Indentured Servants Of The Automotive Apocalypse

True Cost Of Freedom: Financial Prisons

I’ve finally seen the light! I found it on the dashboard of a Chevy when its trouble light lit up like a electrical epilepsy gone wild. The car started vibrating much like my unbalanced out-of-control washing machine every time it gets overstuffed with wet towels.

Part of me wanted to laugh. That’s the all too familiar equal parts of hysteria and despair I’ve felt as a woman many times over through the years. A flood of emotions cascaded torrents of sad truths that defied years of car ownership denial.

The epiphany day of reckoning is here — not just for me, but for all of us drowning in the automotive apocalypse of these inflationary times.

Years of pouring my meager paychecks into multiple four-wheeled money pits have finally reached their inevitable conclusion. The “check engine” light, once a friendly reminder to ignore, now pulsates like a malevolent heart, adding another layer of continued financial woes.

In that moment of mechanical mutiny, a sudden strange clarity washes over me. My life, once youthfully filled with dreams and aspirations, has shrunk to the size of a gas tank and the dimensions of monthly payments. It was then, that I realized that all of us who own a car are not free.

Another American Dream Bites The Dust Of Reality

Car ownership has turned into an iron-clad prison of life long debt and responsibility. Yes, this breakdown is inconvenient, frustrating, and expensive. It’s also the second car wake-up call to our household this month, in what seems like a never ending vehicle nightmares.

Our other car, a brand new 2023 model, has been towed exactly 3 times in 60 days because of a computer chip electrical failure! Keep in mind that we’ve also only had use of it for a total of 1 day each time before it had to be towed again and again!

My light bulb moment about our beloved modes of transportation is flashing red light questions — Mechanical friend? Foe? Savior? Are we all a bunch of suckers? The American automotive dream we all bought into promises freedom and adventure, but delivers a lifetime of financial bondage and existential dread and sorrow.

Owning a car is like marrying a high-maintenance trophy hunk of a husband— expensive, demanding, and constantly in need of new shoes (tires). With the new car as I signed on that dotted line, I became once again trapped in a cycle of financial servitude.

I really didn’t have a choice. The previous car was going to cost more to repair than it was worth. The initial purchase price of this new car is just the tip of the frosty iceberg. Gotta have full coverage insurance. Now there’s another monthly extortion racket disguised as something to give us peace of mind. Can’t own a car without it.

Gas? Liquid gold, siphoned straight from your bank account and pumped into your car’s insatiable belly. Don’t forget those pesky inspections, tags, title, and license — a never-ending stream of bureaucratic fees designed to test your sanity and deplete your wallet.

Glorious Soul-crushing Repairs

Every car is a ticking time bomb of potential breakdowns that sooner or later leaves you stranded on the side of the road. Each “fix” feels like another blow to hemorrhage your budget that you may not recover from.

The car gets towed as required these days to the dealership. The repairs are only going to be a total of $ 3,056.82 because now for reasons unknown, its the timing chain, tensioners, and balance shaft chain with its tensioners have gone bad. What?

From The Moment You Buy A Car — New Or Used

They don’t teach you in public schools about the forces of “entropy” and depreciation. Personal finance classes are all about investing in the stock market. Entropy is like a tiny thief always lurking inside the car who secretly steals its magic. But wait!

There’s another evil trickster called “depreciation.” This loser is even sneakier. It steals your car’s value the moment you drive off the lot, just like shrinkflation found in our grocery stores today.

On The Road To Poverty

It’s like watching your hard-earned money evaporate into thin air, replaced by a depreciating asset that becomes less valuable with every mile driven.

So like every car owner in America, I’ve now become a slave to its needs, forever at the mercy of gas prices, mechanic’s bills, and the ever-present threat of unforeseen breakdowns. Cars in our suburban Florida town are a necessity. There is very limited and inadequate public transportation.

Are we living in a gilded trapped bird cage of our own ego fed delusions? American consumerist culture has tricked us into believing our vehicles promise freedom, while actually delivering self-imposed life long servitude. All cars eventually need to be replaced, trading the old debt for even a bigger new debt.

All across the many heartlands of the American dream, where chrome shines and asphalt stretches like a silver ribbon, we as women especially, trade our souls for steel carriages. Each purchase, a pact signed with the devil of convenience, exchanging freedom for horsepower, ends up in tears for the life we cannot afford.

It’s not just us though. Our men have their manhood dreams, once woven from Hollywood starlight and whispered hopes. They too have become entangled in the exhaust fumes of ambition.

Men also chase horizons on four wheels, fueled by a phantom promise of macho independence, unaware of the chains that bind them to the altar of mobility. Often their very manhood defined by what four wheels they can afford.

Future Of Electric Cars Hold: A Flawed Solution?

If the powers to be have their way, one would think that the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) is a sustainable solution to the environmental concerns associated with gasoline-powered cars. The troubles with that are:

• National Limited Charging Infrastructure: The challenges of our miles and miles of roads in rural areas, make EVs impractical for long distance travel.
• Higher Vehicle Price Tags: New gasoline and diesel cars are already priced out-of-reach for many in our country. Even with government subsidies and tax breaks, the cost of purchasing an EV is not only outrageous, but for most Americans inaccessible.
• Environmental Apocalypse Concerns: While EVs produce zero tailpipe emissions, their production and battery disposal is problematic. The high cost and lack of electricity is unsustainable and outweighs any potential environmental benefits.
• Social Class Issues: The high cost of EVs isn’t just about existing social inequalities and limit access to sustainable transportation options for low-income communities and marginalized groups. The rapidly impoverished once middle class, who now have been plunged into unbelievable financial distress in current inflationary times are already crying the blues.
• Miscellaneous Routine Automotive Expenses: Keeping your investment clean at the car wash, tags, stickers, inspections, and oil changes are all regularly added to the overall debt load you have signed up to.

Time To Redefine The American Dream Of Car Ownership

Is there a future beyond the car for Americans? This topic seems so hopeless and makes me sad. To my way of thinking we need to explore alternatives to perpetuating the flawed American dream of car ownership. Our modes of transportation need to be sustainable, affordable, and available for all.

Instead of perpetuating the flawed dream of car ownership, we need to explore alternative solutions that promote sustainable, equitable, and affordable transportation. Why aren’t we:

• Investing more and talking more about Public Transportation? We need to expand and improve public transportation systems, including buses, trains, and light rail, as an affordable alternative to car ownership.
• Actively promoting safe and walkable (or bike-friendly) pathways? We not only need them but also more green spaces. This is also about health. Many Americans do not get enough physical activity. Such alternative modes of transportation would promote physical activity that many lack.
• Actively providing and developing Micro-mobility availability? Electric bikes and scooters can provide convenient and sustainable transportation for short trips.
• Rapidly Changing Social Attitudes: Deconstructing our cultural dependence on cars and promoting the benefits of alternative transportation options perceptions and encourage a shift towards more sustainable choices.

Seems to me by embracing alternative transportation solutions and redefining the American Dream, we can move towards a future where everyone has access to affordable, sustainable, and equitable mobility options. Only this future will benefit individuals and families financially. It will also contribute to a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable society for all.

The next time you are tempted by the shiny allure of a new or newer car, remember this.

Automobile ownership is a gateway drug to financial ruin. It’s a path paved with debt, despair, and the ever-present threat of a flat tire. Choose wisely, my friends. True happiness cannot be found in material possessions that enslave you.

“I dream of a land where women walk with wings, not wheels, where freedom is measured in laughter, not miles.

A land where every tear shed over a car payment or car repairs becomes a seed for a forest of shared bikes, rail infrastructure and alternative transportation options. A land where convenience yields to connection, and the roar of engines gives way to the chorus of children playing in streets reclaimed from the grip of asphalt.

It’s merely a dream about a world not fueled by not by wealthy male oligarchy gasoline, but by the boundless potential of women united, walking hand in hand towards a future where true liberation lies not in the horsepower of a machine, but in the strength of our own wings.

Of course I know that’s never going to happen, at least in what’s left of my life time. But still . . . a girl can dream.” Jerilee Wei © 2023