While driving to work this morning, I saw a gentleman riding his bike to the tennis court. I could see he had at least three identical tennis racquets stuffed in his backpack. I haven’t played tennis since I was a kid, but I remembered people would break strings quite often, and serious players always had at least one identical racquet as backup. If you broke a string, play was briefly stopped; the racquets were changed out and play continued. There was no big scene, no one was shocked, and no one really complained.
While driving to work this morning, I saw a gentleman riding his bike to the tennis court. I could see he had at least three identical tennis racquets stuffed in his backpack. I haven’t played tennis since I was a kid, but I remembered people would break strings quite often, and serious players always had at least one identical racquet as backup. If you broke a string, play was briefly stopped; the racquets were changed out and play continued. There was no big scene, no one was shocked, and no one really complained.
My best guess is that your average tennis racquet is composed of less than twenty pieces. It has no moving parts and is only expected to do one thing. Your average car, on the other hand, is built from over 38,000 individual components and is expected to do several different jobs in all sorts of conditions. Yet people are shocked, upset, disappointed, even disgusted when their vehicle breaks. We expect something as simple as a tennis racquet to fail, but we feel something as complex as a vehicle should never break.
I don’t think drivers really have an appreciation for the miracle of science and engineering that is every vehicle they see on the road every day. The fact that the average person can go to a dealer and pay 15 grand for a vehicle that will run at 70mph all day while carrying its occupants in air-conditioned comfort is astounding. Next time one, single, solitary component breaks on your car and you begin to go into a hysterical tirade, think about the other 37,999 components that didn’t break.
1 comment so far
It’s a fair point, but the cost difference between a tennis racket and a car make the comparison a little unfair. I expect something as expensive as a car to be rigorously tested as to avoid any major breakdown’s on the road.
I agree that, given the complexity of a car, to expect it to never break down is unrealistic. But expecting people not to get upset about it is not fair.
The guy you mentioned with a tennis racquet had three, because they were relitavely cheap. If one, or even two break, no problem. People in the main don’t have that kind of luxury with cars.
If a car breaks down, you’re left with the following questions. How will I get to work? Who’s going to pick the kids up from school? How will I get about for the general rigours of everyday life?
In summary, something as trivial as a tennis racquet doesn’t have as bigger impact on an individuals life as a car, should it break down. At least with web sites like carsparefinder.co.uk, the problem’s getting a little easier to solve when they do.
August 4th, 2006 at 9:48 am
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