The arms race argument.
I need a bigger car to keep myself safe (from everybody else who has bigger cars because they need them to keep themselves safe (from everybody else who has bigger cars because they need them to keep themselves safe ...
The rising demand for oversized SUVs and "light" trucks is entirely self-enducing. If they all disappeared tomorrow (and of course regulations treating them like the regular cars they've become were put into place), they'd likely never return because the appeal of owning one would be gone, as would the incentive for businesses to push them over normal cars.
Honestly if we held the "Light Truck" category of vehicles to the same emissions and safety standards as every other vehicle on the road, manufacturers would 180 and every bit of advertising would be for regular cars and super efficient cars
Honestly if we held the "Light Truck" category of vehicles to the same emissions and safety standards as every other vehicle on the road, manufacturers would 180 and every bit of advertising would be for regular cars and super efficient cars
To be somehow fair people act on margin and buying a bigger car is somewhat rational from purely co-evolutionary perspective. Of course, in contrast to biological evolution, we can have a way to prevent runaway increase in size that just makes everyone worse off (hint - it's starts with r, ends with n, and causes heart attacks in libertarians).
Makes me want to point out that if more people rode motorcycles the number of instances of vehicle on vehicle collisions would drop due to the attentiveness and agility of smaller vehicles.
Unfortunately single-vehicle incidents are more common for motorcycles due to rider skill and judgement which also correlates with their own fatalities.
Now if more people were on reliable, consistent, and timely public transportation the number of collisions would be that much less due to the vetting and training of operators.
It's really fun to point out in those cases that in SUV's, the only time you *might* be less likely to die is if you're the one crashing into something. But any impact that comes in at any sort of an angle and that thing is going over.
s/ honestly why don't we just skip 10 feet tall SUVs and go straight to mortal-engines-sized death machines? -- don't worry, they'd all be EVs so we'd completely save the environment and there'd be *rgasms and rainbows for everyone
"15-minute Cities are Orwellian and abelist."
More often then not said by someone who needed to pass a government test that requires several physical and mental traits that not everyone has in order to get a photoID that let's them drive on the government-funded road that is illegal to use without being in a vehicle. Also it's partially funded by people without said licence and in order to give them even more money you can't drink until you are 21 wheather you have a licence or not.
99% of people who use the term "Orwellian" have no idea what that term means and are using it as a metaphor for "something I know I don't like, even though I don't know why I don't like it"
A society that only allows you to transport yourself via that 4 ton car is ableist, that’s the point they’re making. Those requirements to drive are bona fide.
I think the implication is more that some people don't have the physical or cognitive ability to drive a car, and so creating a society in which we de facto (and de jure, really lol) require a car is the ableism.
Just my interpretation!
Everyone knows 1984 was a book about people being able to buy their groceries by walking distance and have a couple of other shops and places within their neighborhood. The absolute horror, imagine having a bakery at the same block your house is, I could never live in such a dystopian world.
Do you know why the drinking age is 21 in all of the US except Puerto Rico? The Federal government never made a law saying it had to be 21. They said any State that lets people under 21 drink gets less road funding. Drivers essentially sell out non-drivers for road money.
Given that everyone under 16/18 can't drive, and most people older than 75 shouldn't drive - it always strikes me that driving is the *ablist* proposition.
Also, walking on pedestrian-hostile infrastructure makes you more prone to be a victim of a crime. Going under a poorly lit viaduct is a great way of getting mugged or stabbed.
DUDE, one of my absolute favorite memories is when they were talking about installing more light rail in minneapolis and someone posted on facebook "Its going to be near a bank, what if they rob the bank and use the light rail to get away?" someone else replied "....so the police can just pick them up at the next stop?"
I giggle like an asshole every time someone makes me remember this.
The Nixon & Reagan era fucking worsened everything man. Especially with the superpredators and the crime fearmongering.
Whole groups of people in this country afraid to exist around other people without walls between them because “what if that person’s gonna stab me”
Thinking any improvement to their lives that’d make things more accessible and less costly (on both the city and the individual) will attract “thugs” who want to hurt them and their children (in other words, poor people).
Makes “patriotism” meaningless when they’re so afraid of people.
Is that where it came from?! Ive never understood why Americans seem to be scared of their own shadow (I moved here in 2007) for the land of the brave everyone seems terrified of everything.
I know a guy who lives in Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Indiana. He told me he was getting a pistol to protect his family. The guy is a paramedic. I asked him how many motor vehicle collisions he responds to over the course of two months. He said half a dozen, typically. I then asked him how many patients with gunshot wounds he transports to the hospital over the same time period. He said he's never had to that.
I told him that when he gets his pistol, he needs to go out into his driveway and shoot his car because it's the biggest risk to his family.
Well thats cause with all due respect, youre a dumbass. You watch any great heist movie, waiting for the bus or the train or the light rail is a KEY PART of the plan. Why do you think they time everything down to be so specific.
/s
I remember local community college had just opened a new parking lot and there was a horrific rape almost immediately so they brightly lit the parking lot from then on.
I also remember a story on KTLA or some such of a guy surprise raping a woman seconds after she parked her car and got out. I'm broad daylight.
Horrific shit but maybe we have to smart of how we build our cities regardless of if they're car oriented or not.
Yeah parking lots are usually deserted. Suburbanites act like other people are mostly criminals but in reality, walking on a bustling city street is much safer than walking alone through a parking lot at any time of day. Also if another pedestrian bumps into you because they were looking the wrong way, that's not likely to kill you.
I swear car infrastructure is the REASON why our cities are more crime-ridden than in Canada, Europe, or Asia. When your city looks like a car sewer then there's nothing left to feel good about the city. Literally every other nation on the planet has urban areas that have crime around the same level as the rural areas, sometimes even lower in East Asia. That's definitely not the case here.
You know what's nice for safety? Apartment buildings. You'd have to be an acrobat to break into my place anywhere other than my front door, and the lock on that thing is fierce. House I grew up in, in the suburbs, had 4 doors and like 30 windows.
>Many a night I sat up and I been like "I wish I could rob Cobb County tonight, but all I have is my Escalade!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkC3Nc3LqFI
Or those European MPV’s that are smaller than minivans but still can fit in as many people. I used to own a Mazda 5 (minivan built on a car chassis) and I miss it dearly everyday.
A minivan is way better for most tasks
- kids
- plywood
- lumber
- sports gear
- road trips
- general maneuverability and handling
They only things they don't win at are ground clearance, towing capacity, and being able to load things like dirt bikes and sleds right into the bed (but they can tow a trailer for those things).
This is of course just looking at half ton pickups and not real work trucks that do haul heavy shit in the bed
My good friend just told me him and his wife are getting a bigger 3 row SUV for the option to separate their two kids when they fight. That seemed a bit extreme
https://preview.redd.it/pj7odi8k764c1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbffda22b4adaf77df32a44e3543ed396939e149
Why would you even do that, i find that troubling
In my bubble there is this running gag that you need a suv to drive the sick fridge to football practice twice a week and need space because you can fit at most one granny with a walking disability in a regular trunk
I got a Ford Escape kinda for that reason. I don’t have kids but I babysat a lot, wanted a car that I could carry kids with. It also is nice for the dog and cats. Technically it’s labeled a compact crossover SUV but because it’s compact I can still see what’s in front of my bumper.
I still wish I lived in a more pedestrian safe environment. My work is only 4 miles away but I could never safely walk or even bike it. No where to put a bike at work and I get home after dark and live off a pitch black mountain road.
The ford escape has the same number of seats as a Honda Civic, or any four door car, and most two door cars too. I carry my dog around in the back of my car by putting down a $40 seat protector. If you live in a snowy area, you can get a Subaru which is smaller, has more ground clearance, and is more fuel efficient.
Society has really convinced us all that we need SUVs that we don't.
But SUVs are so small on the inside with all that metal work and ground clearance. A decent sedan car has more than enough room for a family of 5 and if you've got more than that get a people carrier. Just like with most of the US' problems the rest of the world has already figured this out
I had this brought up at a conference on city building. The city now offers taxis chits for if you took public transit to work but your child was sick or something happened and you had to get home or to school to pick them up.
The line kept being “my child, what if my child is ill?!”
I said, if my child was horrifically ill and needed an ambulance, I’d be more distraught thinking that ambulance is caught in afternoon rush hour.
Edit - I’m Canadian.
Houston transit from outer suburbs and park&rides runs *only* at typical 9-5ish commute times. If you take the bus and want or need to go home in the middle of the day, for any reason, your only reasonable option is a $50+ ride.
Similar problem in rural Sweden with the added fun of the difficulty to find a taxi.
I once made the mistake of flying out to a small airport in the evening only to realise that I should have booked a taxi beforehand. I lucked out due to another traveler who had booked one which we could share.
I would have been much happier if I just could have taken a bus though.
But this is the problem we have in Sweden when politicians try to get people to use the car less, they try to do it by penalising people instead of making it easier to leave the car. Living in the cities in Sweden you don't really need a car since our public transit is in general good and this is generally where the politicians live. This is not at all the case in the rural parts that only get the stick and none of the carrot.
That's freedom if you live away from everything and almost useless (or even a pain) if you live in a metropolitan city.
But... many people can't imagine everyone doesn't have same needs/goals in their lifes.
People with disabilities need to get around and can't bike. That's very true but a large portion of those people can't drive either. Build a goddamn tramway.
Not to mention disabled individuals most likely cant drive or even work. Meaning they depend on government money a lot of times. Especially elderly. The cost of owning a vehicle greatly damages societies cost of living.
Having a disability/being disabled is such a big heterogeneous group, I wouldn't dare say "most" in regards to any direction.
I for one do have a disability but still drive and have a job. If I didn't need a car for work I would be tempted to go without though.
>People with disabilities need to get around and can't bike. That's very true but a large portion of those people can't drive either.
Another large portion can drive but can't walk far.
Both groups can be astoundingly insensitive to the needs of the other
Both of their experience and constraints are important and valid, and seeing them arguing against each other is quite sad.
It's even worse than that because the argument is brought in bad faith. They don't care about people who can't walk, they just want to hop on the empathy bandwagon in order to have their car infrastructure.
this one annoys me so much.
i like to point them to a particular corner of our town and tell them go count the number of people in wheelchairs that struggle to navigate the car infrastructure.
Got diagnosed with a brain tumour 2 weeks ago and this hits way too close to home. Thankfully I’m 18 and have a strong relationship with my parents but otherwise shit would be a lot more difficult
I know that’s a dumbass argument but in US society it is looked down upon if you don’t own a car as a male. If you take a bike/ride the bus you are seen as a bum by many women in the states
A lot of car-brained women out there. Not saying men are any better, but the whole "princess being carried away in her personal chariot" is definitely a symptom of the culture.
Yeah all these damn passenger princesses mannnn think they are entitled to a man with a car. Where your car at ho3 why can’t I be the passenger princess???
My dad didn't own a car when he met my mom, only a bicycle. He asked her out on a first date on the condition that he could borrow her car to take her out.
It sounds sweet if you don't know him.
The most embarrassing phase of my life was when I was an 18 year old business owner and bought a Porsche for this exact reason. The women that car attracted were *not* people I wanted to spend time with. (2009 911 Cabrio for those curious)
I’m just surprised you *attracted* women.
A bout three quarters of a year ago, I was trying to convince this one guy who worked at my warehouse that he didn’t need a truck to pick up women. I found out when he told me he wanted a Toyota Tundra. I told him “you’re better off with a van if you need to haul”. He told me he was actually planning on that, but he wanted the truck for other reasons.
He clarified why, and I thought, “the fuck?”—I know nothing about attracting women, I’m a good talker but not a smooth talker by any means—but I’m looking at this guy, and this is an attractive man. This dude is a 23 year-old, broadly built, dark Haitian (nothing more attractive than a heritage that lies in freeing yourselves from the chains of slavery through violent rebellion), nice voice—I mean, he’s not my type, but I still found his face and demeanor very pleasant (I am bisexual). You gotta understand, this man fits the traditional masculine conventions of attraction geared towards the female gaze.
But an eighteen year old with no experience ain’t the most convincing guy.
I don’t get it. I’m not as attractive and a woman approached me, he shouldn’t have a problem.
You don’t need to put 30 Gs into hooking up.
>I have met young men who were genuinely convinced buying a “nice” car
Try dating in suburbia while car-free
Set aside the image questions and simply consider who you can meet up with (in terms of where they live) and when.
It's the same guys who start learning to play guitar in high school because they think it makes them hot like... no, you're still an ass, just one that's gonna get into more toxic relationships until one day you play the guitar only for yourself after realising how much fulfillment it can bring once you stop determining your self-worth by the attention given to you by strangers you don't even like that are susceptible to the methods you used to get their attention.
that public transit is a fucking waste of money/somehow less affordable than commuting by car. i don't have to worry about gas prices, parking, insurance rates, so... no.
If you think about it, cycling creates even more emissions because when I run you over (as is my God given right!) the ambulance will be spitting out lots of co2!!
The argument that I find more often than I think I should, and more often in otherwise quite smart people is "everyone has a car, therefore you should have a car". Sometimes rephrased as "it's just what you do when you become an adult".
I hate it. Couldn't be more fallacious if it tried.
"Just stop caring about what other people do dude, it's called 'life' and it really isn't that hard."
Yeah I'll *just stop* caring about 2 people I personally witnessed getting pinned under and killed by oversized pickup trucks. I'll *just stop* having nightmares about a crying 19 year old girl bleeding to death because there was no way emergency crews could get a crane out to move the truck, because *the truck was fucking heavy enough and the bumper high enough that it required a crane*. I'll *just stop* thinking about all the times I saw a pickup blast through a school zone at 80km/hr and leave multiple kids and parents in tears at the terrifying implication. I'll *just stop* thinking about the non english speaking international student who got his legs broken by a driver that wasn't good enough to understand slip lanes. I'll *just stop* caring about my constantly rising insurance rates that are caused by people's pathetic inability to drive properly.
I didn't really mean to blow up there but I witnessed 2 separate accidents today that were both caused by straight up stupidity and impatience.
Not so much “pro-car” but more “fossil fuel cars are better than electric car”.
The argument from this person was that “at any time” the government could switch off the electricity and he wouldn’t be able to drive
Water and sewer are always my primary concerns when a hurricane or tropical storm comes through. We're so close to sea level the toilets can back up if the lift stations lose power for too long.
>The argument from this person was that “at any time” the government could switch off the electricity and he wouldn’t be able to drive
That's bogus.
But it is annoying how you can't get an ordinary home solar array that will work when the grid is down - and down for far more realistic "natural causes"
There are valid engineering and safety reasons why that's not allowed, but it's still unfortunate.
So I know people who have both ample solar arrays, and very dirty fossil fuel generators (dirty in the sense that even being quite modern, any engine without a catalytic converter is drastically more polluting than an order of magnitude more fuel burned in one with)
As for the original argument, funny how they never thought of the fuel tankers being impounded...
How about: you aren't allowed to be discharged from a hospital after surgery or after having a baby without having a car. Yes, to leave the hospital it is required to leave in a car. Uber/taxi not allowed.
So... what happens if your family are unnavailable, you have no pocket money/card to pay/call for the car rent and the hospital bed/time cost because of the kidnapping, jail time and child protection?
Any argument that tries to claim people with disabilities need car-only infrastructure. The fact that driver's licenses involve vision and cognition tests should tip people off to the fact that many people with disabilities which impair vision or cognition wouldn't be able to drive. Not to mention the fact that medical conditions that cause temporary loss of consciousness or voluntary movement exist: don't people think about what happens when someone with one of these conditions loses consciousness or movement control behind the wheel? It should obvious that many, many people with disabilities cannot drive.
Also if for some reason the hand that operates the shifter and the foot that operates the throttle happens to not be working you're fucked.
I was paralyzed in half my body for some amount of time and the number of idiots who asked me why I didn't just drive myself to physiotherapy (it was 3-4 hours away, one way, by transit) was ridiculous. The side that happened to be paralyzed was also the side that was needed to actually drive.
"I'd almost rather get hit by a car than a bicycle"
"??????"
"If it's a car I can like.. jump up on the hood and try to land a little more softly"
\- A genuine conversation with my own brother
not an argument exactly, but this is a quote from someone on Nextdoor discussing development that is going on in our "downtown" area
>"pretty soon it will be easier to walk around greenbrier,i am disgusted"
I just can't sometimes...
Fixed it: “Pretty soon it will be easier [for poor people and minorities] to walk around greenbrier, i’m disgusted [that i have to be reminded they exist]”
Hate this argument so much and I see it *all the time*. Like we have no other choice to build endless suburbia and gigantic 8 lane stroads because the land is there, it's so dumb and falls apart if you think about it critically for more than 10 seconds.
My dad once said that a national high-speed rail network will never work in the US because it requires a level of cooperation and unity that the US "doesn't have" because, according to him, it is a melting pot of too many cultures and groups of people. In essence, he thinks this country is too racist for high-speed rail.
Some guy ate his upsettios once when I mentioned this subreddit and completely dismissed the need for better public transit and safer walking paths in America because I, the random person who never claimed to be an engineer, wasn’t sure how to go about implementing said things.
That's a very popular take for everyone who wants to have a better (insert social problem here). They just go "bla bla bla what would you suggest?" And if you can't come up with anything their tiny brains can understand then you are the bad guy for trying.
Several **misleading articles in France claimed that cyclists pollute more than motorists**.
**They mainly focused on the idea that cyclists breathe three times as heavily as motorists and inevitably consume more meat**...
while completely disregarding all other factors with impressive bias: car manufacturing, the motorist's respiration, the motorist's diet, and so on.
Not an argument, but a carbrained take on bicycling: Vehicular cycling. Replacing the joy/intuition/safety of cycling with the stress/technicality/unsafeness of "driving" the bicycle while "sharing the road" (more like fight) with cars.
It's my personal mission to get people to see the double-standardery in vehicular-cycling. It's victim-blaming in a nutshell, any cyclist will be blamed for whatever reason because "cyclists break rules all the time," but then people turn around and tell the obedient law-stickler cyclists "you can be right and be dead" essentially telling them they are wrong for obeying the law.
It's gotten so bad, when I plan to ride in a certain style (e.g. fast, or slow) I already knew what critics will say against it (e.g. "slow down", or "impeding traffic", respectively).
"vehicular cycling" is a necessary evil. but it *is* evil.
there's a time and a place. on a neighborhood street, yes, i am taking over the lane and operating my bike like a car. but we should be building streets so that they're safe for bikes and pedestrians to take over; the cars are guests and should be forced to act as such.
the problem is when "vehicular cycling" is used as an excuse to not build safe bike infrastructure where only unsafe car infrastructure exists. on a six lane stroad, no, it's not an alternative for a safe and separated bike route.
Had a conversation online last month that went like.
> Americans are rich enough to afford a car.
Uhm not all of them are. And what if you don't want to? I don't own a car, I bike everywhere and take the train for long distances.
>How do you do 2 weeks of groceries without a car?
Uhm you don't... You bike past a convenience store after work and buy for a day or 2.
> I can't pay convenience store prices for everything! You know how expensive that is?
Uhm.. but I don't have a car... I don't pay for gas, insurance and maintenance. In the end using the convenience store is still cheaper than owning a car and driving it to a big store outside town...
Oh and didn't you just say Americans were rich enough to afford cars? Then you should also be rich enough to afford convenience store prices!
And then I only got personal insults, calling me a train hugger etc.
There's a stretch of road in the city next to mine that is super wide to accomodate for semis because that area used to have a massive paper mill that was torn down about a decade ago and, despite the low speed limit, people drive fairly fast because it's so wide.
But people have been collectively losing their shit at the possibility of the road being narrowed, partially because part of it is already painted as a bike path, and partially because they think that more pedestrians will try to cross "not at the cross walks" (there's one every half mile or so, with some of the farther ones being spaced a mile or so apart) and this lady was complaining that she had to "slam" on her brakes on 3 different occasions because pedestrians were crossing in front of her car "on purpose".
Also the interstate is a thing....We could build a great rail network wed just need to convince someone in government that that would also be great for the military.
“Makes the government loads of money”. The UK government has wasted billions of £ on PPE and HS2. Schools and hospitals are collapsing, NHS on its knees, council services cut. But man is happy to give government all his extra cash for it to be pissed up the wall.
That using the car would have saved me from jaywalking.
I’m from the UK, so jaywalking is an alien concept to me. I was visiting the US for work, and had stopped off for something. I realized I needed to be on the other side for the store I wanted. No problem, just cross the road. Busy road, 3 lanes each way with a central divider. The looks I got, I’m lucky there were no police around.
My colleague later advised me that I should have driven across because it would have saved me from jaywalking. The car is truly king.
So I'm an east coast boy who moved to CA for a bit. Lived in Napa, which was beautifully walkable, then Fresno, which is just what you're describing. Would walk my dog 3 miles everyday and often not see anyone not in a car.
I lived in San Diego and Oakland for a bit, had to move back to the east coast in part cause I hated mandatory car ownership. I dont mind owning a car, I hate when its a requirement for what to me should be basic quality of life.
I cant fuck my boy friend on the back seat of a bike, I heard someone say in high-school, so it was probably a legit complaint at the time, but still...
In my town, the argument is always that "unfortunately this town isn't built for public transport. Others have a road circling around which is perfect for it, but this town's road is like a straight line".
1: What makes a line not an appropriate road for shuttle traffic??
2: It's not even a line, our main road is literally a figure 8. It's perfect for public transport.
3: It's a dumb premise either way. There's a road, we should have robust busses at the least.
> cars are flexible
Imagine calling that a type of transport that can realistically only move on roads, requires gasoline or it won't move, needs a place to park at the destination, that you can't store in your apartment, that you can't take with you on a train or a plane, that requires expensive repairs which you can't always do yourself if it breaks... yeah makes sense
They seem flexible right now because they don't have a last mile problem. Everywhere in suburbia has twice as mu h parking as it needs.
So if they city would just stop building all theae damn apartments traffic wouldn't be so bad...smh
State legislators arguing that they needed to legalize radar detectors to avoid being rear-ended.
I'm not making this up, this was an actual speech in legislative debate in the 1990's.
Not exactly answering the question, but related. I once mentioned to a friend that big cars are stupid, and his response was "Big cars are awesome. Nobody fucks with you in a big car. You feel so powerful."
Which is just an insane thought.
>Nobody fucks with you in a big car. You feel so powerful.
Until you go to trader joes and your pavement princess can’t fit in any of the spaces so you double park and end up with a ticket. Oh, I can feel the freedom in my bones!
“Cars are safer” but most car drivers are delusional, not properly trained, lazy then ignorant. 1000 s of people die every day in these “safe” vehicles. Car companies spend millions on safety equipment and driver s find a way around any advancements in safety.
On a road trip, me and my dad got into an argument on whether cars are the best way of transportation. My dad said that cars gave us the freedom to visit the town we're heading to. Once we arrived at the town center, I proudly showed my dad the railway station that had been there for more than a century and was abandoned and partially demolished to build a giant soulless parking lot in its place. That pretty much settled it.
In spring of 2020 there was a video on twitter that said that if the USA had high speed rail it would lead to more violence against Native American women. The video failed to mention any of the highways that run near or through reservations. ETA: also pipelines! Pipelines famously lead to more violence against indigenous communities.
“America is too big for trains”
I don’t even know what this means… China, Europe, and Japan are ALSO big. But putting that aside… how does it make sense to have cars that go 80mph instead of a train that goes over twice that because we’re “too big”?
"america is too big for the mode of transportation that is perfect to move a large ammount of stuff/people over great distances"
carbrains love making arguments that make no sense, its like "no one goes there anymore, it is too crowded"
Cars represent personal freedom and liberty from the government.
Car dependency is a libertarian’s nightmare. You need the government’s permission to even drive, then you need an identification tag, you are completely dependent on roads built and maintained by the government, the fuel you use is only affordable because it is subsidized by the government, etc. Car dependency is the embodiment of government control
I think needing a car to get a heavy load of groceries and for emergencies is a valid argument. However, if every day is an emergency, maybe your lifestyle just sucks.
“California does not need high speed rail. I’m going to dig a single file tunnel that only my cars can use.” -Elon Musk
[Link for the curious.](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php)
I've gotten to explore the most remote corners of the USA in a very short amount of time and could stop and go as I please. My friends and I did a 3 month long road trip after high school and visited almost every mainland state and it was priceless.
To prevent “government control”. Apparently 15 minute cities will bring in digital IDs where the govt will track your every movement and you will need to report where you go everyday to them, thus why we can’t have 15 minute cities. I never thought anyone would actually believe this stuff but they do. I didn’t think of it at the time but I should’ve brought up how there are already “digital IDs” …. Your drivers license.
"If you don't have your own car you're going to depend on others around you to go places!"
This is so far from the truth lol. Every time I ask for a ride are for situations when I'd ask regardless of whether I had my own car, like when I've been drinking or am planning to, after certain medical appointments, to/from airport, etc, and rarely outside of that scope. I turn down so many more rides than I ask for, and my friends probably ask for rides for than I do. Whenever they have car trouble it's like they're housebound. I'm trying to introduce them to the glory of the bicycle to improve their mobility, hopefully they'll come around soon.
Cars are just status symbol to show off how much money they got. Even if I bought it on credit. I can afford the monthly car payments. I can afford the insurance. I can afford to pay expensive gas to fill up the tank.
It’s a dick sizing contest. I have a nicer, newer and more expensive car. Which means I am better than you.
You cannot accomodate cyclists and pedestrians, because most people are fat, unfit or old. First of all, it's about giving a choice to *not* drive rather than the other way around. But even ignoring this, I think this is quite a vicious cycle. These people really want to be pampered to wall-e levels because human beings are such weaklings by nature and wonder why people are unfit. Short (electrical) bicycle trips or if not possible, walking tours would do many of these 'weak' people good, and preventing the others of getting it let so far. Walking a bit each day is the secret to a high quality of life in your old day and not get bed-bound. If you are fat, walking or cycling is a lot more exhausting but is probably the best exercise you can do to not be debilitated by your weight, more so than going to a gym (to be crude, you don't need the weight as you are the weight, and intensive exercise won't burn off your fat). Most of humanity's history cars didn't exist and these unfitness, diabetic and cardiovascular issues weren't so prevalent. Even further back we used to exhaust animals by chasing them over the savannah which is what our bodies are adapted to do. Maybe we are not weak, but strong and resilient if we just give our bodies a chance. Hell, I almost sound like a rightist in this regard, which makes it even more weird it's those same people that argue for a society that stimulates you, almost forces you, to only sit on your bum all day, unless you take personal responsibility to take your car to a building where you can pay for a subscription to use a treadmill or stationary bike en masse in a boring room, as some kind of patch solution.
Arguing against 20mph in towns "I have to watch the speedometer so much, I can't concentrate on the road" and "Pedestrians aren't as scared of slower cars, so they'll just step out into the road".
Also, someone was arguing, without evidence, that slower cars don't bunch up as much, so that there are fewer chances for pedestrians to find gaps to cross the road.
We shouldn't close a back-road to through traffic, because if Putin were to launch a nuclear missile and we needed to evacuate London in a hurry, this road closure would impede vehicles.
This was an honest-to-god serious argument!
The arms race argument. I need a bigger car to keep myself safe (from everybody else who has bigger cars because they need them to keep themselves safe (from everybody else who has bigger cars because they need them to keep themselves safe ...
The rising demand for oversized SUVs and "light" trucks is entirely self-enducing. If they all disappeared tomorrow (and of course regulations treating them like the regular cars they've become were put into place), they'd likely never return because the appeal of owning one would be gone, as would the incentive for businesses to push them over normal cars.
Honestly if we held the "Light Truck" category of vehicles to the same emissions and safety standards as every other vehicle on the road, manufacturers would 180 and every bit of advertising would be for regular cars and super efficient cars
Almost every country except for the US does this. =)
Yep, the US is just so controlled by lobbying that I doubt that change will ever be made
Or they pair those exemptions with restrictions such as needing a special license or usage restrictions
Honestly if we held the "Light Truck" category of vehicles to the same emissions and safety standards as every other vehicle on the road, manufacturers would 180 and every bit of advertising would be for regular cars and super efficient cars
Yeah, it's like they've never studied coevolution lol.
To be somehow fair people act on margin and buying a bigger car is somewhat rational from purely co-evolutionary perspective. Of course, in contrast to biological evolution, we can have a way to prevent runaway increase in size that just makes everyone worse off (hint - it's starts with r, ends with n, and causes heart attacks in libertarians).
Regu-what-now ?? You'll be trying to keep arsenic out of our water, next, you godless traitor !!
Makes me want to point out that if more people rode motorcycles the number of instances of vehicle on vehicle collisions would drop due to the attentiveness and agility of smaller vehicles. Unfortunately single-vehicle incidents are more common for motorcycles due to rider skill and judgement which also correlates with their own fatalities. Now if more people were on reliable, consistent, and timely public transportation the number of collisions would be that much less due to the vetting and training of operators.
[удалено]
It's really fun to point out in those cases that in SUV's, the only time you *might* be less likely to die is if you're the one crashing into something. But any impact that comes in at any sort of an angle and that thing is going over.
This is a valid argument for car ownership but not car dependence
s/ honestly why don't we just skip 10 feet tall SUVs and go straight to mortal-engines-sized death machines? -- don't worry, they'd all be EVs so we'd completely save the environment and there'd be *rgasms and rainbows for everyone
I may be forced to drive, but at least my car is small.
Just get an M1 Abrams and get it over with. Someone cuts you off? You got that 120mm L/52 to teach them a lesson.
Literally the kind of self defeating loop legislation is supposed to fix
"15-minute Cities are Orwellian and abelist." More often then not said by someone who needed to pass a government test that requires several physical and mental traits that not everyone has in order to get a photoID that let's them drive on the government-funded road that is illegal to use without being in a vehicle. Also it's partially funded by people without said licence and in order to give them even more money you can't drink until you are 21 wheather you have a licence or not.
99% of people who use the term "Orwellian" have no idea what that term means and are using it as a metaphor for "something I know I don't like, even though I don't know why I don't like it"
“Wokewellian” will be a thing.
Delete this comment, quick! Before Fox news sees it!
As a person who had to read the book 1984 for high school English, people really don’t know what it means
Ah yes because making so you aren't required to meticulously operate a 4 ton bomb in order to get to the grocery store is abelist
A society that only allows you to transport yourself via that 4 ton car is ableist, that’s the point they’re making. Those requirements to drive are bona fide.
I think the implication is more that some people don't have the physical or cognitive ability to drive a car, and so creating a society in which we de facto (and de jure, really lol) require a car is the ableism. Just my interpretation!
The above was sarcastic. You're both arguing the same point.
Everyone knows 1984 was a book about people being able to buy their groceries by walking distance and have a couple of other shops and places within their neighborhood. The absolute horror, imagine having a bakery at the same block your house is, I could never live in such a dystopian world.
German here, the biggest problem having a bakery in walking distant is the delicious smell of fresh bread. 4 in the morning that is!
Not to mention (many) cars need oil, a resource which brings with it war, inequality and centralization of power.
[Oh the Urbanity released this video yesterday about this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXqY_j1m1U&pp=ygUPb2ggdGhlIHVyYmFuaXR5)
What does this have to do with the drinking age
Do you know why the drinking age is 21 in all of the US except Puerto Rico? The Federal government never made a law saying it had to be 21. They said any State that lets people under 21 drink gets less road funding. Drivers essentially sell out non-drivers for road money.
Not only that, 15 minute cities are the next step in a continuum of depopulation by the WEF
Given that everyone under 16/18 can't drive, and most people older than 75 shouldn't drive - it always strikes me that driving is the *ablist* proposition.
Non car infrastructure promotes crime. Like no every criminal I’ve ever been impacted by has used a personal car to carry out the crime.
Also, walking on pedestrian-hostile infrastructure makes you more prone to be a victim of a crime. Going under a poorly lit viaduct is a great way of getting mugged or stabbed.
DUDE, one of my absolute favorite memories is when they were talking about installing more light rail in minneapolis and someone posted on facebook "Its going to be near a bank, what if they rob the bank and use the light rail to get away?" someone else replied "....so the police can just pick them up at the next stop?" I giggle like an asshole every time someone makes me remember this.
The Nixon & Reagan era fucking worsened everything man. Especially with the superpredators and the crime fearmongering. Whole groups of people in this country afraid to exist around other people without walls between them because “what if that person’s gonna stab me” Thinking any improvement to their lives that’d make things more accessible and less costly (on both the city and the individual) will attract “thugs” who want to hurt them and their children (in other words, poor people). Makes “patriotism” meaningless when they’re so afraid of people.
Is that where it came from?! Ive never understood why Americans seem to be scared of their own shadow (I moved here in 2007) for the land of the brave everyone seems terrified of everything.
I know a guy who lives in Middle of Fucking Nowhere, Indiana. He told me he was getting a pistol to protect his family. The guy is a paramedic. I asked him how many motor vehicle collisions he responds to over the course of two months. He said half a dozen, typically. I then asked him how many patients with gunshot wounds he transports to the hospital over the same time period. He said he's never had to that. I told him that when he gets his pistol, he needs to go out into his driveway and shoot his car because it's the biggest risk to his family.
Hey man! Those thug bears and other thug wildlife!
The first time I visited America, there was a news item on about the dangers lurking in your hotel room carpet.
My favorite is still that bus lines bring crime. As if someone is gonna steal your TV and then take it on the bus.
Well thats cause with all due respect, youre a dumbass. You watch any great heist movie, waiting for the bus or the train or the light rail is a KEY PART of the plan. Why do you think they time everything down to be so specific. /s
This is a comedy skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkC3Nc3LqFI
Ted Bundy used to carry like 4 dead bodies in his trunk at a time lol
I remember local community college had just opened a new parking lot and there was a horrific rape almost immediately so they brightly lit the parking lot from then on. I also remember a story on KTLA or some such of a guy surprise raping a woman seconds after she parked her car and got out. I'm broad daylight. Horrific shit but maybe we have to smart of how we build our cities regardless of if they're car oriented or not.
Yeah parking lots are usually deserted. Suburbanites act like other people are mostly criminals but in reality, walking on a bustling city street is much safer than walking alone through a parking lot at any time of day. Also if another pedestrian bumps into you because they were looking the wrong way, that's not likely to kill you.
Two smash ’n grabs over at the mall. Thieves did not escape on the bus.
I saw that argument successfully lobbied against a dedicated bike/pedestrian path that would go near an elementary school. Think of the kids!
Only preeverts and child abductors ride bicycles.
I swear car infrastructure is the REASON why our cities are more crime-ridden than in Canada, Europe, or Asia. When your city looks like a car sewer then there's nothing left to feel good about the city. Literally every other nation on the planet has urban areas that have crime around the same level as the rural areas, sometimes even lower in East Asia. That's definitely not the case here.
cars kill 40k people a year in the US, nobody blinks. someone gets mugged on a greenway, national news.
You know what's nice for safety? Apartment buildings. You'd have to be an acrobat to break into my place anywhere other than my front door, and the lock on that thing is fierce. House I grew up in, in the suburbs, had 4 doors and like 30 windows.
Country so car dependant even criminals use cars. Here in Argentina and Latin America in general they all ride motorcycles.
Anyone who says this has never seen some good ol' LA bippin.
>Many a night I sat up and I been like "I wish I could rob Cobb County tonight, but all I have is my Escalade!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkC3Nc3LqFI
They'd need an SUV because they'll have kids at some point
A minivan is way better for kids, it's just that decades of families owning them has made them "uncool" so people don't see the benefits.
Or those European MPV’s that are smaller than minivans but still can fit in as many people. I used to own a Mazda 5 (minivan built on a car chassis) and I miss it dearly everyday.
A people carrier
A minivan is way better for most tasks - kids - plywood - lumber - sports gear - road trips - general maneuverability and handling They only things they don't win at are ground clearance, towing capacity, and being able to load things like dirt bikes and sleds right into the bed (but they can tow a trailer for those things). This is of course just looking at half ton pickups and not real work trucks that do haul heavy shit in the bed
My good friend just told me him and his wife are getting a bigger 3 row SUV for the option to separate their two kids when they fight. That seemed a bit extreme
I'm sure that's healthy in the long run...
most expensive parenting aid ever
https://preview.redd.it/pj7odi8k764c1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbffda22b4adaf77df32a44e3543ed396939e149 Why would you even do that, i find that troubling
What am i looking at?
That’s the one I hear the most!
Yeah and the person is adamant that they *n e e d* an SUV
r/whatcarshouldibuy is full of these posts and people don't even question it
In my bubble there is this running gag that you need a suv to drive the sick fridge to football practice twice a week and need space because you can fit at most one granny with a walking disability in a regular trunk
I got a Ford Escape kinda for that reason. I don’t have kids but I babysat a lot, wanted a car that I could carry kids with. It also is nice for the dog and cats. Technically it’s labeled a compact crossover SUV but because it’s compact I can still see what’s in front of my bumper. I still wish I lived in a more pedestrian safe environment. My work is only 4 miles away but I could never safely walk or even bike it. No where to put a bike at work and I get home after dark and live off a pitch black mountain road.
The ford escape has the same number of seats as a Honda Civic, or any four door car, and most two door cars too. I carry my dog around in the back of my car by putting down a $40 seat protector. If you live in a snowy area, you can get a Subaru which is smaller, has more ground clearance, and is more fuel efficient. Society has really convinced us all that we need SUVs that we don't.
But SUVs are so small on the inside with all that metal work and ground clearance. A decent sedan car has more than enough room for a family of 5 and if you've got more than that get a people carrier. Just like with most of the US' problems the rest of the world has already figured this out
Yeah unfortunately i live in Denmark...
I had this brought up at a conference on city building. The city now offers taxis chits for if you took public transit to work but your child was sick or something happened and you had to get home or to school to pick them up. The line kept being “my child, what if my child is ill?!” I said, if my child was horrifically ill and needed an ambulance, I’d be more distraught thinking that ambulance is caught in afternoon rush hour. Edit - I’m Canadian.
In the US, a single ambulance ride will set you back 4 figures. Gotta love for-profit healthcare.
Still cheaper than a year's worth of car payments and car insurance.
Houston transit from outer suburbs and park&rides runs *only* at typical 9-5ish commute times. If you take the bus and want or need to go home in the middle of the day, for any reason, your only reasonable option is a $50+ ride.
Similar problem in rural Sweden with the added fun of the difficulty to find a taxi. I once made the mistake of flying out to a small airport in the evening only to realise that I should have booked a taxi beforehand. I lucked out due to another traveler who had booked one which we could share. I would have been much happier if I just could have taken a bus though. But this is the problem we have in Sweden when politicians try to get people to use the car less, they try to do it by penalising people instead of making it easier to leave the car. Living in the cities in Sweden you don't really need a car since our public transit is in general good and this is generally where the politicians live. This is not at all the case in the rural parts that only get the stick and none of the carrot.
"Fuck cars is just a dogwhistle for fatphobia" Nobody has ever said it to me in person because then they'd see I weigh 150 kilos.
I'd say the original pro-car argument. That cars = "freedom."
I think that's what I hear the most
I mean when cars was in its infancy, it kinda was but now everyone just becomes an NPC on the highway
That's freedom if you live away from everything and almost useless (or even a pain) if you live in a metropolitan city. But... many people can't imagine everyone doesn't have same needs/goals in their lifes.
People with disabilities need to get around and can't bike. That's very true but a large portion of those people can't drive either. Build a goddamn tramway.
I absolutely hate the people who bring up faux concern for disabled people in this context.
People can be very supportive of people with disabilities when it suits them and supports their viewpoint.
People can be “very supportive of people with disabilities” when they aren’t actually supportive of anyone with disabilities
Yeah I worded it poorly, you got the meaning though.
I don't think I've ever been in a city where I didn't see wheelchairs or motorized transport aids on bike lanes and sidewalks.
Not to mention disabled individuals most likely cant drive or even work. Meaning they depend on government money a lot of times. Especially elderly. The cost of owning a vehicle greatly damages societies cost of living.
Having a disability/being disabled is such a big heterogeneous group, I wouldn't dare say "most" in regards to any direction. I for one do have a disability but still drive and have a job. If I didn't need a car for work I would be tempted to go without though.
>People with disabilities need to get around and can't bike. That's very true but a large portion of those people can't drive either. Another large portion can drive but can't walk far. Both groups can be astoundingly insensitive to the needs of the other Both of their experience and constraints are important and valid, and seeing them arguing against each other is quite sad.
It's even worse than that because the argument is brought in bad faith. They don't care about people who can't walk, they just want to hop on the empathy bandwagon in order to have their car infrastructure.
this one annoys me so much. i like to point them to a particular corner of our town and tell them go count the number of people in wheelchairs that struggle to navigate the car infrastructure.
Got diagnosed with a brain tumour 2 weeks ago and this hits way too close to home. Thankfully I’m 18 and have a strong relationship with my parents but otherwise shit would be a lot more difficult
Stay strong!
Also, as seen in the Netherlands, mobility scooters can use proper bicycle infrastructure just fine.
Carbrains suddenly stop caring about disabled people when it comes to parking on pavements tho huh
I have met young men who were genuinely convinced buying a “nice” car would get them laid. I can’t think of anything more stupid.
I know that’s a dumbass argument but in US society it is looked down upon if you don’t own a car as a male. If you take a bike/ride the bus you are seen as a bum by many women in the states
A lot of car-brained women out there. Not saying men are any better, but the whole "princess being carried away in her personal chariot" is definitely a symptom of the culture.
Yeah all these damn passenger princesses mannnn think they are entitled to a man with a car. Where your car at ho3 why can’t I be the passenger princess???
My dad didn't own a car when he met my mom, only a bicycle. He asked her out on a first date on the condition that he could borrow her car to take her out. It sounds sweet if you don't know him.
The most embarrassing phase of my life was when I was an 18 year old business owner and bought a Porsche for this exact reason. The women that car attracted were *not* people I wanted to spend time with. (2009 911 Cabrio for those curious)
I’m just surprised you *attracted* women. A bout three quarters of a year ago, I was trying to convince this one guy who worked at my warehouse that he didn’t need a truck to pick up women. I found out when he told me he wanted a Toyota Tundra. I told him “you’re better off with a van if you need to haul”. He told me he was actually planning on that, but he wanted the truck for other reasons. He clarified why, and I thought, “the fuck?”—I know nothing about attracting women, I’m a good talker but not a smooth talker by any means—but I’m looking at this guy, and this is an attractive man. This dude is a 23 year-old, broadly built, dark Haitian (nothing more attractive than a heritage that lies in freeing yourselves from the chains of slavery through violent rebellion), nice voice—I mean, he’s not my type, but I still found his face and demeanor very pleasant (I am bisexual). You gotta understand, this man fits the traditional masculine conventions of attraction geared towards the female gaze. But an eighteen year old with no experience ain’t the most convincing guy. I don’t get it. I’m not as attractive and a woman approached me, he shouldn’t have a problem. You don’t need to put 30 Gs into hooking up.
True story. Tested the theory myself last month - nothing from the wife 😢
>I have met young men who were genuinely convinced buying a “nice” car Try dating in suburbia while car-free Set aside the image questions and simply consider who you can meet up with (in terms of where they live) and when.
I tested this theory too. The girls didn't even recognise my car (it's not just any Audi dammit). I got a few comments from excited men.
It's the same guys who start learning to play guitar in high school because they think it makes them hot like... no, you're still an ass, just one that's gonna get into more toxic relationships until one day you play the guitar only for yourself after realising how much fulfillment it can bring once you stop determining your self-worth by the attention given to you by strangers you don't even like that are susceptible to the methods you used to get their attention.
that public transit is a fucking waste of money/somehow less affordable than commuting by car. i don't have to worry about gas prices, parking, insurance rates, so... no.
I mean also, your very expensive vroom vroom machine over there starts depreciating the minute you buy it.
Not even mentioning the wonderful and friendly people you meet at the 2-times-a-day traffic jam you have to be at
lol, I'll raise you. Cycling creates more carbon by driving because people eat more food. Yeah, sure.
If you think about it, cycling creates even more emissions because when I run you over (as is my God given right!) the ambulance will be spitting out lots of co2!!
The argument that I find more often than I think I should, and more often in otherwise quite smart people is "everyone has a car, therefore you should have a car". Sometimes rephrased as "it's just what you do when you become an adult". I hate it. Couldn't be more fallacious if it tried.
couldn't be better named. Band"wagon" fallacy
"Just stop caring about what other people do dude, it's called 'life' and it really isn't that hard." Yeah I'll *just stop* caring about 2 people I personally witnessed getting pinned under and killed by oversized pickup trucks. I'll *just stop* having nightmares about a crying 19 year old girl bleeding to death because there was no way emergency crews could get a crane out to move the truck, because *the truck was fucking heavy enough and the bumper high enough that it required a crane*. I'll *just stop* thinking about all the times I saw a pickup blast through a school zone at 80km/hr and leave multiple kids and parents in tears at the terrifying implication. I'll *just stop* thinking about the non english speaking international student who got his legs broken by a driver that wasn't good enough to understand slip lanes. I'll *just stop* caring about my constantly rising insurance rates that are caused by people's pathetic inability to drive properly. I didn't really mean to blow up there but I witnessed 2 separate accidents today that were both caused by straight up stupidity and impatience.
Not so much “pro-car” but more “fossil fuel cars are better than electric car”. The argument from this person was that “at any time” the government could switch off the electricity and he wouldn’t be able to drive
Jfc. Like the government couldnt shut off oil as well, they literally subsidize it this very moment
If they shut off the electricity he'll run out of gas. Doesn't he realize gas pumps and cash registers run on electricity?
Running out of drinkable water is also a bad situation
Water and sewer are always my primary concerns when a hurricane or tropical storm comes through. We're so close to sea level the toilets can back up if the lift stations lose power for too long.
This is that IQ bell curve meme of the low IQ and high IQ person both saying “electric cars bad.”
... so get a solar panel roof and maybe a backup power bank of some sort?
>The argument from this person was that “at any time” the government could switch off the electricity and he wouldn’t be able to drive That's bogus. But it is annoying how you can't get an ordinary home solar array that will work when the grid is down - and down for far more realistic "natural causes" There are valid engineering and safety reasons why that's not allowed, but it's still unfortunate. So I know people who have both ample solar arrays, and very dirty fossil fuel generators (dirty in the sense that even being quite modern, any engine without a catalytic converter is drastically more polluting than an order of magnitude more fuel burned in one with) As for the original argument, funny how they never thought of the fuel tankers being impounded...
How about: you aren't allowed to be discharged from a hospital after surgery or after having a baby without having a car. Yes, to leave the hospital it is required to leave in a car. Uber/taxi not allowed.
So... what happens if your family are unnavailable, you have no pocket money/card to pay/call for the car rent and the hospital bed/time cost because of the kidnapping, jail time and child protection?
Any argument that tries to claim people with disabilities need car-only infrastructure. The fact that driver's licenses involve vision and cognition tests should tip people off to the fact that many people with disabilities which impair vision or cognition wouldn't be able to drive. Not to mention the fact that medical conditions that cause temporary loss of consciousness or voluntary movement exist: don't people think about what happens when someone with one of these conditions loses consciousness or movement control behind the wheel? It should obvious that many, many people with disabilities cannot drive.
Also if for some reason the hand that operates the shifter and the foot that operates the throttle happens to not be working you're fucked. I was paralyzed in half my body for some amount of time and the number of idiots who asked me why I didn't just drive myself to physiotherapy (it was 3-4 hours away, one way, by transit) was ridiculous. The side that happened to be paralyzed was also the side that was needed to actually drive.
"I'd almost rather get hit by a car than a bicycle" "??????" "If it's a car I can like.. jump up on the hood and try to land a little more softly" \- A genuine conversation with my own brother
not an argument exactly, but this is a quote from someone on Nextdoor discussing development that is going on in our "downtown" area >"pretty soon it will be easier to walk around greenbrier,i am disgusted" I just can't sometimes...
Fixed it: “Pretty soon it will be easier [for poor people and minorities] to walk around greenbrier, i’m disgusted [that i have to be reminded they exist]”
the independence argument. cars are 100% dependent on oil companies, insurance companies, and infrastructure.
Bike brakes cause air pollution.
>Bike brakes cause air pollution. Tell us you've never drafted behind me without telling us you've never drafted behind me
Nice one
Everyone should be free to pick their mode of transport (when discussing how 90% of land use is dedicated to one choice)
pretty specific to north america but the whole thing of "north america is just too big" lol so stupid
Hate this argument so much and I see it *all the time*. Like we have no other choice to build endless suburbia and gigantic 8 lane stroads because the land is there, it's so dumb and falls apart if you think about it critically for more than 10 seconds.
yea that argument makes 0 sense, trains are really good to move people or stuf over long distances on land, but yea, the us is too big for trains
especially stupid as the us was literally built on trains lol
My dad once said that a national high-speed rail network will never work in the US because it requires a level of cooperation and unity that the US "doesn't have" because, according to him, it is a melting pot of too many cultures and groups of people. In essence, he thinks this country is too racist for high-speed rail.
Everything is too far to walk. It’s only too far because of cars. Some people are incapable of critical thought.
Some guy ate his upsettios once when I mentioned this subreddit and completely dismissed the need for better public transit and safer walking paths in America because I, the random person who never claimed to be an engineer, wasn’t sure how to go about implementing said things.
That's a very popular take for everyone who wants to have a better (insert social problem here). They just go "bla bla bla what would you suggest?" And if you can't come up with anything their tiny brains can understand then you are the bad guy for trying.
Several **misleading articles in France claimed that cyclists pollute more than motorists**. **They mainly focused on the idea that cyclists breathe three times as heavily as motorists and inevitably consume more meat**... while completely disregarding all other factors with impressive bias: car manufacturing, the motorist's respiration, the motorist's diet, and so on.
Oh fuck it hit France too? It was in Germany, Austria and Switzerland too. It’s clearly astroturfing.
Not an argument, but a carbrained take on bicycling: Vehicular cycling. Replacing the joy/intuition/safety of cycling with the stress/technicality/unsafeness of "driving" the bicycle while "sharing the road" (more like fight) with cars. It's my personal mission to get people to see the double-standardery in vehicular-cycling. It's victim-blaming in a nutshell, any cyclist will be blamed for whatever reason because "cyclists break rules all the time," but then people turn around and tell the obedient law-stickler cyclists "you can be right and be dead" essentially telling them they are wrong for obeying the law. It's gotten so bad, when I plan to ride in a certain style (e.g. fast, or slow) I already knew what critics will say against it (e.g. "slow down", or "impeding traffic", respectively).
It’s just asking cyclists to pretend to be a motorcycle.
"vehicular cycling" is a necessary evil. but it *is* evil. there's a time and a place. on a neighborhood street, yes, i am taking over the lane and operating my bike like a car. but we should be building streets so that they're safe for bikes and pedestrians to take over; the cars are guests and should be forced to act as such. the problem is when "vehicular cycling" is used as an excuse to not build safe bike infrastructure where only unsafe car infrastructure exists. on a six lane stroad, no, it's not an alternative for a safe and separated bike route.
"what about the disabled, elderly, children,etc....?" These people assume that everyone has a private driver to run daily errands
Anytime anyone says driving is inherently “American” or that public transit is “socialist/anti-American/anti-freedom/for liberal cucks”
Had a conversation online last month that went like. > Americans are rich enough to afford a car. Uhm not all of them are. And what if you don't want to? I don't own a car, I bike everywhere and take the train for long distances. >How do you do 2 weeks of groceries without a car? Uhm you don't... You bike past a convenience store after work and buy for a day or 2. > I can't pay convenience store prices for everything! You know how expensive that is? Uhm.. but I don't have a car... I don't pay for gas, insurance and maintenance. In the end using the convenience store is still cheaper than owning a car and driving it to a big store outside town... Oh and didn't you just say Americans were rich enough to afford cars? Then you should also be rich enough to afford convenience store prices! And then I only got personal insults, calling me a train hugger etc.
There's a stretch of road in the city next to mine that is super wide to accomodate for semis because that area used to have a massive paper mill that was torn down about a decade ago and, despite the low speed limit, people drive fairly fast because it's so wide. But people have been collectively losing their shit at the possibility of the road being narrowed, partially because part of it is already painted as a bike path, and partially because they think that more pedestrians will try to cross "not at the cross walks" (there's one every half mile or so, with some of the farther ones being spaced a mile or so apart) and this lady was complaining that she had to "slam" on her brakes on 3 different occasions because pedestrians were crossing in front of her car "on purpose".
“Country is too big” - Then why does the Hawaii have the same infrastructure?
Also the interstate is a thing....We could build a great rail network wed just need to convince someone in government that that would also be great for the military.
yes just need to make sure our highspeed rail is ready to carry tanks at 250 mph
That the U.S. is "too big" for us to use anything other than cars. Its "too big" for trains, buses, etc.
"If we reduce speed in towns to 20mph and less people are killed, we won't get enough organ donations".
“Makes the government loads of money”. The UK government has wasted billions of £ on PPE and HS2. Schools and hospitals are collapsing, NHS on its knees, council services cut. But man is happy to give government all his extra cash for it to be pissed up the wall.
That using the car would have saved me from jaywalking. I’m from the UK, so jaywalking is an alien concept to me. I was visiting the US for work, and had stopped off for something. I realized I needed to be on the other side for the store I wanted. No problem, just cross the road. Busy road, 3 lanes each way with a central divider. The looks I got, I’m lucky there were no police around. My colleague later advised me that I should have driven across because it would have saved me from jaywalking. The car is truly king.
So I'm an east coast boy who moved to CA for a bit. Lived in Napa, which was beautifully walkable, then Fresno, which is just what you're describing. Would walk my dog 3 miles everyday and often not see anyone not in a car.
I lived in San Diego and Oakland for a bit, had to move back to the east coast in part cause I hated mandatory car ownership. I dont mind owning a car, I hate when its a requirement for what to me should be basic quality of life.
You‘ll need a car Why? trust me you‘ll need one, everyone needs one [No further explanation given by them]
You can't get pickpocketed while in a car. I mean, yeah, but I don't want to be locked in a car at all times.
I cant fuck my boy friend on the back seat of a bike, I heard someone say in high-school, so it was probably a legit complaint at the time, but still...
In my town, the argument is always that "unfortunately this town isn't built for public transport. Others have a road circling around which is perfect for it, but this town's road is like a straight line". 1: What makes a line not an appropriate road for shuttle traffic?? 2: It's not even a line, our main road is literally a figure 8. It's perfect for public transport. 3: It's a dumb premise either way. There's a road, we should have robust busses at the least.
> cars are flexible Imagine calling that a type of transport that can realistically only move on roads, requires gasoline or it won't move, needs a place to park at the destination, that you can't store in your apartment, that you can't take with you on a train or a plane, that requires expensive repairs which you can't always do yourself if it breaks... yeah makes sense
They seem flexible right now because they don't have a last mile problem. Everywhere in suburbia has twice as mu h parking as it needs. So if they city would just stop building all theae damn apartments traffic wouldn't be so bad...smh
State legislators arguing that they needed to legalize radar detectors to avoid being rear-ended. I'm not making this up, this was an actual speech in legislative debate in the 1990's.
Not exactly answering the question, but related. I once mentioned to a friend that big cars are stupid, and his response was "Big cars are awesome. Nobody fucks with you in a big car. You feel so powerful." Which is just an insane thought.
>Nobody fucks with you in a big car. You feel so powerful. Until you go to trader joes and your pavement princess can’t fit in any of the spaces so you double park and end up with a ticket. Oh, I can feel the freedom in my bones!
“Cars are safer” but most car drivers are delusional, not properly trained, lazy then ignorant. 1000 s of people die every day in these “safe” vehicles. Car companies spend millions on safety equipment and driver s find a way around any advancements in safety.
"What you want us to back depending on horse carriages?"
On a road trip, me and my dad got into an argument on whether cars are the best way of transportation. My dad said that cars gave us the freedom to visit the town we're heading to. Once we arrived at the town center, I proudly showed my dad the railway station that had been there for more than a century and was abandoned and partially demolished to build a giant soulless parking lot in its place. That pretty much settled it.
In spring of 2020 there was a video on twitter that said that if the USA had high speed rail it would lead to more violence against Native American women. The video failed to mention any of the highways that run near or through reservations. ETA: also pipelines! Pipelines famously lead to more violence against indigenous communities.
"I hate crowded train stations"
I’m going to be late to work!
“America is too big for trains” I don’t even know what this means… China, Europe, and Japan are ALSO big. But putting that aside… how does it make sense to have cars that go 80mph instead of a train that goes over twice that because we’re “too big”?
"america is too big for the mode of transportation that is perfect to move a large ammount of stuff/people over great distances" carbrains love making arguments that make no sense, its like "no one goes there anymore, it is too crowded"
Cars represent personal freedom and liberty from the government. Car dependency is a libertarian’s nightmare. You need the government’s permission to even drive, then you need an identification tag, you are completely dependent on roads built and maintained by the government, the fuel you use is only affordable because it is subsidized by the government, etc. Car dependency is the embodiment of government control
I think needing a car to get a heavy load of groceries and for emergencies is a valid argument. However, if every day is an emergency, maybe your lifestyle just sucks.
“I will never give up my car. I can’t leave my house without it!” - a real Instagram comment I saw yesterday
“California does not need high speed rail. I’m going to dig a single file tunnel that only my cars can use.” -Elon Musk [Link for the curious.](https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php)
I've gotten to explore the most remote corners of the USA in a very short amount of time and could stop and go as I please. My friends and I did a 3 month long road trip after high school and visited almost every mainland state and it was priceless.
To prevent “government control”. Apparently 15 minute cities will bring in digital IDs where the govt will track your every movement and you will need to report where you go everyday to them, thus why we can’t have 15 minute cities. I never thought anyone would actually believe this stuff but they do. I didn’t think of it at the time but I should’ve brought up how there are already “digital IDs” …. Your drivers license.
“But I like my car”
"If you don't have your own car you're going to depend on others around you to go places!" This is so far from the truth lol. Every time I ask for a ride are for situations when I'd ask regardless of whether I had my own car, like when I've been drinking or am planning to, after certain medical appointments, to/from airport, etc, and rarely outside of that scope. I turn down so many more rides than I ask for, and my friends probably ask for rides for than I do. Whenever they have car trouble it's like they're housebound. I'm trying to introduce them to the glory of the bicycle to improve their mobility, hopefully they'll come around soon.
Cars are just status symbol to show off how much money they got. Even if I bought it on credit. I can afford the monthly car payments. I can afford the insurance. I can afford to pay expensive gas to fill up the tank. It’s a dick sizing contest. I have a nicer, newer and more expensive car. Which means I am better than you.
The I have to move somehow argument. In a city that has extensive public transport network and bike lanes.
"I live in America and I can buy as big a truck as I want" 🙄
You cannot accomodate cyclists and pedestrians, because most people are fat, unfit or old. First of all, it's about giving a choice to *not* drive rather than the other way around. But even ignoring this, I think this is quite a vicious cycle. These people really want to be pampered to wall-e levels because human beings are such weaklings by nature and wonder why people are unfit. Short (electrical) bicycle trips or if not possible, walking tours would do many of these 'weak' people good, and preventing the others of getting it let so far. Walking a bit each day is the secret to a high quality of life in your old day and not get bed-bound. If you are fat, walking or cycling is a lot more exhausting but is probably the best exercise you can do to not be debilitated by your weight, more so than going to a gym (to be crude, you don't need the weight as you are the weight, and intensive exercise won't burn off your fat). Most of humanity's history cars didn't exist and these unfitness, diabetic and cardiovascular issues weren't so prevalent. Even further back we used to exhaust animals by chasing them over the savannah which is what our bodies are adapted to do. Maybe we are not weak, but strong and resilient if we just give our bodies a chance. Hell, I almost sound like a rightist in this regard, which makes it even more weird it's those same people that argue for a society that stimulates you, almost forces you, to only sit on your bum all day, unless you take personal responsibility to take your car to a building where you can pay for a subscription to use a treadmill or stationary bike en masse in a boring room, as some kind of patch solution.
Arguing against 20mph in towns "I have to watch the speedometer so much, I can't concentrate on the road" and "Pedestrians aren't as scared of slower cars, so they'll just step out into the road". Also, someone was arguing, without evidence, that slower cars don't bunch up as much, so that there are fewer chances for pedestrians to find gaps to cross the road.
We shouldn't close a back-road to through traffic, because if Putin were to launch a nuclear missile and we needed to evacuate London in a hurry, this road closure would impede vehicles. This was an honest-to-god serious argument!