As the baby boomer bubble pushes into its eighties, we are driving into a demographic wall.
“may”?
There is always the possibility of the end of humanity.
The world they created for themselves. Stupid shits.
I know exactly one boomer that supports public transit over cars.
No… the boomers were born and it was already that way. Could you please re-evaluate your knee-jerk hatred and maybe get some historical understanding? When was the car invented? When were highways built? How old were the boomers then?
JFC
Car centrism didn’t happen instantaneously after WWII. it was strongest in the 70s and 80s. It’s still strong now we just build it better.
We bulldozed the cities to make way for cars. Boomers built car centric cities and voted for car centric infrastructure despite all evidence showing this was a really bad idea. Instead of improving public transport, they elected to add more lanes and remove aidewalks to the tune of millions or billions. Every time. Again and again. Through the entire US and honestly, world
Yeah those Boomers really were the ones voting for redlining, the Eisenhower Interstate system, and bulldozing minority neighborhoods for freeways. Sure were a lot of Boomers running things in the 50s and 60s when these were at their height…
Good, insurance premiums are about to go up, like all of them, health, auto, death by boomer insurance…
Just fuckin kill em ffs.
U okay?
RFK is trying.
At around 84, my dad caused a small fender-bender, that’s when my sister told him he had to stop driving. He couldn’t turn his head to see behind him. That sucked for my sister, because it fell on her to get him out of the house for grocery shopping, etc. She was the only one who still lived in the same state. He ended up in an assisted living home for the last two years of his life with dementia.
Public transportation is great, but they don’t go into the suburbs. I suppose Uber and Lyft are the solution there, but my dad had no idea how to do that, he didn’t own a cell phone.
Capitalism has been fucking us hard for over 100 years, the offenses keep piling up, and only now are people starting to realize how bad it’s gotten.
My dad (and his wife) are still about 10 years away from addressing the problem of needing people to drive them, but when the time comes I won’t mind pitching in driving them places. We do that currently for my wife’s grandparents, who, to their great credit, gave up driving because they knew they were getting too old; they even kept their car so that whoever was helping them drive places wouldn’t take on the expense of using their own car.
Back to my dad and his wife, there are three of us children (six between them) within 45 minutes of them, and another two within 2 hours. Problem is they are talking about picking up and moving literally to the other coast 3,000 miles away. The sixth child (hers) lives on that coast, but still eight hours away from where they bought property.
We’re currently in California, so they are tempted by the difference in property values, which I can see making sense on paper. Of course, it doesn’t work in reverse, once you sell in California, you can’t buy your way back in. You’ve spent that equity. And when you leave behind the entirety of your support system to save $300 per month, what’s the plan?
Public transportation can absolutely go into the suburbs. In fact, I think it should. Every time they have tried to extent a tram line or set up some light rails, people protested because “not in my backyard” and “everyone will just go to the city, this place will be deserted”. Every time they actually went through, the suburb became more sought after and local commerce actually increased.
Public transportation is great, but they don’t go into the suburbs. I suppose Uber and Lyft are the solution there,
No, not living in the suburbs is the solution here
Eh, probably, but it’s a lot to ask of someone in their declining years to move away from everything and everyone they know, especially if dementia is a factor. It’d be different if families stayed close, but so many older adults don’t have anyone nearby. They should be moving in with their kids. But their kids are overburdened, over scheduled and underpaid. And not all of them voted to keep it that way…but…
Anyway it’s different from person to person, but it rarely seems to be simple.
I’m in my late 40s. I’m hoping think I can get another 2-3 years out of my 100k mile car and then my next car will hopefully be another 10+ year car and hopefully by then self-driving will be mature.
It’s called a bike, a train, a bus… Or walking.
thats not likely for elderly people who have mobility issue.
I see very old people on my bus all the time. They love it because they have a captive audience to talk to
So anyway a big guy comes to me crying. He says. He says to me. Crying. To me. He says. He says. To me. Crying. Big. Big guy. Hooch. He was. He says… Ooops! That’s my stop! See you next week!
I don’t know if there will be room for my 65 year old ass on bike paths dominated by wheely-ing tweens. When I lived near a reasonable amount of public transportation, I could take a 2.5 hour train to the beach or drive for 40 minutes. Whenever my car was in the shop and I had to take the bus to work I’d have to be at the bus stop at 4am to arrive at work by 6:30am vs leaving at 6a when I drove. Now that I live in a suburb of a suburb, there is no public transportation path that starts early enough to get me to or from work on time. I have an e-bike and put thousands of miles on a Segway MiniPro but neither can handle my 80 mile round trip commute. My car just passed 9 years old and 100k miles, ~30 miles per day. I paid $25k for the car itself including tax and interest, another $10k for insurance for 9 years, $35k for gasoline, $5k for repairs and maintenance, so as soon as robotaxis can beat ~$0.75/mile I’ll go that route.
Those are fantastic options where they are available.
If you live where it’s icy roads in winter and no municipal busses, well, that’s seeing one as rightly fucked, isn’t it?
Case in point, the nearest affordable grocery store (like an Aldi) is 5 miles from me and on a two lane divided road that has no sidewalks. Oyyy…
I can only hope to come back home for a walk during 4 months of the year. The rest of the time it’s way too cold or wet here north of Seattle. It’s not city and not suburb exactly. It’s slightly suburby.
Perfect age for running a fucking country. Hire them to the US gov immediately. They’ll fit right in.
Yeah, just give them the nuclear codes and they can go straight to fucking shit up.
There’s already an octogenarian with the nuke codes as it is…
You get what you voted for.
I was not alive to vote for or against the Interstate Highway Act
With the exception of 532 very special people, the people alive at the time didn’t get to vote on it either.
I am aware government is universally terrible
It was 1946 that trolleys were phased out, this was transit that didn’t get stuck in traffic, and had bullet cars capable of 60mph. My local system had connections going from NYC all the way to Canada.
Yes and most of them live near me.
And they’re ruining cars. High, upright seating position because they can’t get out of the car, big chonky tires on an SUV chassis because they hit potholes and curbs, measly little engines because they’re not going to use them anyway, driver assistance because their meds make them impaired.
Cars are will be cool again when old people don’t have to drive.
I’m genuinely curious what types of cars fit your description. I drive a 10 year old hatchback and don’t have any interest in a big car so I have no idea what current state is like. My best comparison is an even older Suburban that seemed floaty but pretty agile when you gassed it.
VW in the US is a great example of this. They no longer sell the Golf, but they do sell a compact SUV that is basically just a Golf they made worse with higher ride height and bigger tires.
They still sell the Golf GTI (and the Golf R), which are just Golfs with better trim.
Yes and they lose money on them. Only 10,000 were sold last year. The basic Golf and its wagon variant are gone in favor of SUVs that are basically the same car but taller, heavier, and worse.
Subaru did a similar thing. You can get an STI but it’s the only non-crossover they sell anymore. No more Legacy sedans or Outback station wagons.
Hell, Volvo is killing their last remaining wagon this year and going all SUV.
I’m not going to argue your overall point, only that VW almost certainly does not lose money on each performance Golf variant. Maybe in operant cost, but not in real dollars.
Yeah that was an exaggeration. But they certainly make more money on Tiguans and Atlases.
Most hatchbacks are crossover SUVs now. Take a tiny hatchback, make it uglier and taller. Handling gets worse and the ground clearance doesn’t increase, AWD isn’t available in most cases so now they’re shit on the road AND off it
This is separate from big SUVs which have cargo and towing capacity and can often go off road.
Cars are will be cool again when old people don’t have to drive
So, never?
Yes, I’m afraid the golden age of cars is past. Now they are appliances with quirky features.
And it just makes me want to burn it all down.
If we had robust public transport for everyone, this wouldnt be as big an issue.
Dont forget that it is not generation vs generation, its the 1% vs the working class.
And a friendly reminder that boomers own far more than billionaires and as such are very much invested in the system. Your poverty allows them retirement.
You’re not wrong but let’s start addressing wealth concentration with the trillionaire, and billionaires first. A lot of boomers may be millionaires but the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is a billion dollars.
also, let’s not forget that propaganda is most effective if you have a little bit of wealth and are afraid of losing it
Fact check: 1,000,000,000 - 1 ,000,000 = 999,000,000. But if you apply normal rounding rules… 😉
This describes my hometown to a tee. Thirty years ago.
I was picking up a some medication at the drugstore when an old frail man came in and stepped into the line. Quickly a middle-aged woman who works there says “Welcome back Fred! Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks! Are you okay?” The guy says back “yeah, I’m, I’m okay… But my truck isn’t, I totalled my truck!”. The layday goes " oh no! That’s terrible! So how did you get here? " the guy says " my chofer brought me in to get my medications"… Lady " your chofer? ". The guy points a little past my direction and from that end here comes the skinniest, frailest old lady you can imagine " yeah, I brought him in, but I’m. Not his chofer! Not by a long shot. Is this your girlfriend? “… Blah blah blah… Holy shit, they let people like that drive by themselves! Great for them, but you and I drive on the same road! Our kids wait for the bus on the same road. Maybe the country just needs to pass the " free driver law”. You hit 60 and you get a driver code. You go to a site or call a number, enter the code and wait for your driver. Free government paid service. A normally aged person between 15 and 60 years of age then takes you and a few other friends around the places you need to go to.
The word you’re looking for is “chauffeur.”
The last thing we need is government-paid private drivers so the people that most need public transport (that also for some reason have the most political power) will never vote to get public transport.
Ättestupa time?
I think incompetent drivers just driving off the cliff themselves is the more likely scenario.
In what fucking world is it ok to avoid jail because you’re fucking old. If she’s too old to go to jail then we need an option to euthanize elderly criminals.
Would it make you feel better if it was actually because she was wealthy?
I mean i saw that bit too I’m just sick and fucking tired of everyone but regular motherfuckers not going to jail.
You’re right but the headline punched my rage ticket.
My 95 year old mother in law picked me up at the airport and still goes golfing each week pushing her clubs around the golf course. I trust her than most kids on the road. However, She is much different than my 80 year old mother where the doctor took away her handicap pass because she kept hitting cars in the parking lot.
People don’t want to accept it, but we really should be testing drivers more frequently. We don’t, cuz car brain society, but we should.
Should tie it to retirement age. Once you no longer need to get to your job every day, get tested more often. Plus people often start losing mental clarity when they no longer have anything to keep them occupied and for many that’s their jobs.
