Five years with out a vehicle and the Jevons Paradox

This July marks five years with out an owned vehicle in my driveway!


My original plan was to stretch it out for a year and now here I am five years later.


Back in July 2005 I calculated I was spending $552 per month to lease, fuel, insure and maintain a vehicle. Had I kept the vehicle or exchanged it every four years I would have poured over $6500 per year in to vehicle or $33,120 over five years. And that was at 2005 gas prices !!!


In the last 12 months my good friend Conrad Schmidt introduced me to the Jevon's Paradox. Jevon's basically tells us that efficiency is a myth, that for all the efficient vehicles or contraptions we simply compensate by doing more in the same amount of time. If applied to my situation, I simply spent that $33,000 on other things much of which I didn't really need, thus keeping the wheels of capitalism rolling along. The fact that I leased a GM vehicle that was a piece of crap and to have GM fall in to so much debt is of course a mere coincidence.


However, with all academic theories there are always exceptions; I could have invested the money in my children's education, donated it to a worthy cause or other similar fashion. Reality is, it all vanished in to thin air and I cant remember what I spent it on. I did spend a lot of it on the Vancouver Auto Co-Op and still owe them about $600 thanks to their little read small print where a partner's bill gets automatically loaded on to mine if she refuses to pay. I do have some nice guitars :-)


I lost my job in June 2008 and have not been gainfully employed since. It's hard to find those $28/hour union jobs with healthcare benefits, strangely no one wants to give them up or get fired from them. For a while I lived the life of Riley on EI benefits and when that stopped I ended up on BC social assistance. Last week that stopped because I was earning slightly more from casually working as a background performer in the local tv and movie industry. I still had to borrow $100 from my mum to make rent.


Because along with not having a vehicle has come a lot more than being car free. When my x Heather Cameron moved up to Lasqueti Island I would have been perfectly happy to move up there with her. I was ready for the big jump to an island without power and telephones. It may have been dull in winter, but the opportunity to excise city life out of my system would have been perfect for me. At least that is how I think of it today.


When I look back at the last five years and ask myself "did I do the right thing by giving up my car"? I have to tell myself I DID do the right thing. But at the same time I have been called "irresponsible" and "lazy" and I have had to depend on a lot of people to get me about. My life has slowed down by giving up the use of a car, however from my point of view everyone with a car lives too fast, too much pointless running around that I simply don't do anymore. In the last 12 months particularly I have had a lot of time on my hands and have enjoyed most of it And I now I can't afford to get a car, even if I did want one.


For a short time I was with a person who told me I could live my life with out a car and I did and have continued to do so in her absence. For I am a healthier man, fitter and stronger and more in touch with the outdoors and all its moods - for that I am grateful. But it is too hard to be a one man show - with no one to support my good intentions, I just get looked at as being a rebel and a nutcase and I am afraid I might just be both. It is very difficult to be a part of society and then at the same time be apart from it.


So this summer I will get a job, save up some money and buy myself a car, probably a junker.  I have spent the last five years without a car, saved so much and yet all I have is the feeling I might have done the right thing but at the same time might have done a silly thing. I need to re-plug myself back in to the Matrix and re-join everyone else heading for the cliff. 


I did my bit now you should do yours.