RockMoto

Actually, I'm lying. I got not no car. However, it’s not breaking my heart, as in the famed Lennon-Macca tune. I don't want a car.

OK, I'm lying again. Great blog so far, eh? I actually would like a car. Just not one of the ones I can afford. Give me a Lotus Elise or one of several hardtop Porsches I find dear. I wouldn’t turn away any Ferrari. In other words, essentially I’d like a high-revving, four-wheel motorcycle. Pretty much beyond that, though, never mind. Not worth the trouble to me, really.

I would just as soon take the bus, and I do. In fact, if I'm not riding one of my seven motorbikes, I'm doing one of the following. Hoofing it. How’s that for a carbon footprint? Pedaling. Which puts me on two wheels again, lungs and legs supplying the thrust. Bumming a ride from a hapless cager pal (sucka!). Schlepping a motorcycle in the company van. Actually, the best four-wheelers are the ones that can carry two. Or, I'm out on one of the big white, nat-gas-powered tin boxes of the Orange County Transportation Authority. A buck-fitty a ride.

Now, you tell that to fellow gainfully employed Southern California suburbaners and, I swear, they glare, gobsmacked, like you volunteered to be a foot-washer on a quarantined leper island in the South Pacific. They want to know what's wrong with you.

Nothing, thanks much for asking. I do enjoy many things about the world of automobiles, and I’m a fan, really I am. I just have this revulsion about driving the things. Wheeling a car around most urban settings is as awful as riding a bike is wonderful. Driving in Southern California and other major cities is like standing in line for all the rides at Disneyland. A whole lotta crowded shuffling around for hours and then you're rewarded with a few scant moments of whoosh.

In exchange for this privilege, you have large monthly car payments or a lease. You have costly insurance and maintenance. You have to take care of lots of things they don’t even have on a bike. Power steering, air-conditioning, doors, windshield wipers, the windows they wipe, acres of upholstery and even (!!) carpeting. Hey, I don’t even like vacuuming the house. Cleaning and waxing a whole car inside and out can blow an entire afternoon.

And when it comes to fun, are you actually going to wake up early on a Sunday, head out to the canyons along with your auto-driving buds and have a go at the twisties? That just wouldn’t, of course, be the same as doing a great backroad with all your motofriends. And, in any case, as my motorcycling grandfather wisely pointed out, cars just lean the wrong way through the corners.

Now, I haven’t even touched on the geopolitical megaswamp about oil, the environment and overseas war that dominates so much of the news. And I assure you, the public bus hasn’t been a gateway drug to hugging an oak, redwood or maple tree. I still enjoy my classic two-stroke street bikes that, while gassing the street with a cloud of oily blue smoke, would cause eco-advocate Ed Begley, Jr. and his hemp sport coat to spontaneously combust. It’s too bad that's not a renewable resource. But there is something wrong about the popular modern-day, automatic mindset that you need an automobile, just like you need air, food and shelter.

I once had an all-natural-fiber co-worker who foamed on and on about “ANWAR” this and “ANWAR” that. That’s A.N.W.R., as in the Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge, the protected Alaskan tundra where petrodemons want to drill, baby, drill. She would rail on and on against oil exploration there, while at the same time her choice of vehicle was, wait for it, an SUV. A Ford Explorer. Oh delicious irony, how I relish your savory flavor. I called her on it and her reply was, “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Indeed.

While Washington, Detroit and enviroactivists everywhere are busying themselves with enough lip-flapping wind power to light a small city, there are some simple green choices for us all that can make a little difference and are actually pleasant not painful. 

As far as I am concerned, there's only a single advantage to driving, and it's especially true on long trips: one hell of a rolling sound system for all your music. But isn’t that why they invented iPods? - Ty