Tag Archives: driving

When a vehicle is “an urban/suburban crossover”

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I recently read a review of the 2026 Nissan Kicks and one paragraph toward the end mentioned suburbs:

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It’s also stable and decently quiet at highway speeds. The engine has to work to pass, but it doesn’t require as much planning. At the end of the day, the Kicks is more of an urban/suburban crossover rather than a long-distance mile-eater, but it’s pretty competent at 60+ mph.

The comparison seems to be between a vehicle well suited for city and suburban contexts versus one that is meant for long-distance highway travel. But perhaps this line from earlier in the review describing the origins of the Kicks model helps explain:

In fact, it did exactly what Nissan intended it to do: offer an inexpensive, fuel-efficient, city-friendly crossover with a smidge of edgy style to lure younger buyers and first-time owners.

So some vehicles are city and suburban friendly? If a vehicle was described as “city-friendly,” I would tend to think of a smaller vehicle. It could fit into smaller parking spaces. It would be easier to navigate along smaller or crowded roadways. It might have particular styling that is cool.

I do not know what adding “suburban” to this description means. Is there a particular kind of vehicle in the suburbs? There is a lot of driving and parking in suburbs. Is this about space and how much driving is done? Or is this about styling? There might be “family” vehicles or predictable/bland/conformist styles (critiques often leveled on suburban aesthetics).

I will be on the lookout to see how the new Kicks fits in with the suburban vehicles, particularly all the other SUVs, already on the road.

See “regular people” along America’s older highways

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Drive the highways created before the interstates and one author who drove all of US 41 says you can see America:

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“You see a whole swath of the country that people on the coasts don’t,” says Clott, whose fascination with 41 dates back to his boyhood in Northwest Indiana…

Once Clott reached Miami, he’d taken a journey through a country he never would have seen on an interstate highway.

“You see regular people,” he says. “You don’t just see tourists. Even though you’re less than five minutes away from an interstate, you see a different America.”

The interstates have a life of their own. High speeds and limited impediments. Certain amenities available at rest areas and exits.

Many interstates trace paths from earlier highways that also sought to connect major population centers. These highways had sections of faster speeds and no stops but they also tended to go through communities and had stops there.

Is seeing “regular people” and “a different America” because of the different routes of these earlier highways or the different driving pace or the different attractions? One way to interpret the statements above is that these old highways are not the typical routes so drivers will see different things. Perhaps they see what is less glamorous or could see more day to day activity than tourist activity. As noted later in the article, US 41 will still help see Chicago but see different parts than you might via the interstate or common tourist routes.

Would these older highways be considered the back roads of the United States? In many communities, they are necessary daily roads for people and goods. They may not be scenic roadways in many places. They may not be meandering two lane roads. But they do offer an alternative to where the mass of drivers are.

(I have driven on US 41 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Florida. While it has its points that are more highway-like with higher speeds and fewer lights, there are also plenty of moments of going right through communities.)

Fatal car crashes on six Chicago area highways rank among the most in the country

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A report from a law firm looking at the highways with the most fatal accidents in the last three years puts six Chicago area roadways among the country’s top 100:

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Here are the highways numbered by their national rank and with the number of fatal accidents listed at the end:

4. I-94 in Cook County, 52

20. I-80 in Lake County, 33

41. I-57 in Cook County, 26

53. I-290 in Cook County, 24

89. I-294 in Cook County, 21

89. I-90 in Cook County, 21

Driving is one of the riskiest behaviors Americans regularly engage in given the number of accidents and deaths that occur each year. One estimate of 2024 fatal crashes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggested just under 40,000 people died last year.

But to get around metropolitan areas in the United States almost requires using highways. Driving is required in most places and people might be able to avoid faster roads for specific destinations or shorter trips. However, completing a lot of trips – whether suburb to suburb or in and out of major population centers – will involve highway travel.

There are already numerous efforts to make highway driving safer. Vehicle features. Signs. Public service announcements. Traffic enforcement. Are there other methods to try or is this more of a question of public will – are people willing to change driving habits and our public infrastructure in order to reduce the number of deaths?

In a country with so much driving, rising numbers of car repossessions are consequential

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If the number of car repossessions is headed up this year, this affects not just economic sectors but the many lives of people living in a country where having a car is necessary for daily life:

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The number of seized cars hit a 14-year high of 2.7 million in 2024, according to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), which processes around 90pc of all requests from lenders for repossessions.

Kevin Armstrong, editor of CU Repossession, an industry publication, expects the total will hit three million this year based on current trends, only just shy of the 3.2 million peak seen in 2009…

High levels of car repossessions are a threat to the economy in several ways. For lenders, repossessions usually mean losses given that only around one in three cars tied to bad loans are being recovered.

For borrowers who do get their cars repossessed, they are often losing their way to get to work and continue supporting themselves. Their credit rating will also get hammered.

Many Americans may like to drive but most need to drive. To get to work, school, the grocery store, to have goods delivered to their residence requires driving. In many places, there are no alternatives. To pursue the goals Americans want to pursue – homeownership, pursue success, etc. – requires driving.

Driving has always had costs. A single commuting trip may not seem to cost much but put together the costs of maintenance, insurance, fuel, and the indirect costs of pollution and time used (among others) and the price of driving adds up. For those with less money or fewer resources, driving can consume a higher percentage of a budget but the rest of the budget requires costly driving.

Given this, why not promote policies that help more Americans secure reliable and affordable vehicles? Those with more resources could buy vehicles with more features but why not help average residents have a car? Because Americans value homeownership, policies over the decades have helped make this opportunity available to more people. Thirty year loans. Government backup on mortgages. Programs intended to help people find housing. Could a similar thing be done for vehicles?

No Kings protests throughout the Chicago suburbs

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In the last decade or so, protests in the United States do not just take place in big cities. For example, the No Kings website listed over 30 gatherings in the suburbs of Chicago:

The website listed 7 sites in Chicago itself, including the primary site in the Loop which drew over 100,000 people. But people in the region had plenty of options where they could join others. Some of these locations are close to the city while others are on the edges of the metropolitan region. From what I can see on the map, most residents were with 10-15 miles of a protest site and many could access multiple options.

Three related thoughts:

  1. The portrayals of suburbia in the postwar era tended to emphasize its conservative or Republican bent. This may have been true in numerous places but is harder to sustain these days with suburbs closer to cities often leaning Democratic and suburbs on the suburban edges often leaning Republican.
  2. It would be interesting to look more closely at these suburban protest sites. Where can people gather in the suburbs for political purposes? Suburban downtowns or city halls? Shopping areas or busy streets? Public parks and public spaces? Which places helped increase the solidarity among those gathered and which ones helped them reach others who did not come?
  3. The suburbs are built around driving. How many protesters around the Chicago region drove, parked, and then protested? Protests tend to happen on foot but people have to be able to get there and options are limited in some suburban settings.

Why so little resistance to license plate cameras across suburbia? Two possible theories

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In the last few years, license plate cameras have popped up across suburbs near where I live. It took me a while to recognize what they were, but now that I know what they look like, I see they are in many locations. Why has there been little resistance to the presence of these cameras? I find it hard to imagine suburbanites would have liked this happening several decades ago. Why so little discussion or opposition today?

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Two conjectures (with no evidence for either outside of my own knowledge of suburbs):

  1. Fear of crime. They see and hear many stories about crime and the role of cars in those crimes. If license plate cameras can track people who commit crimes and do so quickly, that may be a small price to pay to keep their suburban community safe. (See also use of doorbell cameras in efforts to combat suburban crime.)
  2. The surveillance state is already here, whether there are license plate cameras or not. People can be tracked by their phones, their credit card activity, their social media use, through cameras mounted inside and outside buildings. Why fight a system that is already in place and to which we already assented (by using smartphones, social media, etc.)? (See the term “surveillance capitalism” first used in 2014.)

There could be other factors at play. Companies and organizations have pushed these cameras as opportunities and solutions? People haven’t noticed them or don’t know what they are? This is just part of technological and social change?

I will be looking to see if there is more public discussion of their presence and how much information is available about how often they are used.

Once again, my pathway was blocked by a flock of turkeys

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On a recent trip to a nearby state, I was driving on a country two lane road near dusk. The road had some small hills and I was going about 55 mph. In the distance I could see something in the roadway. It looked short. It did not cast much of a shadow. What was it? I slowed down as I neared and then I recognized the unmistakable shape: turkeys!

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This is not my first encounter with turkeys while moving a wheeled vehicle. The first time occurred years ago while bicycling through a local forest preserve in the late afternoon.

The turkeys acted similarly in both situations: they stood there, not making much noise, blocking the way forward. On this road, I honked several times as I neared a stop. The turkeys finally looked up and then scampered off the asphalt and into the tall grass next to the road.

I do not know how much experience wild turkeys have with cars. They did not seem particularly interested in the presence of a vehicle. They were doing their thing and I until I was very near and made some noise, they did not look like they wanted to move.

I am now curious when I will again encounter turkeys in my way. I do not have many vehicle options left; I rarely, if ever, use a scooter or skateboard. I do not skate. Where will I next nearly run into a flock of turkeys?

Does that autonomous semi also make stops at Buc-ee’s?

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Drivers traveling at night between certain American cities have some new company on the roads:

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Autonomous trucks are now driving highways at night, hauling food and dairy between Dallas and Houston…

Aurora’s trucks do have a human behind the wheel, just in case. So do autonomous Kodiak trucks operating on highways from Dallas to Atlanta, Houston and Oklahoma City—some of which drive at night…

Aurora is now testing the system between Phoenix and Fort Worth. The journey takes around 16 hours and typically requires two drivers to complete, with a stop for a handover. Federal law allows long-haul truckers to drive a maximum of 11 hours in a 14-hour period, followed by a mandatory 10-hour break.

There are a lot of potential consequences of this. One I have not seen discussed is what happens to the road trip establishments and culture in the United States. Drive any highway in the United States and they tend to be lined with certain establishments: gas, food, and lodging options, plus tourist sites. Drivers count on these and communities, businesses, and employees benefit from the revenue.

If more vehicles are autonomous, do these roadside features disappear? Or do the people still riding in the vehicles – they may or may not be in trucks, would likely still be in passenger vehicles – still need or want to stop? What if being in a vehicle becomes even more about only what is inside the vehicle; a person enters at the start of the journey, does what they want in the moving room, and only exits at the end? Or perhaps the autonomous vehicle will have to stop to recharge batteries?

Chicago has at least 250 traffic circles

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Chicago’s road grid is interrupted at least 250 times for traffic circles:

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The Chicago Department of Transportation reports it’s aware of 250 that appear on landscaping lists. The department is currently not clear on the likely sizable number of circles that require no landscaping.

One of the best features of traffic circles is that they force drivers to slow down and pay attention. They cannot blow through a stop sign or traffic light or unmarked intersection. If they can successfully yield and do not need to stop, they can keep their momentum going at a more reasonable speed.

This is an interesting way to count road features: those that need landscaping need to be on some list so that maintenance can be done. Those without the landscaping need would have to be on some other list to be counted. Is this the sort of task AI could do in the future with access to websites with satellite imagery?

Is mass transit best pitched to Americans through comparisons to places where it is plentiful and works well?

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Many Americans and American communities have resisted using mass transit or devoting more money to mass transit. In reading a recent pitch for Americans to prioritize it more, I was struck by one line of argument: describing places where it worked well. Might this help convince people?

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The discussions of the possibilities and perils of mass transit in the Chicago region included these comparisons. First, a contrast to another American city:

One of my stepdaughters recently relocated to Atlanta and returns home with a greater appreciation of our transit system.

A sprawling region like Atlanta can highlight how places with more transit in place – like Chicago – are appealing.

Second, comparisons to other major cities shows how far Chicago and other American cities can go:

“My wife had to go to Japan for work earlier this year. She was blown away that the train was 20 seconds behind schedule and how effusively the people apologized for it. I’m like 20 seconds?” Buckner said.

On vacations, Buckner subjects family to his transit nerdiness. Istanbul’s train terminal has a library inside. London has one of the best in the world. Beijing’s rapid transit is top-tier. Paris’ is fantastic. Seamless, quick and clean.

There are all world-class cities, like Chicago. If have efficient and elegant mass transit, why shouldn’t Chicago?

One issue might be whether a sufficient number of Chicagoans have been to these places. How many have gone to Atlanta, driven around the metro area, and found the traffic and experience worse than getting around Chicago? Or gone to Beijing or Paris and used the mass transit.

Another issue is that these comparisons may resonate and still pale to the issues of mass transit in Chicagoland or the liking people have for driving.

Overall, it appears to be hard to convince Americans to move away from driving. Whether they deeply like it or not, it is often the default after decades of policy decisions, cultural narratives, and choices made by numerous actors,