Driving Yourself vs Being Driven

Living in LA has always meant owning a car. I remember when the Gotham Gal was a senior in college and got a semester long internship in LA. Her first comment to me back then was “now I have to get a car.” She got one. It was a little Datsun two door. I can’t remember the make and model but she drove it back and forth to work and then sold it before coming back to the east coast to finish college.

I’m writing this in an Uber going from the west side of LA to downtown LA to see the Jasper Johns show at The Broad.

Last night we went out all over LA and took Ubers everywhere. The cars stayed home and we went out.

Ride-sharing has changed LA a lot. We have friends our age who live here, in Hollywood, and don’t own a car.

We went to dinner last night with friends who have a son who is a senior in high school and doesn’t drive and has no real interest in learning how. This young man grew up in LA!

We did the math and his parents save money because the cost of ride-sharing when he can’t take the bus to school is a lot less than the cost to lease and insure a car for him.

Right now, in LA, this is a fringe lifestyle. Most everyone out here owns a car and drives themselves.

But I can see and feel that things are changing. To start we take ride-sharing when we don’t want to drive or it’s more convenient to not drive. But over time, we are choosing to drive ourselves less and have someone drive us more.

The auto industry is right to be concerned about this. Change is afoot and it is going to impact our car purchasing behavior at some point.