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Through the windshield of each car, you can see the wooden faces in the driver's seat, with a loveless look; occasionally a person's face is piled up with a smirk, which must be chatting on WeChat.
Why isn't driving happy? Isn't it fun to drive? What about good driving pleasure?
▍ Old drivers began to repel driving
Old Fu is now going out, riding a bicycle nearby, brushing a shared electric bicycle in the distance, and if the weather is bad or the road is too far, call a ride-hailing car.
Is it fun to drive around the city? Blocking the car is like falling into a mudflat, unhappy; the car in front of it is as slow and slow as the soul to block the way, unhappy; the car in the next lane is hooligan to change the line and squeeze over, unhappy; turn around and can't find a place to park, unhappy.
▲Traffic flow during rush hour (According to Xinhua News Agency)
The old driver who has been driving for more than 20 years is now psychologically repulsive to driving.
Back more than 20 years ago, Lao Fu was still a hairy boy who went to college. Every dusk during the holiday, this young man would appear at the door of a certain unit on time, silently looking in one direction, looking through the autumn water, just to see the figure of the tossing and turning and sleeping.
A blue figure will often return to the unit at the end of the work hours, and the young man looks forward to a day and just wants to stay with it for a while, even if it is only for a few minutes.
It was a blue Chongqing Isuzu double-row light truck, the unit bus, and the driver was one of my elders. After work, I would pestered him to take me out to touch the car, silently saying fast, slow, fast in my mouth, and at the moment when my left foot released the clutch, the insignificant strength of the human being and a huge mechanical tentative connection, the right foot throttle was pressed, the engine's torque roared out of the wheels, the was high, we were one, we ran forward.
I don't quite understand the books written by McLuhan, the god of communication, but I understand one of the sentences: the tools and technologies created by human beings are all extensions of the human body. The wheels of the car are an extension of the human legs and feet, and with the help of this new leg and foot, humans have achieved unprecedented running speed.
The most primitive and basic meaning of the "driving pleasure" that people talk about is the sense of freedom brought about by speed. People drive on the car, run fast, can also run farther, the scope of activity suddenly expanded, 100 years ago, farmers in the American countryside have bought Ford cheap Model T cars, the original week may not necessarily go into the city, after buying a car, when you want to go to drive.
At that time, a newspaper reporter interviewed a peasant woman, saying that your family did not even buy a bath, why do you have to buy a car first to borrow money? The peasant woman replied wittily: "Because I cannot go into town in the bathtub."
100 years ago, the Ford Model T opened up a new way of life for American farmers
The penetration rate of cars in the United States is extremely high, and the average number of cars per household is more than two. But the current situation is that the most families own cars are those sparsely populated agricultural states, Montana, Wyoming and the like, on average, there is more than one car on the head of the person; and in bustling metropolises such as Washington and New York, the proportion of households owning cars is very low, 38% of households in Washington have no cars, and 55% of families in New York do not have cars.
Why don't people in big cities want to drive? The most important reason is first, congestion, second, serious shortage of parking spaces, and third, high cost of car maintenance. There are reports that in Midtown Manhattan, the busiest city in New York, the average speed of a car is less than 10 kilometers per hour, which is a little faster than a person walking.
It is better not to drive freely than not to drive.
Speaking of which, the average number of cars per household in Beijing (0.72) is more than that of New York, Tokyo and Paris, and I don't know what it is like for the people of the capital to drive?
The provincial capital city where Lao Fu is located is a weak second-tier, and the average speed of traffic peaks can still rank in the top 10 in the country's large cities, which is good, but Lao Fu's desire to drive is getting weaker and weaker, and even has the intention of rejection from time to time.
▍ Driving pleasure Qi Gen Er broke off
Time never goes back, and the past can only be recalled.
When Lao Fu bought his first car more than a decade ago, there was little traffic jam on the street, and when he came home from work, the parking lot downstairs was sparse.
Now go out for a walk at night, both sides of the road outside the community are densely parked cars, and the parking spaces on the non-motorized road are full, not to mention, they also spread to the motorized road, occupying a motorized road.
The most basic pleasure that the car brings to people is to enjoy the freedom of high-speed movement, and now the congestion, barbaric driving, parking difficulties, and expensive parking in the city have deprived this freedom.
The car can't run, the free driving can't be guaranteed, the driving pleasure is cut off, and the higher level of fun can't be talked about.
As long as the road conditions are good, the fun of free movement is what every car can give us, no matter how high or low, no matter what model. At that time, the old Fu drove a light truck, a micro-face, a pickup truck, as long as it was a motor vehicle, he wanted to drive, as long as the car started, his heart was beautiful.
On top of this fun, there is also the so-called "people-car integration" fun, that is, the "sportiness" and "handling" advertised by many car brands. To use the "theory of extension" to explain, that is, the car, as another leg of a person, is very smooth to use, just like a part of its own body.
▲ The car has become another leg of the person
As the old saying goes, it's the mule that's the horse, pulled out for a walk. Driving in a city is like a mule and a horse pulling in a circle, and even a donkey may perform better than a horse. Now the average speed of the car can reach 30 kilometers per hour during the peak traffic period, which is already a very good city, and the average speed of most cities is only more than 20 kilometers per hour, which is similar to the speed of the bicycle, what performance, control is pulling.
On the next level, it is "control fun". If you also understand it from the "theory of extension", it is like when your legs and feet dance, it is at most "friction, friction, the pace of the devil", but people can jump ballet on tiptoe, and the difficulty of playing is not a level at all. Some sports cars and racing cars are powerful and difficult to control, but as long as the technology is in place, they can play very well - after all, this driving pleasure is a sense of conquest, like driving a fierce horse.
You can't run, the simplest fun is gone, and "people and cars are one" and "control fun" are even more empty talk.
▍What environment to choose what car
In the mature automobile society of the West, the desire of young people to drive is getting lower and lower.
In a survey conducted by the Japan Association of Automobile Manufacturers, more than 800 of the 1,000 young Japanese under the age of 30 did not have a car, and 54% of young people said they did not want to buy a car or did not want to buy a car.
A study by the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom showed that the driving license ownership rate of Britons aged 20 to 30 years old is 30% less than 10 years ago.
A study by the University of Michigan showed that in 1983, the percentage of 18-year-old U.S. residents who owned a driver's license was 80 percent, and by 2018 it had dropped to 61 percent.
▲ Western young people's interest in driving is declining
Why are young people losing interest in cars?
Young people in Western developed countries are born with cars, cars are as ordinary as the tables and chairs benches at home, there is nothing new; after 70 and 80, they also take getting a driver's license as a sign of "adulthood" and "freedom", and now the newly adult post-00s have watched traffic jams, rising oil prices, high car maintenance costs since childhood, and the goodwill for cars has greatly declined.
Not to mention the young people in the West, middle-aged people like Lao Fu who were obsessed with cars are also tired, the passion of the early years has long faded, and the reality has become more and more embarrassing, making it difficult for people to mention the spirit of driving.
Old Fu caught up with the good time of China's economic development, after years of starvation of cars, the real private car has passed the year; the mood of driving in that year was extremely cheerful, but after only a dozen years, the city was crowded by cars, holiday highways can become parking lots, and now going out to drive is a little worried.
People gradually lose interest in driving, simply because it is no longer a beautiful experience, but more often it becomes a burden, a burden.
Driving is a pleasure gone by, and now driving is just to get from point A to point B, not because there is a road between point A and point B. As long as there is not too much trouble when driving out, it is the highest pursuit, what driving pleasure, what power, suspension, steering feel, but to give new words to force the worry.
The so-called driving pleasure only exists in car advertising and media evaluation, driving in the current traffic environment, the most important thing is to stabilize the mood and be careful to prevent road rage attacks.
▲Street view in the car advertisement picture
Since the environment for using a car is already like this, we need to reflect on what kind of car to buy. Do you want to listen to the temptation of car manufacturers and the media, open your mouth and shut your mouth to perform the control?
You see nearly half of the Japanese cars are narrow and tall "light automatic cars", what suspension and steering are you going to talk about with this kind of car, isn't it funny? The best selling car in the United States is a full-size pickup truck, what is the handling of this car? European cars can talk about driving pleasure, but if you look at the streets of European cities, cars are popular only because they are not good at parking.
▲Japan's "light automatic car" is the main model
There are no years to look back on, there are more and more cars, but the era of "pure driving pleasure" is gone, and you can only relive it by the occasional chance.
"Driving pleasure" has become a thing of the past, and now choosing a car is simpler, at least you don't have to worry about performance, handling and so on. I know that some people are obsessed with the joy of driving, some people are talkative for the sake of "professionalism", and some people are obsessed with elegance and indulgence - no matter how others promote the joy of driving, you have your own mind, you should give yourself a chance to figure out: why you buy a car, why you drive, and why you are bothered about driving.