The strangest things, in this process of cleaning out our lives, haven’t come from any of the logistical things – such as packing or moving – but have come from realizations about the differences between the culture of the United States and that of Scotland / the U.K. / Europe. One of those realizations came the other day as I was looking at Google Earth … and realized that I had my sense of scale all wrong.
You see, when one picks up a map, one has some general idea of scale – as in, a map of California is going to be about 1,000 miles long, because it will include a little bit of Oregon, and maybe some of Mexico, just to get all of California into the picture. So, coming from this perspective, when one picks up a map of, say, the Glasgow area, and sees all of these “towns” listed, one thinks that the place must just be huge … and one would be wrong.
This comes, possibly, from Europe having been settled for so many thousands of years before the Automobile made everything sprawl. So, where the map of Glasgow may encompass 20 miles on a side, the number of “towns” mentioned says, to the American mind, that the map should really be describing an area of, say, several hundred miles on a side … because, to an American, a single city would have just as many roads as the entire Glasgow area, yet would be just one place, rather than 50 smaller towns. American cities are built on the scale of the Automobile, rather than the ox-cart.
I won’t claim to have thoroughly absorbed this fact into my subconscious, but my conscious is able to look at the information, and to look at the sheer number of trains, subways, buses, and bike trails, and to let me think through giving up that great American symbol: the Automobile.
The little red one is a 2000 Honda Insight Hybrid.* We were the 7th in our county to buy one, and it has been a true joy to drive. It’s going away, though, along with the beige one (Hybrid Civic), because we just won’t need them. Oh, true, we’d enjoy having access to a vehicle … but the payoff just isn’t there. If we were to have a car, we’d have to have someplace to park it, we’d have to register and insure it, and we’d probably not end up driving it all that often. That’s not to mention the fact that we own them both outright, and can make better use of the $30K than by having it tied up in a hunk of metal!
This has, of course, been a source of … confusion, for certain relatives. They simply don’t understand that Europe is set up on a different scale, and that having a car is different. And, perhaps, they don’t understand that it’s not a need, as it is here.
I suppose the reverse is true – that Europeans may not really understand, on that visceral level, how stranded an American probably feels without a car. It’s not just independence, you see: it’s on a level of necessity. Yes, we could probably survive without a car in the U.S., but we couldn’t thrive without one. In order to find the jobs I find, I’d need to spend about 4 hours per day on Mass Transit, as opposed to two hours per day in a car, and that’s the best case scenario. Worst case? Worst case, here in California, would have been taking public transit for one of my previous jobs, in which I would have spent two hours to go 20 miles, each way. I could have ridden my bike … except that there were no shoulders nor dedicated bike lanes, so I’d be riding in vehicle traffic for extended periods of time. Simply unsafe, at best.
So, for all of you out there who think we haven’t thought it through: yes, I’m nervous about not having a car. However, my brain knows that I don’t need a car, and our friends abroad assure us that it’s not uncommon. So – the cars go. And we go – into a smaller world.
*Note: For those of you who care about this sort of thing: the Insight’s gotten better than 50 miles to the gallon (4.7 liters/100 km) for its entire life, even when I’ve been awful to it and driven it faster than it’s wanted to be driven. Most of the time I’m averaging 59 mpg (4 liters/100 km), and I’ve even done so well as to get 83 mpg (2.8 liters/100 km), although that was really sticking to the speed rules, and I haven’t pulled it off since.
– D (& T)
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Two comments. My scale of size has also undergone some adjusting. My classmates live in several different states and it’s a doable commute. California just skews everything!
And I have LOVED not having a car this summer. I’m considering if I want to keep mine. I’ll see how the first semester goes. But my house and my school, church, and job are all within walking distance and there’s great transportation to Manhattan and Philadelphia.
Besides, I won’t need one in Scotland!
Selling your wheels-now that would take an adjustment. Makes sense though. And i know Europe is very public-transit friendly but can you really get wherever you need to go anytime day or night via bus, bike or train?
Well, the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport seems to think that one can do without a car, that’s for certain. Personally, I think it’ll be hard at times. But, it’ll also be good for us, in terms of forcing us to exercise, and also because when it comes down to it, you have to ask, “what’s a little weather? It’s not like we’ll melt.”
We’ll also probably rent a car from time to time – but probably only after we’ve taken a driver’s training course over there, with maybe an instructor. There are plenty of tourists & students killed every year because they don’t know how to cross the street, due to the difference in direction of the cars. I’d hate to know how many tourists kill locals because they can’t figure out how to drive!
I suppose you just have to weigh it up like any other financial proposition. Be cold and hard about it. How much is it worth, really, to have the freedom to squeal off into the sunset anytime you please? Okay, I’m not making this any easier, am I?
Advice!
1. I agree that there’s no point laying down the money to buy/tax/insure a car until you’ve been settled in Glasgow for a while, and get a better understanding of how a car might fit into your daily lives.
2. Personally, I don’t drive, my girlfriend doesn’t drive, we’ve been living together successfully now (and getting to and from work!) for some years. On the other hand–when we’ve needed to move, I could always recruit my dad. We get a taxi in the mornings and evenings; for us it works out cheaper than owning a car, because we work in more or less the same place, and covers probably 80% of everything we’d ever want to do with a car.
3. But then there is that 20%, the trips into the country at the weekends, the freedom to nip out to the shops, the freedom to go scouting around for a house to live in further afield–things like that, that we’re missing out on. Which is why I’m going to have to get a car at some point this year. But–and this is the important part–we’re in a pretty comfortable situation at the moment, and so it’s a luxury item.
4. Any advice I give you will probably be useless as I live in the suburbs of a city that’s a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than Glasgow. I could quite easily walk to work; from this desk to my desk at work it’s a 25 minute walk. A cycle lane most of the way, too.
5. I don’t know why I’m numbering these points.
6. We’ve felt isolated in the past, by not having a car. For instance–we lived in a new development not a mile from my parent’s house there for about six months. But as this new development was on the other side of four lanes of traffic coming from four directions, with no kind of crossing (Frogger time!), and the only stores on our side of the dual carriageway (you’ll learn these wonderful words for roads) were a few large retail outlets and a DIY store, we felt very isolated. The place was definitely designed with drivers in mind.
7. So to sum it up…I dunno? Motorbike?
Neil, thank you so much for your sane advice. So much of this move has been … well, viewed as a political statement. Which it is, in many ways (after all – I’m leaving behind a perfectly reasonable job doing tech work, to pursue a degree in Philosophy). But, then again, it’s a Big Deal to leave the country of one’s birth, especially when that country is freaking HUGE and tends to be so … self-centered.
So – thank you once again.
We’re nearly there with getting things packed.
And, yes – we’ve said “motorbike” to ourselves several times, if only because it’s 1) economical, 2) able to be parked just about anywhere so it won’t interfere with our housing choice, 3) got the controls in the same place no matter which country you’re in, and 4) I’m numbering these points because it’s late and I have a lot of packing to do and should really be going to sleep but I’m reading blog entries instead.