I ended up paying for the luxury of owning a personal automobile. Each month I pay my bank who gave me the loan, I pay my insurance company who rips me off because I live in California, I pay ridiculous amounts of money to keep gas in the car ($3.20 a gallon right now!). In addition I pay mechanics too much money to fix minor problems that I am ignorant about, I pay for regular oil changes, and I pay a yearly registration fee to legally drive my car in the state. I added up all of these costs and discovered that I have paid almost $10,000 dollars in the past two years of car ownership. The most disturbing part of this information is that less than half of the money spent was for actual car payments! Check out this link to calculate the real cost of your vehicle: http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/cost-of-car-ownership.htmlThere is a happy ending to this story.
I am moving to a city where there is adequate public transportation! I realize that I will not have the convenience of a vehicle on hand at any time of the day or night, but it will be a relief to be free of the financial burden. This got me thinking about U.S. culture and how we see owning our own car as a necessity (which it is in many areas where there is little or no public transportation, i.e. San Diego!). I started looking around the internet for some info on car ownership in other cultures and here are some fun and interesting facts I found:
-60% of American households own two or more cars-Road traffic injuries cost the USA US$ 230 billion a year, although road fatalities in the US have fallen from 52,600 in 1970 to 41,600 in 1999
-China used to prohibit purchasing cars for personal use and most citizens rode bicycles to get around, 8% of Chinese citizens own a car (80% of Americans do)
-Most privately owned cars spend 95% of their time parked
(see Flexcar http://statastic.com/category/car-free/)
-There is 1 car for every 700 people in India and Africa
-Only 10% of the world's population can afford a car
