Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Why are they using $22,000 2-seater cars anyway? Why not $11,000 4-seat Toyota Echos and Kias, Hyundais and Suzukis? Wouldn't those be at least as reliable and much more practical (not to mention even easier to park, since they have less in the way of blind spots).

Or for the sake of parallel-parking, how about Saturns? At least those have plastic bodies.

What, no economic analysis of the costs of the costs to own, operate, maintain a car compared to ride share?

The Prof's comment makes me think of people who want to ban all seniors from driving every time they see an elderly person having trouble parking, or driving at the speed limit.

I'll match our hosts ancedote with my own: A good friend of mine in the Bay has driven the same car for years, drives every day, loves to drive - and yet still has a horrible time with parallel parking and will skip parallel parking spots rather than attempt this rather simple manuever.

they don't own the car, they lease them. That's why it is either bug (volkswagen, with an E at the end) a jetta: less depreciation after 2 years. I think they are moving into prius for eco-friendly reasons.

The dent in the car is due to the fact that it is a city car (as in citycarshare). The number of miles won't exceed a limit. I think the convenience of having a car available to you any time, with no parking hassles (parallel parking on dwight nonetheless, citycareshare has reserved spots all over san francisco) outweighs the occasional dent.

Blame the ridiculously easy road test in California. When I took my road test in NYC (a long time ago) the tester not only had me parallel park (in a fairly tight space), he also had me drive under the elevated subway line in heavy traffic. My daughter took the CA road test about 7 years ago and (as she tells it) it was a joke.

while I live in Minnesota now, I was born in San Francisco and grew up in its suburbs. the road test in CA is indeed very easy. however, there is no better road test for parallel parking than desiring to go out at night in San Francisco from a distance that requires driving.

my wife, not even a local native but then a ten-year resident, once got into a spot in which, cross my heart, her car was not only touching both adjoining cars' bumpers, but was pushing gently against each.

do not ask her how -- that is the realm of the Parking Fairy, a costume she wore to great approbation one Halloween.

say what you will about California drivers, but there are two things they quickly learn -- to merge onto freeways, and to parallel park.

I was a member of a service like this in Boston called ZipCar (http://zipcar.com) . It was awesome. Granted, you need to know how to drive, but the solution was that the driver was responsible for damage to the car. The deductible on the insurance (included for free with the membership) was $500, which was enough incentive not to mess up the cars much.

It was a great service and I miss it. I now live in a suburb of Hartford, CT where nothing can be reached without your own car. Sucks...

A. Zarkov: "Blame the ridiculously easy road test in California."

On a factual basis I have to agree, but weigh this against the fact that without driving you are effectively excluded from even the most basic social activities -- shopping groceries, visiting the library, city hall, friends, etc. Of course people merging on the freeway at 40 mph in their old street cruisers (and let's just leave it at that) tick me off, but then I'm sympathetic as they have virtually no other alternative to participate in society.

On the other hand, sometimes (i.e. several time a day) I think the greater Bay Area, especially the freeways, are really a giant driving school test range (but without teachers).

wcw: "the road test in CA is indeed very easy. however, there is no better road test for parallel parking than desiring to go out at night in San Francisco from a distance that requires driving."

Fortunately most modern cars have plastic bumpers, and my car has already witnessed its bit in the city (no lasting damage though).

wcw: "say what you will about California drivers, but there are two things they quickly learn -- to merge onto freeways, and to parallel park."

Sorry, but I have to say this -- in which part of California are you living, dude?

And I can say quite a few things. I do CA 237 each day, and I have never seen idiot drivers like this anywhere outside the US. I almost started to believe in the sixth sense -- I can virtually predict what drivers are going to do without any indication on their part (well there must be something in their driving pattern that raises my suspicion, other than the make of car and other things). Don't get me wrong; many of the idiot drivers are white people with higher-class cars, and often enough with cell-phones including one hand glued to their ear. I'm not talking about the prevailing racial prejudices. If people holding those would look closely, they would observe that "ethnic" idiotic driving is roughly in proportion to ethnic driver statistics on the road in question.

My first two years in California, my wife and I drove a 20 year old Ford Pinto whose hood was held down with bungee cords. My wife is an excellent driver who, regrettably, had a penchant for hitting deer while on the road east from Chico.

My wife used to talk about "parking karma". I though this was unique to her, but I've heard enough Californians use the word to think it has some currency. The entire architecture of San Jose only makes sense if you think Californians despise parallel parking.

Given that a relatively large number of people will be sharing a citycar, I imagine that the parking karma of the least karmically endowed operator will be quite low. Large dents will almost inevitably ensue.

It's easier to live homeless in Calfornia than carless - I speak from personal experience on this. If the state of California made to harder to get or keep a driver's license, the state would collapse completely. Frankly, the state would do more to relieve poverty, pollution and traffic congestion if it subsidised cars and driving lessons for the indigent, something that Belgium is actually starting to do.

Quite an anecdotal stretch to smear a really wonderful market response to those of us who need a car only occasionally.

Reminds me of what they used to say about Volvos:

"The car for people who hate cars"

The Beetle is a lousy choice. It's basically a Golf with crappy rear headroom and drastically reduced storage. Why not buy a Hyundai or a Suzuki? Or are the car share users too cool to be seen in such vehicles? To spend twice as much as they have to smacks of Ivy league socialism.

Perhaps, as someone who managed to fail the "ridiculously easy" CA driving test twice before failing, I shouldn't comment. Still, I was 16 and it was the 70s, and I have the feeling that the local DMV automatically failed ALL 16 year old boys twice just to give them a lesson before passing them.

Most CA drivers are in fact disciplined and fairly predictable. Of course there are always freeway crazies, but no more than anywhere else -- proportionally to the vast total traffic on SoCal freeways, probably less. The one place where egregiously bad aggressive driving was really visible, though, was La Jolla when I lived there (renting!) for a while. One could count on the people in high end Lexus SUVs, larger Mercedes and similar vehicles to be (a) pointlessly aggressive, (b) rude, and, yes, (c) talking on the phone. I always assumed it was because they figured that they owned this road (that unbearable tax burden in pre-Bush days!), and by God they were going to insist on their entitlement.

"CarShare cars may be cars that are (a) driven a lot of miles by (b) people none of whom really remember how to drive very well. I fear for them."

Unfair--I suppose you never saw a negative incident with a privately owned and driven car? Because it's ubiquitous, it's unworthy of comment or generalization? Instead, you generalize negatively based on one observation? Had to mention the dent, too--Never saw a privately owned car with a dent?

As a cyclist I've been hit by cars twice by drivers who clearly violated the law (such as ignoring a stop sign) but I don't generalize "all drivers are lawless and irresponsible."

Mr DeLong, your post on this subject seems to me unusually shallow--gloating in a shallow, overly obvious way--maybe this is a rare area where you have no particular education or insight--but I think you deserve a pass for all your other terrific, top quality, insightful posts. I will continue to be your reader.

Suggested Reading: _Road to Nowhere_, _Divorce Your Car_.

DC has its own version called ZipCar. Never used it but seems to be popular -- at least among the residents of my apt building.

Why Beetles? Two answers, one serious, one sarcastic.

The serious answer - Branding. Beetles are distinctive. Green beetles, even more so, and the cars themselves are clearly labeled with the City CarShare logo. Every time a customer drives the car, lots of branding impressions are made.

The sarcastic answer - The cars are distinctive so people know to get out of their way.

As far as California parking skills go, native and long-time San Franciscans do OK, simply because you have to parallel park in SF. But, as a kid from Brooklyn, I'd argue for my homies' superior parking skills any day - park badly or inconsiderately in my old neighborhood (Canarsie) and you just might have an altercation with the neighbors, or find that your valve stems have been cleverly removed.

I used to live on a slightly steep block of Dolores St, on the Noe Valley/Mission border. From my terrace, I'd often see people make repeated tries to park their small cars in huge spaces and drive off in disgust after five minutes of futility. Most amusing.

Well, they pretty much HAVE to lease, rather than buy. The tax-laws being what they are, on a lease you can write off all the costs immediately, while on a car which would be owned for several years, you only take the slow depreciation, which is especially bad on cars above a certain value (something like $2500/year).

This is probably also partially why the car rental companies SELL their cars so often. Having owned the car for such a short period of time, and then selling, they are able to write off the difference (real depreciation) rather than the IRS depreciation rate.

>CarShare cars may be cars that are (a) driven a lot of miles by
>(b) people none of whom really remember how to drive very
>well.

There are also business models that are more attractive to "frequent drivers". In some cities in Germany, there are carshares between commuters and small firms which can't afford their own vehicle fleet. German railways also coordinates its own country-wide carshare that has vehicles at most major train stations - probably not a good idea for California ...

I had trouble parallel parking, until I was taught how to do it. If you can't do it have some one teach you.
I have passed 5 driving tests, including Calif.

As a cyclist who lives near La Jolla, I'll agree that the quality of driving is inversely related to the size of the vehicle. This works for those crappy early '80s land barges too, so it isn't just rich people. I quite nearly got smacked last week near Del Mar by a lady in an urban assault vehicle with three kids, talking on a phone, and drinking coffee at the same time.

And I'm normally not really anti-SUV. I'm anti-idiot.

My pet peeve is the drivers of those Land Rovers who insist on taking up two compact spots in a parking lot. Even the regular spots are too small for my mid-size car. I find consideration for other people to be lacking in Southern California--people who are nice on the surface just don't pay attention to the rest of the world.

And as for parallel parking, there is none in southern California. One reason that I think the drivers here are so bad is that they have the opportunity to be clueless. Drivers in my old home of Chicago, for instance, are much more aggressive but also much more aware of their surroundings.

End of rant.

City Carshare member here...

As far as I can tell, I've picked up only one bad driving habit since I lost my old car in an accident and joined CCS. Entrance to a CCS vehicle is gained via a radio fob and the key for the ignition is actually kept in the car on a cable mounted under the steering wheel. (shh! don't tell! ;) My new bad habit is that when I'm driving a non-CCS car, when I turn the car off at the end of a trip I remove the key from the ignition and drop it on the floor of the car.

Zipcar introduced their service in Chapel Hill, NC a year or so ago - makes a lot of sense in a college town where parking is at a real premium and free (yes, FREE) bus service makes owning a car for many people quite unnecessary. Using the Zipcar for big trips to the party, er, grocery store or the mall and depending on bus/bike/feet for everything else is a pretty good deal. It was well-received initially - haven't checked lately to see if still appears to be viable or not.

I've always been grateful that Ryder rental trucks are painted such a garish yellow. These aren't little Beetles -- they're big, unwieldy trucks, driven by people who may have no prior experience driving something that size. The yellow paint is a convenient warning to the rest of us.

Having said that, I have to agree with Zizka and the cyclist above -- I like the idea of CarShare and I wouldn't want to draw sweeping conclusions against it from a single selective example.

Zipcar seems to be popular around Cambridge. There are a lot of them around, different models, and I haven't noticed dents.

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