Driving is not a requirement. (Yet.)
Many moons ago, I wrote a post entitled “Driving is not a crime. (Yet.)” At the time, the supposed crime would be the criminal of HUMAN driving, on the grounds that AI driving will be (and perhaps already is) much safer than driving by carbon-based life forms.
However, I wrote that post before the Democratic victories in the 2018 mid-term elections that brought a number of “Green New Deal” types into government. For those people, ANY type of driving should be discouraged.
Obviously, any such move would be vehemently opposed by the automobile manufacturers. Because if people aren’t going to drive, they’ll have no need for cars, right?
Right?
Well, perhaps they will. Alert: it’s time for a “those wacky Japanese” story.
Car-sharing service operator Orix Auto Corp. couldn’t figure out what certain customers were doing with its rental cars.
The service, with 230,000 registered users, realized around summer 2018 that some people who rented vehicles never actually drove them.
Orix was not the only one to notice this, so the companies began to investigate what people were actually doing with their cars.
One respondent to the company’s survey said they rented vehicles to nap in or use for a workspace. Another person stored bags and other personal belongings in the rental car when nearby coin lockers were full.
Because a car can be rented for as short a time as 30 minutes, for only a few dollars, these types of uses made sense.
And this isn’t just something that those wacky Japanese would do. There are certainly urban areas of the United States that could use this service, and even rural areas – or especially rural areas – would benefit from this also.
I personally think that it’s important to note that these extreme ways of getting personal space are happening at the exact same time that companies are moving from offices to cubicles to “open office” environments. I am consistently thankful that I don’t work in an open office arrangement, because if I did, I’d probably flee to my car during lunch for a bit of peace and quiet.
And if I didn’t own a car, perhaps I’d rent one for that purpose.
tymshft 