Ne'er Do Well

Last night I was stunned, stunned! to hear my wife speak of getting a scooter. If my wife entertains the idea of a scooter, then I stand to correct my faith in American willingness to modify behavior.

This was completely unexpected. I make more than the median family income -- direct expenditures for fuel wouldn't be an issue for us even if I drove twenty eight thousand miles a year. We could absorb it -- not without bitching, mind you, but we'd absorb it. We don't live in a 'fuel or prescription drugs' quandary. It could be that I'm blessed...but I have to think that 25 years of frugal living also had something to do with it.

With a scooter, I could sell the Honda and drop the insurance, registration, and bi-annual smog costs. I could buy a used scooter for a fraction of the proceeds and completely eliminate any concern with 'not having private transportation within a 100 foot radius at all times.' Not that I do, but my wife might. She can haul the kid to school and pick up a gallon of milk, and if it rains we'll still have the one car. And if this turns out to be something she doesn't really want, well, I'll sure as hell be able to use it to get to work when my calves can't take biking anymore.

I noted earlier how in a depression or severe recession people will only pretend to have a license and insurance. Well, it's happening now, even though we've apparently escaped a recession. Driving to dinner the other night we saw three cars with expired tags...not just two or three months, but six months or more. And...get this...yesterday my boss's Sequoia was seven months expired. I joked about it with a co-worker. When my co-worker confronted him (I'm not good at such things) he said 'we just don't drive it much anymore.'

And I don't mean to imply this is something I wouldn't do. Of course I would. Abso-fucking-lutely. If I had any expectation that I wouldn't get caught, you're damn right I would. My boss did.

Registation and insurance are expensive. Like running a coal plant, you weigh the penalties for polluting against the costs of not polluting. I have seriously though about dropping the insurance and registration on the Honda because there's no way I can lower these 'fixed' costs even if I drove it only 1 mile a year. I've driven 500 miles so far this year. The costs are about the same as if I had driven it 50,000. And what's worse worse! is that I can't even drop my liability coverage down on the one car. I hardly drive the fucking thing, so if I can't drop my insurance rate because I drive so little, I thought I could lower the coverage to the state minimum and take the chance.

Ha! Allstate laughed in my face. Not only can I not drop the liability coverage for just one vehicle, they also refused to underwrite a liability policy at the state minumum! They refused! I won't lower the liability on my wife's car because she drives much more than me -- but I can't lower one without all the others. I'm rat-fucked!

If a ne'er-do-well well-to-do blogger bitches about such things and is even willing to cross the line, what do people on the economic margins do? What do you think?

They suffer from the same delusion we all do, that we have to have a car to function at any cost. So I'm 110% sure that there are thousands more driving illegally these days than before.

And I should be one of them.