Lab 13

Jessica's typical motorized day:

A typical day for me (when I go home to the Boro on the weekends) is heavily dependent on the transportation that motorized vehicles provide me. I was the first person out off all my friends to get a car when I was fifteen. And I used it, and still do to its full advantage. As soon as I get home I take off as fast as I can, my time is so limited, I only have 2 days out of the week to spend every moment with each and every one of my friends. And since I’ve been driving for such a long time, I still have that responsibility to “be the driver”. And having them drive is out of the question, I don’t feel like dying yet. Typically I will go and pick up my friend Blair, head over to Emma’s house, meet up with Whitney, they all get in my car. Then we head over to the boys house, Care Bear and Austin…they live about ten minutes away, we hangout there. Then we usually take two cars and go to a “get together” or two, after that around 3am we go to cookout, or ihop (five minutes from my house). There is nothing better than driving around during the night with the windows down, so we do some of that. Then I usually drive us back to my place. So I would have to say that most of our time is spent in a car, but not so much because of the fact that we are dependent on the transportation it provides us, but because of the enjoyment we have riding around together.

Without a motorized vehicle:

I think without a motorized vehicle in our current living situation…I’d be stuck at home on my butt all day. Everything is so far away and without these quick means of transportation I literally would get very little done. I have a pet horse, but after 2 or 3 miles of riding you get tired, they get tired. 3 miles nowadays isn’t going to get you anywhere. But if cars were to just suddenly disappear, I could see how it could become a good thing, we would have a lot to change, but I believe it could work. We would be forced to create tighter communities, people would live close together, we could walk to get our groceries, to see our friends, and go to school. (Sounds a lot like Europe to me). Overall people would be a lot healthier, in shape and not so obese. Could this happen? Yes. Would it happen? No. there is a constant demand for change, for technology to become more advanced, faster. We are becoming more and more impatient, and want instant results. We don’t want to “waste time” getting up and actually walking somewhere. Soon enough I could see are current cars not being enough.