News outlets like the BBC try (in my experience most of the time, but not always) to avoid implying something without some evidence or source. The driver was probably at fault, but it could have been a mechanical failure, a panicky swerve to avoid a dog running into the road, etc. Without knowing more they report passively, which I feel is appropriate.
So the owner (who is probably the driver)'s fault.
a panicky swerve to avoid a dog running into the road, etc.
So the driver’s fault.
Without knowing more they report passively, which I feel is appropriate.
But yes, this remains correct even if the driver is at fault, someone must assign that fault, and that’s not BBC’s job. Could passive voice the driver in there too though.
On the note of mechanical faults, it is odd that cars are typically safetied when sold/transfered to a new owner and never really required to be inspected again. Regular safety inspections should be a mandatory part of car ownership.
At least they didn’t use the victim-blaming language news outlets often use for pedestrians and cyclists: “Tanning shop struck in accident wasn’t wearing a helmet”. No mention of the driver, the car, who had the right of way, who was speeding, etc.
100% agree that it’s horrible wording, but the linguistics nerd inside my brain just has to say: that’s not the passive voice.
Passive voice would be something like “a store was smashed into” or “a car was driven into the store”, where the grammatical subject is the semantic object. It can be used to avoid saying the subject of the sentence, who’s doing the action, but in this case they keep the active voice and just change the subject from a “driver” to a “car”.
On another note, it’s also telling that the article first comments on financial damage, then that the driver is unhurt and the car is damaged, and only after that does it say that the store-owner and the two customers were unharmed.
I’d like to know where each of those places are. If I recall correctly (and if I’m wrong, I would like to be corrected with visual evidence), one thing the US has over pretty much all of Europe is the natural landscapes.
Europe also has stunning natural landscapes. Just look at the Swiss Alps as an example.
It do believe it is true, however, that in America you are more likely to encounter vast expanses of beautiful (nearly) untamed nature.
As for the pictures in America, I just googled some nice urbanism terms and US and picked the first pictures that seemed nice.
I think the first one is in Boston, but I don’t know where the other ones were taken.
Interesting. We went to rural Tuscany recently and it was only the first group.
I get the feeling that Italy is very heterogenous culturally, despite appearances. It did only become a single country relatively recently in the history of Western Europe.
We were unified in 1861, which is before other Countries in WE, but the problem is more related to the fact that our economic boom in the 50’s brought a car colture that still exists right now: for the first time ever people could afford to move easily, and the infrastructure was built upon that car-centric idea. Tracking back is hard and colture is hard to change.
If really depends on the city you’re in. Some cities do have a bike culture, especially those where there are big Universities (in my experience). It also depends on the area you are in. In Turin for example there are a lot of young people cycling to the University Campus
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