Cars and brains

Zobenigo has not owned a car for decades. When he is in Europe, he lives downtown -- walking distance to most places -- in cities with reliable and convenient public transport. A car -- parking! -- would only be a nuisance here. And in Asia he rides a bike -- a silly squeaky little thing -- a Mr Bean mobile, good for zipping over small distances in the awful traffic of Asia and easy to park anywhere. (And dirt cheap, too). When Zobenigo needs a car, he rents one. As he needs it infrequently, the annualized cost of rental comes out to far below what the costs of maintenance and parking his own car would be. In Zobenigo's case, at least, the economic calculation works clearly against owning a car.

Zobenigo tried to explain it to his friend when she mooted the idea of buying a car herself. But perhaps she has not understood it: she went ahead and bought one. Fine, Zobenigo supposes, there are economic calculations in which owning a car makes sense. But the friend went one step further on the road to middle-class normalcy: she financed her car; and, as it was a used one, she financed it at twenty percent interest. She could have used her own money to buy the car -- there is enough in the bank where she gets 0.25% annually in interest -- taxable -- but she chose to take the car loan instead. Why? One assumes that the seller explained to her the small cost of the loan -- it's only 50 euros a month. But if it is only 50 euros a month, then why does the seller not pay her instead? It's only 50 euros a month!

I happened to be sitting in a cafe in a crowded airport when I thought these thoughts to myself. I looked around me and realized that everyone there owned a car; and nearly everyone carried a car loan.

Later that day I tried to go to a concert; it was at seven and I set out at six. Since I do not usually go out at that time of day, the expedition was a revelation: the traffic jam was fantastic: the most traffic-snarled city of Asia, Bangkok, cannot do better. In thirty minutes my bus covered about five hundred meters. I got out and walked back: the heck with the concert, I'll read a book instead. As I walked, I passed tens of millions of people sitting in their cars, revving their engines and cursing.

Why don't they park somewhere and go into a cafe for a cup of coffee and wait out the traffic jam? I asked myself. Surely, in this traffic it will take them two hours to get to where they are going; but if they simply wait, by eight the roads will be wide open again and the driving will be smooth and quick. Thus, the total time taken to get there will be about the same -- and the experience will be more pleasurable.

Why don't they do it? For the same reason, I suppose, for which they all carry that car loan: brains, it would appear, is not the species strongest suit.