First World Problems: The Car Edition

Right before Christmas, South Florida had a freak rain event, although these flooding rain events outside of a tropical system are becoming more common and less of a freak event.  We were out of town, and we returned to a drowned car, which we had left parked on the street.

I was happy when the insurance adjuster declared the car totaled.  She said that she could tell that the water came up to the dashboard--to the dashboard!  From a non-hurricane event!  We got half of what we paid for our 2014 Toyota Prius.  It could have been much worse.  Our rental car is also covered.

My spouse and I have spent much time talking about cars:  what's necessary, how much gas mileage is acceptable, how floodproof can we make the car, how much do we want to spend.  It's a variety of the conversation we've been having since we met in college:  how do we live according to our values?  How do we live a satisfying life that doesn't sap the possibility of a satisfying life from others?  How do we share?

We have also spent a lot of time--A LOT--researching vehicles.  Have we always had this many choices?  We've been researching both new and used cars, which leads me to think about how many cars there are in the U.S.

I've also been thinking about the journey that our clothes make.  Many of our clothes come from factories in non-Western countries.  We wear them and then many of us donate them so that they get at least one more wearing in Western countries.  Eventually those clothes make their way back to non-Western countries for another wearing or two, and then our clothes have a whole other cycle of life as rags.

Do cars have a similar life cycle?

My spouse and I tend to drive our cars into obsolescence, so it's hard for me to imagine that they have much life left as cars when we're done with them.  I put over 250,000 miles on my 1987 Chevy Nova, and someone still wanted to buy it from me, even though it was leaking 4 quarts of oil a week and running on 3 of 4 cylinders.  But I can't imagine it had many more years as a car left; my trusted mechanic got to the point where he refused to work on it anymore, telling me that it was immoral for him to keep taking money from me.

I am aware, painfully aware, of all the ways that our cars are an apocalypse for the environment and for longterm sustainability of humans on this planet.  We did discuss mass transit options, but it was a brief discussion.  Unless one is going in specific north-south directions, South Florida doesn't do mass transit well.  And South Florida motorists make the area deeply unsafe for people on motorcycles or bicycles, so those options are out.

We will likely spend more than we want to on a car that isn't as fuel efficient as we'd like (but hopefully a hybrid) so that we have a chance of navigating flooded streets and so that my husband who puts many miles a week on a vehicle has a better commuting experience.  I want to believe that our charitable contributions will offset the impact of the vehicle, but I'm not going to delude myself that way.