She can’t really stop me, but I do owe her the respect of discussing the issue with her after she gave me two free years of room and board while I was in community college. Currently I live in San Francisco and commute by public transportation, which works just fine for me, but I likely can’t afford to stay in the city during my senior year of university. I’m looking at living far enough away from school and work that relying on transit may not be practical. So I want to buy a small motorcycle. I’m looking at the low cost of buying something that isn’t all that glamorous, the low fuel use of a lightweight bike with a modest engine (Important to me both financially and environmentally), and the relatively easy availability of bike/scooter only parking in places I frequent. Basically, I can own and operate it cheaper than I could a car (Very important, naturally) and it’s better for the environment. I also only have an M1 license, meaning I can legally operate motorcycles or mopeds (I’d love to buy a Vespa, but it isn’t really safe on the freeways around here), but not cars. Grandma is hardcore against the idea. Like, it’s seriously making her pretty angry. She thinks I’m going to buy some crotch rocket and get killed, and I need to think of some way of impressing on her that this isn’t some juvenile freedom fantasy like she’s envisioning. You guys are parents. How would you think I should go about setting this sort of concern at ease?
Don’t tell your grandmother you’re going to buy a motorcycle.
/thread
That ship has already sailed.
Okay, buy the motorcycle but tell your grandma you didn’t.
Listen to your grandmother.
You said you are going to inherit money. So just borrow money and pay the loans off when probate is over.
I’d talk with grandma about other options for getting you housing and transportation while you finish your degree. In my prior career, I saw SO MANY blameless cyclists who were maimed and worse in accidents.
It really doesn’t matter if you’re right when you’re creamed by a car, truck, wall or any number of things that can temporarily or permanently derail your life. Motorcycles are really too dangerous, especially in high traffic areas like SF. Neither of my kids and none of my nieces or nephews nor any sibs or inlaws have motorcycles–just too dangerous, even if YOU are an exceptionally great driver–too many poor drivers with heavy vehicles.
My D has a friend whose dad was a brilliant anesthesiologist. He was riding a bicycle and struck by a truck. He now has the mental functioning of a 3rd grader or younger. Yes, bikes and cycles are different but both have MUCH lower mass than other vehicles which can hit you.
@stugace I neither want to outright lie about what I’m doing, nor have the ability to keep such a major thing as how I get around a secret.
@dstark There isn’t as much money as we thought, thanks to Other Grandma’s debts. It’s enough to take care of my student loans, but it’s not enough that I can afford to borrow against it to stay in San Francisco.
@Hlmom Urban cycling is something I’ve done a lot of. Still do, just not as much as when I was in San Jose and Cupertino. I’ve had my share of close calls, but it’s just something you get used to, I guess. Then again, I’m horrible with a car. It’s the whole being caged off from traffic part, which is ironically what protects you in a crash. My ADHD isn’t really an issue with driving when I’m exposed on two wheels, but put me in an insulated box? I just can’t get a handle of operating a vehicle when I have that separation from the outside, or when I use a steering wheel instead of countersteering and leaning into turns. It’s just… wrong, and it’s largely why I have a motorcycle license but not a car license.
Then again, I’ve heard it’s very common for people with Aspergers to have trouble with driving. If so, that’s me, and I just plain don’t have the same trouble on two wheels. I had all the trouble with driving school, and never did get a license. I got through the CHP motorcycle class without any problems at all.
I used to work at the Chevron Gas Station on the intersection of 19th Ave and Junipero Serra Blvd.
I could walk to SF State from there.
Where are you going to live? Where are you going to work?
“Exposed on two wheels” – that is the part that concerns your grandmother. And rightly so. It is a fallacy to think you are safer and more capable on a motorcycle. But young men have to learn this the hard way…
@dstark I was considering either going back to San Jose (I want to go to San Jose State for graduate school, and San Jose is my hometown where I have friends) or moving out to the East Bay (likely around Hayward or Union City or Fremont), while still working in San Francisco. If I go back to San Jose, it’s still relatively expensive, and Caltrain takes me to the wrong side of the city, so I have to take Muni and VTA (and there are a lot of places VTA just won’t get you to at night or on weekends). If I go to the East Bay, there’s BART, but taking BART under the bay is pretty expensive, and that’s before paying for Muni and AC Transit.
You do go to SF State, right?
@dstark Yep.
@intparent It’s not that it’s actually safer, it’s that I feel much more confident and less stressed. It’s also a lot easier for me to focus on the road if I’m exposed (I tend to space out very easily inside a car, but not on a bicycle or motorcycle).
And you want to commute from San Jose? Or Fremont?
@dstark A lot of my classmates do it. Some of them live even further out than that. In one of my urban planning classes, we went over the statistics for who commutes to SFSU from where, and something like 14% of students and staff commute from Contra Costa County and 17% from Alameda County, and somewhere around 4% from Santa Clara County. It’s doable, if not easy.
If you are going to quote statistics, per mile traveled you are 26 times more likely to die on a motorcycle than in a car.
Commuting from San Jose is nuts.
Student housing is tight at SF State isn’t it?
How much are you going to pay in rent in Fremont or San Jose?
Why would somebody commute from San Jose to go to San Francisco State when San Jose State exists and is a pretty good school?
Cal State Hayward also exists.
Why wouldn’t you rent a room near SF State?
Contra Costa County and Alameda are closer to SF State than San Jose.
@intparent By that same metric, riding in a car is 67 times more likely to result in your death than riding in a bus, and 17 times more likely to result in your death than riding in a train. Should we not drive cars because it is far too risky?
People do it, though.
Extremely. Have it now, and they won’t even let me apply for another year.
Still shopping around for that.
San Francisco State has an undergraduate urban planning program, while San Jose State does not (The idea of an undergraduate urban planning program is a pretty new one, so no surprise there. My program is only a few years old.). I also wanted to live in a more public transportation oriented city (Still do, but the rent off campus probably isn’t affordable).
I’m already a junior in a program that’s quite uncommon at the undergraduate level.
Money.
San Jose is where my friends live, though.