The Futures of Cars?
I was persuaded to take her indoors shopping for a small piece of perspex. This entailed a trip to Wickes. 'Nothing wrong with such a request', I hear you say but hang on a mo, I ain't at home for one thing as I'm staying in a place not to far from the center of London, in fact quite close to Heathrow Airport and because of this I had no idea where Wickes was. I thought I should play along as my idea that shopping shouldn't be carried out with cars might well be a mistaken one - yeah, right.
Horrendous. Millions of cars all over the place, roads leading here there and every where. Just dreadful but at least we found the bloody place. As luck would have it the 'small' piece of perpex fitted in the car even though it was around 8 foot long: one end over the windscreen held solidly in a shelf and the cavernous boot the rest: thank God it was a Doblo is all I can say. Oh, I should mention the rain as I got both feet absolutely soaking wet opening the tailgate.
On the way back we were immediately stuck in traffic where I had time to reflect on the 'Future of Cars' as I see it. This future also encompasses highstreet shops as I see not so rosy a future for them too.
Cars are not going to be for casual shopping eventually. This will either be imposed or will just not be viable or it will not be a reasonable thing to do. Many highstreet shops will no longer be there unless a town has many pedestrians. Why do I say this? It is grossly unfair even now for people to shop using their cars in such places as London and the surrounding areas as I just witnessed. I say unfair because this was close to the time when people were trying to get home so they should have been given priority. Shoppers can easily shop online and get stuff delivered so they do not need to be on the road. I really felt out of place and guilty for helping to clog the roads up when it wasn't at all necessary.
The future for cars? Eventually they will be automated entirely which will go some way to reducing congestion but as far as casual shopping trips are concerned this will die a death I reckon or will greatly reduce owing to shoppers shopping online. Highstreet shops will close in droves even more than now and depos will feed the public through online shopping only.
Summary
Use your car for essential reasons or even for recreational purposes but stop using them for shopping. Shop online and get the damn stuff delivered.
F*** shopping!