this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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xkcd

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An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

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[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Road trips are a tiny fraction of all vehicle use, it's fine to relegate them to specialty vehicles.

[–] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Quick Google says a great majority of Americans take road trips. Even though it's a tiny fraction of their driving, it's still a deciding factor for many when choosing a car. Not all people have the luxury of affording a second car just for road trips.

Public transportation would be good, but there's less flexibility to it. For example, just yesterday, on a return from a roadtrip, I got stomach sick and had to request frequent stops. That wouldn't fly on a train.

I'd love it if we had affordable and flexible public transport for getting all across the country, though.

[–] LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unless you're taking road trips literally every other week you could just rent a gas vehicle when it's time for a road trip. Rather than make the decision of the car you're going to drive every single day based on something you only do maybe once a year.

It's why I don't own a pickup truck, I actually do haul cars, help people move and all that shit that people say is why they need a pickup truck but I just go to fucking U-Haul and rent either the Sprinter van or the pickup truck for 30 bucks plus mileage when I need one. And I do actually keep track of my financial records with a double Ledger Finance app I just went and looked and I'm still nowhere near the cost of a used pickup truck from all of that renting

[–] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

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