a moral quandary resolved

For over a decade now I have been a member of AAA. I joined -- long before owning a car -- because one needn't own, be driving, or even be a passenger in a disabled car to get the towing benefit; all you need to do is be present. And I traveled with my friends in their' usually-dilapidated cars rather a lot, so a tow when the things inevitably broke seemed a good contribution. The first couple of cars miss_chance and I had were of a similar nature, and for a few years I could defeat the "but they lobby against transit" argument by using three or four 99-mile flatbed tows a year, allowing me to counter with "but they lose money on me, so my belonging is that much less lobbying they can do".

Lately, though, we haven't really been using so much of AAA's services, and now that miss_chance's unreliable old white 1989 Caravan is out of the picture we can no longer expect to be a drain on their finances. What to do? Cars aren't perfect and I've certainly had a lot of vacations rescued by having an 800 number to call. Maybe I've gotten soft, but I like the peace of mind. I'm just not willing to trash my principles to get it.

Enter the solution. Today in jonsinger's livejournal, lumiere tipped me off (well, indirectly) to the Better World club. Exactly what I was looking for! Now I don't even have to justify the cost of the program given the current relative health of our motor vehicles: if these folks do well (that is, if I and people like me don't really need their services), they'll continue their good works and I can feel good about spending my money with them. Huzzah!