasible due to lack of walking infrastructure or mobility issues. My mother in law probably couldn't walk a kilometre, she's not obese and is mostly mobile, but she's just had multiple knee replacements and walking that distance isn't possible.
It’s Delhi though. Not many sidewalks and it’s boiling hot outside.
Delhi (and the broader NCR) is generally unsafe for women. I have heard from female friends that they don't even look at job offers from NCR for this reason.
well, it is car traffic in India, maybe in Dheli. can get quite crazy so I am not sure you are expecting them to walk there? but to be fair, not clear from the article.
I am indeed expecting them to walk. People (me included) walk longer distances in Indian traffic in far worse conditions, a kilometer is quite literally child's play
We know way too little about this situation to be judging this family so harshly. What if the child is disabled and has mobility issues? What if the walk is on a busy road with no sidewalks? What if the path is up and down a very steep hill? Maybe they can be walking this every day, but maybe not…if you wanna complain about the culture being car-centric, fine, but there’s not enough info to blame the family.
I walked (or cycled or took the bus in the winter) to school when I was a kid, but this is not a safe environment, why do we want kids to walk here:
It's prob necessary to do something, even new ICE vehicles & new fuels are not the cleanest in India, but old ones prob really need to go, especially in a country with such pollution problems.
How to achieve that & why not boost public (city) transport instead, etc & why they decided to go this way can def be questioned - but that's in all nations & at the end something still gets done.