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Time Sharing Cars
timmy_walker writes "This article from the associated press talks about new car time share services from ZipCar and Seattle-based Flexcar, where "Customers make reservations via computer or telephone, and the company uses remote-access systems to control who can use the car when.""
I used to have a Ford Fiesta which I used to time share, between me and the goddamn mechanics.
This is much like Autoshare in Toronto, Canada. There are many others as well. A good resource can be found here.
Why stop at cars? Instead of mail-order brides, rent-a-wife!
"May evil beware, and may good dress warmly and eat plenty of fresh vegetables." -The Tick
There's a very similar sounding system running in the UK, in London, Edinburgh, Bristol and Brighton. It's run by Smart Moves, and involves cars that are parked in designated spots, booked by phone or web, with access via smartcard. It's been quite polular here in Bristol, by all accounts, and many new housing developments are including car club spaces in their plans.
More convenient than a car? Maybe in some cities, but certainly not all. There are a lot of areas in my city that would require several transfers and a lot of time to get to by public transport. So assuming the car was in a resonable location relative to my starting point/home, this could be ideal.
How do they keep people from smoking in these things or keeping people from trashing them? Spilled coffee Someone's kid getting car sick Fast food wrappers Someone's homless person or dog shitting all over the thing? Seems like their would be a huge reduction of accountibility for these cars.
I agree about public transportation but this is why Zipcar must offer something that is not possible with taxi or public transport. Pickup trucks per hour for example. Living in a college town like Boston, people are always moving things but being away from home and parents no noone has cars/trunks.
In metro areas, bicycles are vastly faster anyways. If you can stand to get sweaty, that is...
There are times when public tranportation is useful... I was a bus man for many years.
But, frankly, there's times when it's a pain... it's off-peak hours, the weather is crappy, you have to go a long distance with several transfers, you're picking up something that can't be easily carried around, you're going on a date (well, not YOU, per se... but a non-slashdot reader).
I got quite sick of planning to be on the bus several hours per day when I worked on the far side of the city, but I couldn't afford the incredibly outrageous amounts for a car.
I mean, come on folks... it's a freakin CAR, it's not made of gold, it doesn't come with a built-in treasure map... why in the name of Linus should a chunk of metal that explodes dead dinosaurs to move cost $40,000+, and have insurance, consumables, and maintenance that can add up to many thousands per year more? I think they're priced that way because we're all conditioned to think that they should be expensive.
But, I digress. I wish this had been available when it was the right time of life for me to use it... a convenient way to have occasional access to a vehicle (an occasional requirement in a city with an extremely low population density like Edmonton) without having to bend over and take it up the ass from all the fuckers who seem to think that because the word "auto" has 4 letters, all the associated costs should have 4 digits (significant). I hope projects like these get more coverage, and help stop the rush of people going out to buy cars they can't afford with loans they can't afford on income they can't guarantee.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I haven't used it, but I have a good friend who uses Flexcar here in Seattle.
According to her, it's not a "dream solution." There has been a time or two when the car in the spot closest to her apartment hasn't been available on short notice, etc. etc. But Flexcar did ultimately make it possible for her to make the leap to get rid of her personal car altogether. She lives and works downtown and uses the bus system, but was holding on to her car for that one-Saturday-a-month when she would make the big grocery store run, do the miscellaneous errands that took her to other parts of the city, and/or pick up something too big to carry alone on a bus.
Without Flexcar, she would have had to meet the expense of keeping the car around for those odd occasions, as Seattle is not quite ready for most young professional types to live by public transportation alone, a la New York City.
"That doesn't make any sense, " I thought. "If a society is advanced, a person shouldn't need a car to get around. It should be a luxury purchase."
An advanced society is able to have effective, efficient, and cheap public transportation. The fact that we rely on cars to move people around shows how far we have to go towards an advanced society, not just a rich one.
I would love to give up my car. I'm looking at houses within walking or biking distance of my job, so that I can lose the cost. But right now I have to drive 40 miles to and from work each day. Not because I want to, but because a long time ago a war hero who got elected president decided to cut rail funding in favor of building 30 meter wide swaths of concrete across the countryside. And then wasting my tax dollars on maintaining them.
I just dropped $55 on an inspection and emissions test because I need to drive to and from work. That's $55 I can't spend on a new hard drive or computer. I spend $40 a week (A WEEK!) on gas because there's no way I can commute.
I can't imagine how difficult it would be if I were someone on a limited income trying to hold down a job without a car. Public transportation doesn't go into the suburbs, where the money and jobs are, so I'd be confined to one small area for everything, or paying out the ass for taxis to haul me to and from work.
Things have got to change.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
When I lived in town, I realized that I was spending money on a car in order to drive it thirty minutes per day. I would drive fifteen minutes to work, let car sit for ten hours, drive fifteen minutes home, let car sit for ten hours, most weekdays. I found that I really only needed a car on the weekends.
Then one day, my beast of burden sat down on the side of the road and died. There was no cure.
So I went down to the local rental place, and made them a deal. I simply told them that I would like a car every weekend starting on Friday evening and that I would bring it back Sunday. I let them keep the deposit on file. They got steady business, I got whatever I needed (a clean, maintained car, truck, SUV, or convertible).
Sure, it was not all roses. There were times when I needed a truck but had to use an SUV. The Caddy convertible was not always available, but I got by. Low and behold, when I am totalling up the charges, it came to no more than the cost I spent on my old car. Go figure.
Now I live in the woods, so a ride is a necessity, but if I ever move back to the core, let me tell you...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
I live in Cambridge, MA, and I used ZipCar for about three years. When I came to Boston from Kentucky, the first thing I noticed was that driving here really sucks. Besides that, I worked in the Back Bay neighborhood, and parking near work was $400 a month. Luckily, Boston has an excellent public transportation system, so for about $60 a month, I got a subway/bus pass. At that point, I realized that I was only driving two Saturdays a month. So, these two Saturdays were costing me $450 a month ($350 car payment & $100 a month insurance). It was officially cheaper to rent a car for those two days. So I got rid of my car.
This was two years before ZipCar came into existance. Renting a car from a traditional rental agency involves going to the agency during their working hours, standing in line (frequently 1/2 hour), filling out paperwork, and returning the car during working hours. It makes no sense to rent the car for less than a day. Thus when ZipCar started up, and the booking time became 5 minutes at home and you could book for a couple hours, it was huge.
It was only when I moved to the far west side of Cambridge, where it's easier to find a parking space near the house and there aren't 7 ZipCars within walking distance (in fact there isn't even 1) that I decided it was time to get a new car.
From a geek standpoint, the system is extremely cool. The company issues you a card key associated with your account. You reserve the car on-line. A cell based system in the car is alerted to let the car know when you've rented it. During your rental time your card key unlocks the doors and the ignition. You can continue to drive if you go past the quiting time, but they charge you $25 for being late. In Boston, you're always late because of traffic, so it's cheaper just to rent the car for 1/2 hour or hour more than you think you'll need it.
So in answer to some of the questions I've seen:
(1) Why don't you just take public transportation? I did 95% of the time.
(2) Is it reliable? Yes. The $25 late fee seems to insure that the car is back on time. I never had to wait for the car to be returned.
(3) Is it dirty? No. There is a $50 charge for trashing the car.
(4) Is it wrecked? For whatever reason, the cars had very few dings. If the car is in a serious accident, it is taken out of commission. The company contacts the current renters and rebooks them to different cars.
(5) Who does the maintenance / washes the cars? The company does. If you want to wash the car yourself, the company reimburses you.
(6) Does it make sense in every town? No, only in very dense cities that have good public transportation.
(7) Isn't it expensive? Not compared to the price of owning a car in a big city.
(8) Is it convenient? Yes. In Boston / Cambridge there are a ton of cars. Until I moved far enough away from the central part of the city, it was pretty easy to find a car near my home or work free at any given time (except holiday weekends).
(9) Will it impress a woman? No, but she lives in the city, too. Meet her at a coffee shop and then take her to a nice restaurant.