[tablespoon]

> As a public transport person I feel weirdly constrained by the idea that a day's itinerary will inevitably have to see me return to wherever the car is parked...

Do you feel the same way about your home? Your day's itinerary will inevitably have to see you return there, too.

Too see the other side, it may be useful to think of a personal car as home-like transportation infrastructure and always using public transit like living full-time in hostels.

[pavlov]

Driving is not like being at home because it requires active focus and continuous observation of an evolving social situation where other people’s decisions could cost lives.

If sitting on a train is like being in a hostel, then driving is like doing tedious office work in a cubicle. I’d rather hang out at the hostel.

[tablespoon]

> Driving is not like being at home because it requires active focus and continuous observation of an evolving social situation where other people’s decisions could cost lives.

You're unreasonably expecting the analogy to be a perfect map between the two situations, when no analogy ever is.

My car is more home-like than a bus, because the car is my space.

[mariosisters]

Right on. I have a van I built out for camping, I cart the kids around in it all the time exactly because it’s basically a second home! Everything we need all the time. A place to chill out / wait out a melt down, change a diaper, have a bite to eat.

Even a Honda Civic can accommodate these things far better than a bus.

As you say, it’s our space.

[lotsoweiners]

Maybe for you but not for everyone. I’ve been driving for almost 30 years, consistently speed well above the speed limit, text and drive, and probably all of the other no nos that some people preach. Still never been in an accident or been pulled over and I pretty much am zoned out whenever I drive.

[TchoBeer]

this is concerning. Please do not text and drive.

[pavlov]

Indeed, driving is a social situation where other people’s bad decisions can affect me very negatively. Even if I drive carefully, it’s not enough because someone else out there is texting, confident that their sample size of one means nothing can happen. This dynamic doesn’t exist on a train.

[ericmay]

It's probably not useful to think about car-only infrastructure here in this context as an "either or" scenario or something to empathize with "if only we saw how it felt to be a car owner" for a couple of reasons but primarily because there isn't anything to empathize with since the vast majority of Americans either commute via car now or have in the past, or use a car for all of their daily activities.

> Do you feel the same way about your home? Your day's itinerary will inevitably have to see you return there, too.

This doesn't make any sense and misses the point that was made.

[raydev]

> home-like transportation infrastructure

The only thing I can do in my car is sing as loudly as I like. Otherwise I am forced to focus on ensuring myself and others stay out of mortal danger, which requires a lot more energy than lounging in my home.

[usrusr]

No, because I'm very much used to having a permanent place of residence. But I'd expect a nomadizing homeless to feel exactly as you described about permanent homes (not necessarily as in "would prefer to do without" but as in "there would be some parts of not having one that I'd really miss"). This was my entire point.

People who spent their life in vim don't miss the tiniest bit of whatever Jetbrains products have that isn't in vim, and likewise people who spent their computing life in IntelliJ and the like don't miss anything of what the vim crowd considers essential.