I drive rarely, sometimes going a year without. My batteries have lasted longer than their rated life. I don’t see how desuetude makes them go bad faster. On the other hand, I had new tires installed Monday and the shop ‘helpfully’ recommended another $450 of maintenance, including a new battery. It started up fine after having sat for a couple of months; the hydrometer measures acceptable specific gravity; I know how to replace my own battery.
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If you drive your vehicle every once in a while to get it fully charged it should last longer then if you drive it every day. At the height of Covid during this past winter I’d make sure each car was driven at least once a week. No battery issues.
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At the height of the lockdown stage, some people were under the mistaken impression that they weren’t allowed to drive their car. While I only drove once or twice each week, I made sure that I drove for at least 10 miles after each time that I started the engine.
The local supermarket is only 3 miles away via the direct route, but by taking a roundabout route on the way there and the way home, I was able to give my vehicle some well-needed “exercise”, and in the process I got to see something other than the interior walls of my house.
We’ve had this conversation before but in Minnesota nothing mistaken at all. Not allowed to leave home except for necessities. At least at the start. Hadn’t been treated like that since first grade or boot camp where we weren’t allowed to walk 50 yards to the Coke machine. Barry Meguire (sp) comes to mind. Used to drive my dad nuts when I played it.
One car though did all the necessity traveling though and the other one just sat which is why I’d put the charger on every 3-4 weeks.
Never paid attention to that, I would take our cars for a long cruise every couple of weeks or so, sure I wear a mask in stores, sanitize after using a touchpad for credit card carry my own pen, use the sanitizing wipes provided for carts if they are not pre sanitized, and sure I got 2 rounds of moderna but figured driving my cars to keep them from rusting rotors and dead batteries was fine, but could not see the logic in not going for a drive.
My vehicle sit for months at a time and the batteries last for ten years. Before I drive one of these vehicles I connect a battery charger for two hours. A gasoline engine makes for a wasteful battery charger.
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I took the long way back from work a lot, taking a particular loop that took me back to the same road but 5mi in the other direction. Seemed to help keep the battery charged and give me a chance to unwind. But during lockdown you were more likely to be stopped going to Ocean Shores or elsewhere on the coast than driving around town.
I was thinking of Barry Sadler, after eight weeks at number one, being played every 10 minutes on the AM rock stations, it drove me nuts.
Ergo, one was allowed to leave the house. At the height of the lockdown, I drove only to the supermarket and/or Costco once or twice a week, and to a pharmacy if necessary. If I had been pulled-over for the supposed offense of driving my car, I guess that I could have “proven” that I was leaving the house for “necessities” by showing my shopping list or by phoning the pharmacy on my cellphone to prove that I had an Rx ready for pickup.
I can’t speak to what took place in other states, but in NJ there was no news coverage of anybody being arrested for driving to the supermarket or to a pharmacy. One week, I even purposely drove to a Costco that is about 30 miles away, rather than going to my local Costco, simply because I wanted to drive past really nice scenery. Nobody stopped me.
Who’s to say what a necessity is? The police are going to follow everyone when they leave their house and make sure they are only driving for necessities?
It’s like here in NH at the MA/NH border. People from MA are not suppose to buy products here in NH and then bring them back to MA for use without paying MA tax. But they do. That’s why stores on the NH border do very well…no sales tax here in NH. The MA police suppose to check every MA license plate that crosses the border to see if they bought anything in NH.
Similarly, because NJ doesn’t charge sales tax on clothing and shoes, thousands of NYers flock to NJ each week for purchases of those items. In theory the NY cops are looking for that type of purchase, but they never do.
Like I said before so no point in whipping a dead horse, but it was not the fact that people “were” stopped while driving, it was the fact that they “could be” stopped while driving. That was the chilling part. Just last week though a woman was arrested in Iowa after fleeing there because she dared to open her bar in Minnesota.
Now people are living in fear of “could be” situations, with no tangible evidence of that situation actually taking place?
Anyway, let me relate a situation that is somewhat relevant. In 1999, my part of NJ was hit very hard by Hurricane Floyd, and the flooding was extensive. The governor ordered that nobody except police, fire, and medical personnel were to be on the road for at least 24 hours in several counties–including the one where I reside. I found out about his order while I was preparing to drive to work–and the school where I worked was located in a county that was not covered by this “do not drive” order, so I would have been subject to arrest if I drove through my county in order to get to the other county where driving as still permitted.
So, I phoned my department head, and reported that I would be unable to come to work that day. She had heard the relevant info on the radio, and she understood that I wouldn’t be able to work that day because of the county in which I reside.
As it turned out, only 3 or 4 teachers in my school–and no more than 20 in the entire school district–lived in the “no drive” counties. The Board of Ed decided to dock us one day’s pay, despite the lack of logic on their part. The gutless teachers’ union refused to come to our aid.
So, at the next Board of Ed meeting, when it came time for public comments, I rose, displayed the Loyalty Oath which I (and all of the other teachers) had signed prior to being hired, and asked, “Why do you ladies and gentlemen expect me to violate an oath in which I swore that I would uphold both the US Constitution and the NJ Constitution, and that I would obey all laws and governmental orders?”
By a unanimous vote, they reversed their prior bone-headed decision, and I and all of the other personnel whom they tried to screw were reimbursed that one day’s pay.
So, I really do respect and obey governmental orders and statutes, but–at least in my state–there was no order or statute prohibiting people from driving their car in order to buy necessities during the lockdown.
She also carelessly risked spreading disease in order to better her business finances.
That’s a bit less innocent than making a run to the grocery store.
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That type of action lacks any suggestion of innocence, and smacks of greed more than anything else. And, fleeing to a different state in an attempt to avoid prosecution doesn’t make her seem unaware of the gravity of her actions.
Not to get off track but of course what you miss is that it is the customer’s choice to partake or not. Lots of businesses are open that I don’t go into but it’s my choice to go or not.
The law in NM is that we’re supposed to report untaxed sales to the state - it’s on the income tax form - and pay then. I thought this was the usual case. Of course no one gets prosecuted. That’s why Amazon, eBay, and other Internet vendors now collect sales tax. I get a break because they collect state sales tax only, not county and city. I’ve never heard of cops policing borders to collect it.
North Carolina used (still does?) to have no tax on tobacco. People would smuggle whole truck loads of cigs to high-tax states, particularly NY. They’d get busted occasionally.
I have a vague memory of a movie about tire smugglers, apparently to avoid taxes.
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Exactly…So that law that MN passed saying only necessary trips is one of those laws. It’ll never be enforced.
Like I said last time this came up, Minnesota has a form to fill out to report and pay sales tax from certain purchases in other states. As one person from Revenue told me though she thought only four people in the department even knew the form existed and couldn’t remember the last time someone requested one. (Now that was a few years ago.) Who said ignorance of the law is no excuse? I’m not ignorant of the law, I just ignore it.
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