so close, yet so far

back in April, Jen wrote a piece comparing her experience with the Co-operative Auto Network (CAN) with the new kid on the car-sharing block, Zip Car. now that i’m in the unfamiliar position of being carless and my hunt for a replacement set of wheels is going less well than i would like, i’ve been giving serious consideration to the idea of not buying a car at all and becoming a car-sharer (or “Zipster” if you fall for marketing lingo).
after yet another disappointing experience looking at used cars last night, i went to bed with the blissful idea of calling up CAN and signing up asap. i had calculated all the money i could save each month just in gas and insurance premiums and it made me slightly giddy. it was also a lovely idea to think that i could put the few thousand dollars sitting in my chequing account back into my high-interest ING accounts and have it continue to grow. it was quite liberating to consider a life without a car. i live in a central area with two big grocery stores, two major drug stores, two butchers, three small produce markets, a fish monger and zillions of restaurants all within a 10-minute walk of my apartment. i could easily, with some changes to my current m.o., convert my habits into that of a non-driver. even the biggest obstacle to my relinquishing my vehicle, my commute, could be solved with a one-hour shift in my start time — which my boss has already mentioned would be totally doable.
it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. i didn’t HAVE to buy a car! i could almost hear the chorus of angels singing.
then i read the CAN website:

yeah, see that fifth one? that’s where i’m screwed. even though i have 16 years of accident-free driving; even though i have had exactly ONE speeding ticket and ONE parking ticket in all of those 16 years; even though i will continue to argue that my accident wasn’t 100% my fault (despite what that stupid letter from ICBC says), that smoosh i had last week will impede me from being a responsible urbanite by becoming a car-sharer with CAN.
this brings me back to Jen’s post, in which she wisely stated “The biggest advantage to using Zipcar is the very low barrier to entry.”
proving that statement, Zip Car’s criteria is much more flexible:

at least they allow membership to someone who has had one “oops” in the last year and a half. not all of us are reckless drivers who get into accidents and there’s no “i ran into an SUV because i couldn’t see through it” clause to negate an at-fault incident.
in addition, the lack of a $500 buy-in definitely opens more doors for people to start using Zip Car as opposed to CAN, not that that would have stopped me.
part of me is tempted to at least make a plea to CAN and hope they take pity on me, but i don’t have a lot of faith that there’s a chance they will capitulate. if any of you CAN members reading want to make a case for me with them, feel free, though!