Flightless Bird: Cars

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier begins to notice how much America loves cars. Why do 92% of American households have at least one vehicle? That's so many cars! The country's love of cars has transformed it, with not only roads - but with millions and millions of parking spaces. David becomes obsessed with all of America’s parked cars, sitting down with Henry Grabar - a staff writer at Slate who writes about cars and transportation, urban policy, and housing. Grabar has also been thinking a lot about how much of America is taken up by cars. Why in America, on average, are there up to 6 parking spaces for every car? Why does NY make more money off parking tickets than parking fees? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm David Ferrier in New Zealand accidentally marooned in America and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
0:07.0	Back in episode 52 I went with Monica to the DMV to get my driver's license.
0:12.0	It was a harrowing episode, but I emerged victorious.
0:16.0	You fast! I'm so proud of you. That was very scary.
0:21.0	It's taken me over a year to do this. I put it off so many times. We had that huge
0:25.2	failure last time and I have you to thank for that because you've been here every
0:29.2	step of the way through the failures and the passes.
0:32.0	I can't believe it. the failures and the passes. With my California driver's license in hand, I got my first car, joining 278 million Americans
0:41.8	who drive around this giant melting part of a country.
0:45.0	I joined 278,065,127 Americans, to be precise.
0:52.0	Now thanks to me, it was 278,65,728. And looking at
0:58.8	driving statistics in America I discovered I was part of a trend, an upward trend in car ownership of 3.6% since 2017.
1:09.1	Why is car ownership still growing I wondered?
1:12.0	Why do 92% of American households have at least one car? Why do Americans love their cars? I started to realize it when I got my car. I'd lived in America for about a year and a half without one and I'd gotten used to that life. But once I had a car I began
1:28.6	having a completely different experience of America. I realized that this country is built for the car.
1:34.9	It's not meant to be walked or cycles. This is a country built to be driven. Or as
1:40.8	Riana said,
1:41.9	Now shut up and drive. Or as Riana said, She wasn't subtle and subtle and
1:44.0	She wasn't subtle and subtle and subtle
1:50.0	and spring scene wasn't all that subtle either.
1:53.0	Run from cages on highway line,
1:57.0	your wheel feel rejected for several hours.
	...

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