The last article was quite critical, so I decided to cheer myself up this time and dream about what the ideal motoring world would be like. How to get rid of current problems and make riding more enjoyable?
Having cars as a hobby is actually one of the worst, or rather the most expensive, hobbies you can pursue. It's not just that a car is more expensive than a book, computer or camera. Of course, one cannot assume that a Ferrari will cost 50,000. It's still a complex machine that isn't cheap to make, but in addition to the car, you have to constantly take out insurance and worry about your license to drive it. And these secondary costs are the main reason why we don't buy more amazing cars every other month, why we don't fill our garages and gardens with old hot-hatches and roadsters . When you go to buy a new high-quality SLR, you pay a high price for the camera, lens, bag and memory cards, or for the software to edit your pictures. But you don't need permission to take pictures. And you also don't have to insure your camera every year. Of course, liability insurance is not unnecessary and a driver's license is necessary. But it could be cheaper, right? Why, for example, does the compulsory insurance have to be paid separately for each car? How can we split up and drive multiple cars at once?
After graduating from the driving school, we could each receive our own unique number plate in two pieces and pay for the insurance as a lump sum. And then it wouldn't matter how many cars are at home. you simply come to the garage in the morning and choose which of these great cars you will drive to work that day. By having more cars, you don't endanger more people on the streets or increase pollution. You can always sit in only one anyway. In addition, it would bring an increase in car sales. Today you don't buy five cars to pay for so many insurance policies. But this might really help sales. A roadster for summer weekends, a hot-hatch for commuting, an SUV for winter trips to the mountains, a van if you happen to be moving or going out with friends, a Caterham for a track day, a station wagon when you go on holiday with the family. On top of all that, only your and your wife's license plate number and only two insurance policies. A wonderful idea.
And that we would all buy youngtimers and thus not support production? But go. A greater demand for older cars means that their supply will decrease and of course they will decrease more, so they will need to be replaced by modern equivalents. In addition, more interesting models would be sold, more impractical coupes or more expensive sports versions, which are currently harder to sell. More people would make their dreams come true. Remember when Capri came on the market. It was basically a nicer, more impractical Escort , but according to the ad, the car you promised yourself. And then many people fulfilled that promise. Do you think petrolheads have changed since then? No, we still want interesting cars, we're just annoyed by the bureaucracy associated with them. And I applaud everyone who ignores it and fulfills their motoring dreams.
Older cars could also be exempted from the pointless eco-tax . It is useless, I meet the same number of cars in terrible condition on the roads, the only thing that disappeared were the carefully cared for retired pieces in their original condition, polished regularly by deer. When I imagine how the jaws of scrapping machines sank into those beauties, my soul bleeds.
As for the operation, it could also be improved. Freight could be transported by rail. I've never been a fan of passenger rail transport here after personal experience, but that's more the fault of the monopoly carrier and its laxity. However, it is ideal for transporting goods. We have a good railway network (before we cancel it), freight stations are usually located in city centers and it would then be easier to deliver individual goods between cities. Trucks that only pass through us could be loaded onto wagons and transported from one end of the Republic to the other. As a result, trucks will disappear from the roads, which will greatly benefit the flow of traffic and also the quality of the roads. It would also be good to complete the network of cycle paths so that cyclists do not have to ride on the roads. And those who prefer to drive on the road, although there is a parallel path, could become a new target of the traffic police. A situation where motorists and cyclists do not come into contact during transportation would be welcomed by both parties. Cyclists would not feel threatened by more comfortable cars and would not have to breathe under the physical burden of exhaust fumes. We behind the wheels would be spared their slowness and fear of the unpredictability of their behavior.
Of course, we are now talking about the situation outside the cities. I expect that, in addition to cycle paths, the road bypasses of the municipalities would have to be completed. None of us wants to spend hours in Prague traffic jams, but nothing motivates you not to drive around the city. Public transport is expensive and inefficient. And at the same time, the solution is simple, to build a large parking lot on the outskirts of the city, ideally guarded. There you pay a parking fee for the day, but it must not be expensive. And for a ticket from the parking lot, you can ride public transport all day without restrictions. The price for the parking fee must be cheap, you will have no reason to park your car if it costs the same as driving directly to where you need to be. Everyone also values their comfort. Thanks to this measure, we will remove cars from cities and leave them to pedestrians and cyclists. Various pressure organizations should also be satisfied with this.
So we have great cars and pretty empty roads. So we could abolish speed limits, right? After all, we are reasonable, the traffic has decreased and we drive the cars of our dreams, we don't want to break them after all. In addition, if we fight for trees between cities, we mainly endanger ourselves. When the roads are repaired now, they will not be broken up by trucks and will have a quality surface, again reducing the risk of collisions. Besides, we love curves, no one likes to fly a 200 on a straight. But the slow turns where we can train the throttle and hit the apex , we love it. There is no need to limit our speed, we will slow down on our own in the corner sections. And for transport from A to B we will have freeways, for that we will buy one ship for the garage with all the senseless assistants and I will easily lie down in a 160 km/h convoy and Google can drive us via satellite.
How about some enjoyment? We have abandoned landfills and abandoned quarries, where no one goes, no one cares about them, they are just inaccessible. Instead of entry bans and barriers, rally tracks or off-road tracks can be made there. They could devote themselves to car enthusiasts. Here we could go for a drive and test ourselves and our car, have fun, organize ourselves and at the same time not threaten or restrict other road users. What about old military airfields? We have a lot of sports enthusiasts who would hold sprints here, while now the asphalt areas are fenced off and overgrown with grass. Out of civilization, out of reach of people who aren't curious about some autos.
Lest I forget, we all suddenly have more cars, so I'm going to need more garages. The construction industry will rise. And there are also a lot of old abandoned factory halls , because new companies are assembling their boxes in the meadows. I know a lot of petrolheads who would like to buy a bigger hall like this in their group, they would store their jewels there and manage them in a nice way, they used to have meetings there and a relaxed atmosphere, I would go for it myself. And thanks to taking care of older jewels, we might start to become more skilled . Today, cars are just a plastic cover, and for all faults there is only an order in the manual to go to the service center. But if you get an old Alfa Spider and keep it running, maybe within a year you'll be as handy as Venca from the movies Sun, Hay and fix a washing machine or TV like nothing. Moreover, in that group in such a big garage, you dare to fix more things than you would at home alone. There will always be others around you and more heads who know more, but you know that. That would be so you can't do an engine swap in five people.
So what, did you dream too? Well, when we realize that none of this is true and we won't see it ever work like that in the world, I don't even know if I'm in a better mood. But the reverie was beautiful. What you? How do you imagine a motoring utopia and how do you dream of an ideal motoring world? Do some ideas seem too utopian? Do you think they are impossible? And would you even like such a world?
Photo: Autoniusy
