Im baffled youre confused, this clearly isnt a direct quote of anyone. This style of reframing a statement to emphasize a specific aspect you want to draw attention to while making clear who made the original statement isnt new.
Yeah, my sister had her driver’s license suspended last year because of medical reasons, but she can still walk or ride a bike or ride public transit with zero issue. An electric bike has been a godsend for her in her hilly, car-dependent neighborhood, although there’s still a nigh-complete lack of dedicated bike infrastructure. It’s long bothered me how people who defend car dependency implicitly believe people like you or my sister don’t deserve the right to safe, independent mobility and will ignore your existence because they only care about using the vague notion of disability as an excuse to not have to rethink our car-dependent society.
Of course it is…mostly because you can use it no matter the weather outside…and you can use it to travel much further distances… do I really need to explain why a car is a car and why cars are more expensive? But, I can find a used car cheaper than I’ve found used/new hand pedal bikes…
Can’t imagine spending 5k on something that can’t be my main mode of transport…
I was responding to the thread about a disabled guy on a scooter and offered a reasonable answer as to why not all disabled folks would be able to go this route easily. Especially if it can’t replace their current means of transportation, and costs THE FUCKING SAME IF NOT MORE.
Yes, I want easily accessible transit. Yes, I hate the idea of everyone needing a fucking car to do anything. Yes, I believe it is the duty of the municipality to create efficient and non discriminating means of transport.
The shit I’m responding to, is the capitalist fix to disabled movement. Anything thats made for people with “different” bodies, is going to be like 5x the price of a normal thing and probably still the quality of the lowest tiered object out there. (Hand pedal bikes being the prime example.)
Fuck. I knew the fuck cars group would have some ignorant able-bodied ideals, but this shit is getting silly.
I haven’t said anything ablist, I’ve merely objected to your needlessly hostile and antagonistic tone. Calling me ablist without any basis is a transparent attempt to insulate yourself from criticism, you fragile dink.
AKTCUALLY, “technically” I never said you said “fuck you”, I said you made fucks at people. And you did. So don’t pull that “technically” shit, just gather up all your fucking fucks and fuck off with them.
I guess one could retort with, “You’re right, but ending of your opening statement with ‘too’ has an implication of a previous ‘fuck, you’…” or something along the lines of, “if you find my tone hostile maybe you’re oblivious to your own ableist views and how rampant of an issue it is.” Or possibly “why the fuck do you find the word fuck so offensive you sensitive twat?”
But, maybe you’re right…in fact…you’re right. Wasting my time responding at this point, has made me a loser. And in turn, you, a winner.
You win, jerkface. Take the internet points, and have a good life. Best of luck.
It’s so depressing. Our city in Australia had such a good robust tram network and they ripped it all out because they hired an American urban planner that promoted cars is the future. Now instead we have a long car tunnel named after the Lord Mayor that was responsible for it.
Today, I test drove a used car. I was happy with it. Good mileage. Good price for what it was. Decided to buy it. Got all the paperwork taken care of. Drove it home.
Half way home, the tire pressure gague turned on. The test drive, nothing was amiss. But now the tire pressure gauge is on.
They also told me they’d just replaced the tires. So either they didn’t fill them enough or there’s something wrong with the tires or sensors.
Same issue. We’re 90% sure it’s the sensors on our car. We just ignore it now. We change the tires for winter half the year anyways so it will be on for half the year at least even if the issue was fixed.
Swap your sensors/get new ones when you get new tires. You can get packs of sensors for ~200$. They cost nothing to install when your are getting things mounted/balanced anyways.
I’ve got sensors on my summers, winters, and spare.
Was it raining when you drove it home? Used to have a car (I think '04 or '14 Alero) that was notorious for getting fucky when the wiring harness in the front tire(s) got wet. I don't remember what warning it set off, but replacing the wires was only a short-term solution because all it took was a good rain for it to get fucked up again.
My parents Subaru has a constant tire pressure warning because the tire pressure sensors batteries die long before the tires wear out and the cost to get the sensors replaced isn’t worth it. It’s just a useless bullshit feature that makes cars cost more. Check your tires occasionally with pressure checker to make sure they match the psi listed on the label in the doorjam. and if it’s low get them pumped up. I use the free pump outside my local Costco. No membership needed.
It’s just a useless bullshit feature that makes cars cost more.
It's not useless, and it doesn't increase the cost of a car by that much, either. Like, a couple hundred dollars, tops. Yes, you can very easily manually check the tire pressure, but that's not the point of these sensors. They're to give you a live notice when the tire pressure is dropping. If you're actively driving, you can't exactly check your tire pressure while you're cruising along at 65 MPH, but that's the time you're most likely to experience a drop in pressure. Having a real-time alert of a potential issue before your tire blows up on the freeway is crucial to road safety.
~50$ each, so 250$ for a set with your spare (you should put one on your spare).
They are expensive to get installed on their own, but if you’re getting new tires/a mount and balance anyways; then it is free. Maybe a small charge for programming if you don’t want to do it yourself.
I was about to add that they usually have to replace the sensors when they replace the tires, and the replacement cost isn’t typically close to the list price
I tend to notice when tire preasure drops as it tends to pull the car to one side, cause a lean, and increase the road noise. The sensors often need to be replaced several times throughout the life of the vehicle so the cost is certainly more than a few hundred dollars in total. In my area cars must pass a safety when transfered between owners, these senors must be working to pass the safety if the vehicle is equiped with it regardless if you want the feature or not.
A few hundred bucks to pay someone to replace a sensor you may not need is certainly a significant sum of money to some people, especially those buying used cars as their finances are often already fairly tight.
When I bought my most recent car I tried to get as little electronics as possible to reduce maintaince cost on bells and whistles I don’t need. I have manual windows, a manual transmission and very little bonus features like blindspot warnings and tire pressure sensors. My maintaince costs are less because I dont have to constantly replace sensors that detoriate from road salt, wide temperature ranges, and general wear.
$200 is not tops. It’s also not cheap. Every stupid little thing adds up and breaks people who aren’t lucky to win at capitalism like you apparently have.
But the UK just released that 85% of drivers exceed 20 limits - particularly in roads that were not designed and don’t “feel” like 20 mph roads.
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps. They serve to give brownie points to the people patting themselves on the back for doing it, meanwhile they do nothing to actually make the road work properly. They’ll just slap a new sign on and paint some lines which flow worse than a 6 year old’s scribble.
No, they’re not. The limits are assigned so politicians can pat themselves on the back and maybe score some votes. Sometimes also so some new speed trap locations can be created, catching people out in areas where the road feels like it has a higher speed limit (although this is perhaps less true for 20 zones).
If the goal was safety for pedestrians then a hell of a lot more should be done than just messing with the speed limit. Like, actually altering the road and including traffic calming measures - like the official recommendations for 20 limits state - and also providing ongoing training for drivers.
This policy is clearly evidence based. Not playing politics. It’s why the conservatives oppose it. They take contrarian positions to fuel outrage, that keeps people voting against their best interest.
It’s clearly not evidenced based, because the most recent evidence says that just slapping a 20 sign on a road built for 30 isn’t good enough and leads to massive noncompliance.
You are right in the sense that they are popular, but only when compared to the idea of altering infrastructure because speedlimits cost less than building stuff
Increasing the speedlimit is way more popular, hell more people would probably want them removed altogether than decreased
That’s completely wrong. Compliance is much better for 30 mph roads, it’s pretty much the other way around with 50% exceeding the speed limit but 82% driving less than 35. Meanwhile only 15% of drivers on measured roads follow 20 limits, with 50% of drivers going above 25. Source
It should be noted that the “measured 20 roads” are primarily roads that don’t have traffic calming measures, which were designed and built for 30 but have had 20 signs slapped on them - but that’s exactly what this proposal is about. When roads are built with the official recommended traffic calming measures, when the roads actually feel like 20 roads, then there’s compliance. But that’s not what they’re doing here.
It still means fewer pedestrians crippled.
That’s an issue in specific areas, not in every single part of every single 30 limit.
If you want 20 mph roads, then build 20 mph roads. Provide ongoing training for drivers. Don’t just slap a sign up and jerk yourself off over it.
From your own source:
"For the 20mph sites (which are not thought to be representative of all 20mph roads), the average speeds were above the speed limit for all vehicle types, ranging from 22mph to 28mph but below the average speeds seen on the 30mph roads."
So the average speed does decrease, increasing safety. Just because the effect isn't a perfect 10 mph reduction doesn't mean that it does nothing.
This means the proposal is effective, but it could be improved with traffic calming measures.
This means the proposal is effective, but it could be improved with traffic calming measures.
The report goes into even more detail on this, the roads measured were primarily those without traffic calming measures. The overall subtext is that 20 mph roads should be built as 20 mph roads, including traffic calming as per the official recommendations. You shouldn’t just slap a 20 limit on a road built for 30 - which is what this post is about for Wales.
What they’re doing will increase noncompliance, not only in the areas where the road should be 30 but also in areas where it should be 20. It’s a cheap blanket change that’s more about political brownie points than actually achieving positive benefits.
Why not start with an assessment of which roads should be immediately reduced, which roads should be modified and then reduced and which roads should be left alone? Why not do that instead of a blanket change that pushes responsibility onto poorly funded local councils?
One measure is very effective and cheap. Every city, town and village in Wales becomes safer very soon by just reducing the speed limit.
Your proposal takes years to implement and incurs a massive cost and inconvenience to shut down many roads for weeks at a time. Just to make sure you reap the entire benefit of the changed speed limit. The extra benefit has a disproportionate cost to the proposed solution.
It’s certainly very cheap, but only very effective in certain places. It’s questionable whether it would be cheaper to target those places exclusively.
I mean it sounds like from the figures that you are providing that changing the speed limit from 30 to 20 DOES reduce the average speed of motorists. It doesn’t change it from 30 to 20 seems to be your main point, which, yeah, duh.
But if the goal is to reduce it to 25, they should set the speed limit to 25 and work with drivers. The goal should be to encourage and increase compliance overall, not encourange noncompliance with excessive measures in many prominent zones, which will lead to noncompliance elsewhere where it’s actually needed.
The fact is, safety isn’t the goal here. The goal here is to make a cheap manuever for political brownie points. Whether or not it’s effective overall is an unlikely byproduct. Meanwhile, councils have to spend money to untangle the mess of roads that will now have the wrong speed limit assigned, as per road design specifications and recommendations.
I get your point about drivers exceeding the limit anyway. They trialed the 20mph in our area and on some roads it doesn’t feel like anything has changed.
Hopefully with this put in place first, they can then target areas where people are over and have the legal “backing” to add traffic calming.
I detailed it more in one of my other comments and the government data and graphs can be found here, but yeah the real non-compliance happens when roads are reduced without traffic calming measures. Which basically shows that reducing the speed limit on its own does nothing but criminalise road users.
I doubt that noncompliance can effectively be used to deliver further measures beyond speed limit reductions. Rather, people are going to say “See, your blanket 20 limit doesn’t work, you should undo it”.
Ultimately I see this as a very cheap but ineffective method at achieving its purported goals, but it’s very visual and very cheap so politically it’s fantastic.
No, only criminals would be criminalised. These speed changes would be sign posted. A lack of traffic calming doesn’t justify speeding.
These changes will bring down the average speed of cars. This difference has a big impact on reducing the likelihood a child dies from an impact. It also reduces the likelihood of an impact occuring.
Your argument of the change won’t reap the most benefit so we might as well do nothing is shortsighted. I could be your not shortsighted, rather you don’t care and do want any change that might inconvenience cars.
They actually wouldn’t be sign posted, the whole point of the change is that the un-posted speed limit will now be 20 instead of 30. So you may see a 20 sign on the entry to the area, but there will be no requirement for repeater signs.
A lack of traffic calming doesn’t justify speeding, no. But the official recommendations for 20 limit areas recommend installing traffic calming measures and generally making the road feel like a 20 road. You’re supposed to design a road with a speed limit in mind, changing the limit should involve more than just changing one or two signs.
It’s not that I don’t care, I don’t recognise the significance of the effect, and I don’t think they’re putting in the effort they should be. 20 zones are good and can be effective in a lot of places, but they don’t belong everywhere Wales has a 30 limit. Furthermore, this change by the Welsh Senedd puts all the responsibility onto councils to correct the new 20 zones that should have remained 30, at their own expense, with no further funding. What the Welsh Senedd should be doing is giving more authority to councils to create 20 zones where appropriate. Let them reduce the speed limits where it’s needed.
Turns out that after people have been fined a few times, they suddenly do feel that 20mph roads are 20mph roads.
Almost as if they knew the road was 20mph all along, but decided to ignore the clearly marked speed limit (and often the speed limit warning on their satnav) because they hadn't faced any consequences for it before.
Here's the thing about absolute statements: they only need a single counter-example to be falsified. There's a 20mph road about 200m from my front door. There's a police speed trap there roughly once a month. You are talking bollocks.
Interesting, that’s the first I’ve heard of it - at least, aside from temporary 20 zones around schools and the like. I think most forces are avoiding 20 limits because it’s legally not that well tested, there’s a slightly higher potential for someone to come up with a novel defense. I guess that doesn’t stop revenue coming in from people who just take the fines without challenging them.
Could you please tell me, which country are you in? England/Wales/Scotland.
think it’s pretty clear that due to budgetary constraints enforcement is lacking in all areas
It is and it isn’t. I’ve noticed a hell of a lot more police on the roads over the last year or so. Speed traps come and go, but often those aren’t run by police but private contractors - it’s less about budget constraints and more about profitability. Like I say, there’s a higher risk that someone will get off a 20 speeding charge, in which case they not only miss the revenue but also incur court costs.
Cheers for the information though, it’s nice to hear updates in their practices, and how it varies across the country. Like, in a couple places I’ve seen some really deceptive looking cameras - not in a van but on tripods. There’s definitely an element of trying to catch people out, while more or less skirting within the bounds of the law.
What the heck? In your other comment you say they make these 20 zones to fund corrupt police running speed traps on them… Which is it?
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps.
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps.
I’m talking generally about speed limit reductions here. Not just 30 to 20, but 60 to 50, 40 to 50 or 40 to 30. Sometimes it’s done with valid safety intentions, backed up by data. More often than not it’s done as part of some bullshit political project.
From another of my comments:
The limits are assigned so politicians can pat themselves on the back and maybe score some votes. Sometimes also so some new speed trap locations can be created, catching people out in areas where the road feels like it has a higher speed limit (although this is perhaps less true for 20 zones).
I’m not aware of police extensively enforcing 20 zones, but I am aware of police enforcing speed limits in areas where it has been reduced for arbitrary reasons. Quite often these involve civil works that are ludicrously overpriced and under-delivered, which reeks of corruption.
I have seen documented evidence many times that enforcement does NOT alter people’s behaviour in a way that persists after enforcement ceases. They simply adapt to the enforcement level, whatever that happens to be. I don’t think that enforcement is a reasonable component of street safety. We can’t have street daddies on every corner keeping us safe.
The UK Department for Transport estimated that cameras had led to a 22% reduction in personal injury collisions and 42% fewer people being killed or seriously injured at camera sites. The British Medical Journal recently reported that speed cameras were effective at reducing accidents and injuries in their vicinity and recommended wider deployment. An LSE study in 2017 found that "adding another 1,000 cameras to British roads could save up to 190 lives annually, reduce up to 1,130 collisions and mitigate 330 serious injuries."
“Our research suggests the growing use of average speed cameras in motorway roadworks and increasingly on sections of A-road is reinforcing the road safety message as they are extremely effective at slowing down drivers. ... “For instance, on the A9 in Scotland the number of deaths has halved since average speed cameras were introduced between Dunblane and Inverness in October 2014.
All but one of the studies showed effectiveness of cameras up to three years or less after their introduction; one study showed sustained longer term effects (4.6 years after introduction). Reductions in outcomes across studies ranged from 5% to 69% for collisions, 12% to 65% for injuries, and 17% to 71% for deaths in the immediate vicinity of camera sites. The reductions over wider geographical areas were of a similar order of magnitude.
We can’t have street daddies on every corner keeping us safe.
You can and thanks to the revenue cameras generate, it generates enough revenue to save the tax payer money, and free up the police for other duties.
I have seen documented evidence many times that enforcement does NOT alter people’s behaviour in a way that persists
Given I found plenty of evidence with a 5 second search, is it possible you didn't want to find evidence because you had already come to a conclusion about the effectiveness of speed enforcement?
The UK Department for Transport estimated that cameras had led to a 22% reduction in personal injury collisions and 42% fewer people being killed or seriously injured at camera sites. The British Medical Journal recently reported that speed cameras were effective at reducing accidents and injuries in their vicinity and recommended wider deployment. An LSE study in 2017 found that “adding another 1,000 cameras to British roads could save up to 190 lives annually, reduce up to 1,130 collisions and mitigate 330 serious injuries.”
“Enforcing speed limits in areas that matter leads to better compliance in those areas and a reduction in deaths”
That doesn’t mean we should reduce speed limits everywhere, just that we need to enforce safety where it matters.
“Our research suggests the growing use of average speed cameras in motorway roadworks and increasingly on sections of A-road is reinforcing the road safety message as they are extremely effective at slowing down drivers. … “For instance, on the A9 in Scotland the number of deaths has halved since average speed cameras were introduced between Dunblane and Inverness in October 2014.
Mate, the A9 is a beast in and of itself. It’s the one road that connects mainland Scotland (Glasgow & Edinburgh) with the rest of the country, if you exclude Aberdeen. When the A9 has a major accident (which happens far too frequently) then you often have to detour 50 miles, easily more if you don’t pick the right route first time.
The A9 single carriageway average speed cameras are pretty reasonable, though, more or less. What would be more reasonable would be dualling it all the way, or at least dualling the key accident hot spots, the bottlenecks. Then if they had a crash they could divert to the other carriageway, rather than queueing up traffic for half a day and expecting people to turn around and navigate across the lower highlands.
Suffice it to say, horses for courses. We can have speed regulation and enforcement where it matters, and we can have national speed limits that leave drivers to driver to the conditions. All of these measures of changing the rules are nothing but bullshit though, not when we have no formal system of teaching the new rules to existing drivers.
Ongoing training for drivers is needed. Not necessarily ongoing pass/fail tests, but at least a CBT course every couple years, to brush up on the latest rules if nothing else. This avenue would offer far better safety improvement than anything else.
The severity of the punishment does not matter, as long as it meets the bare minimum threshold of being significant enough that it cannot be dismissed (a small fine is meaningless to someone who is wealthy). The only effective deterrent is the certainty of being caught.
Arguably, we should have more enforcement, with far, far less punishment.
Biggest problem: I’ve seen several kill their own batteries. Like 3V across both main and aux batteries. That’s not really recoverable without battery replacement.
General quality control is bad (I have to be careful not to give details here. I like my job).
Subjectively, I just don’t like the vehicle. It’s the flagship for everything wrong with the auto industry. It’s too big, too heavy, handles like shit, too many things to distract you from actually driving the fucking thing.
A friend of mine had a Wrangler Rubicon - built to drive straight up mountains, but never left a paved road in its life
At less than 5 years old, the oil pan rusted out. I live in an area that salts roads in the winter, but even 10 year old 80’s cars back in the 90’s didn’t rust out that bad
I’ve been riding for 30 years and am an advocate for motorcycling in general. Unfortunately, there are several very good reasons I can think of why this would not work in the US and by extension, Canada and Australia.
Skill:
Motorcycling is not for everyone. It requires a higher level of skill to operate a motorcycle than a car. It requires both hands and both feet, excluding many people with disabilities that otherwise could drive a car with little to no modifications.
Even small mistakes on a motorcycle have a huge impact.
Many people are intimidated by motorcycle riding.
Convenience:
I don’t advocate multi tasking when driving but I’m always sipping on a coffee or water bottle when I’m driving. You can rig up something on a motorcycle but it’s awkward.
I have a communication set up in my helmet so I can take calls and listen to music, but it’s only so-so. The wind noise interferes with the voice commands and gloves make touch screen usage awkward.
Gear:
There’s no protection from the weather or an accident other than what you wear. The appropriate gear then becomes a burden to carry around when you reach your destination (I’m an “All The Gear, All The Time” kind of guy so I always wear full face helmet, gloves, kevlar pants with padding over my regular clothes, and either a cordura, kevlar, or racing leather jacket - all with padding, and boots. The leather jacket weighs about 15 lbs by itself). Lugging that around is a pain in the ass, and the boots aren’t comfortable for walking long distances. Two armfuls of gear is simply not conducive for things like running errands, going to school where you go from class to class across a large campus, or working in a job where you can’t securely store all that gear.
Not wearing gear is a terrible idea; a fender bender in a car doesn’t throw you on the asphalt. My uncle got in and accident on a moped in a parking lot in Japan. Broke his jaw. He was going 5 mph.
Proper gear is bulky, heavy, and expensive, and it only can do so much in the way of protection and comfort.
Weather:
Many places have short riding seasons; can’t ride in snow, it’s brutal to ride in dry conditions when it’s below about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s brutal to ride in super humid conditions, it’s brutal to ride in desert heat.
It’s less safe to ride in wet conditions, period. Traction is an issue, emergency breaking is an issue, visibility is an issue, and of course, getting wet. If it’s cold and you get wet, hypothermia is an issue.
Moderate winds are a safety issue. I’ve been blown across a full lane of traffic. I’ve been blown into incoming traffic (luckily no one was coming the other way, but that was super lucky), you can be blown off of an elevated freeway section since the guard rails only go up about 3 feet in most places.
Cargo:
Limited cargo space. Ever try grocery shopping on a motorcycle? Forget that value pack of toilet paper. Costco? Um, nope.
Family:
Totally unusable for a family. Can’t transport young kids at all (infants and toddlers), can’t go anywhere with a spouse AND children (yes I’ve seen the photos of a whole family on a scooter in SE Asia and wherever else. It’s not a good idea there and it’s not a good idea here because it’s not a good idea at all. Full stop.), can’t transport kids with musical instruments or sports equipment.
Other drivers:
There would still be other drivers on the road and they’re the single most detrimental element to motorcycle safety.
Travel:
I have a touring bike and particularly enjoy motorcycle travel, but it’s way easier and more comfortable in a car, and you can bring more stuff and travel with more people.
Bottom line:
Could you replace some single and couples trips, some times of the year, in some parts of the US, Canada, and Australia? Yes. Will it make a difference? I believe it would not even move the needle.
I love the idea of a world more calibrated for motorcycles and scooters and have had the thoughts you propose here myself. The particular countries you cite have populations that prohibit mass adoption on a scale where it would have a measurable impact. I’m my opinion.
Do you have a source for that? And in particular, do you have a source which reports how many of those people were bikers killed by cars, as opposed to the actual bikes/bikers killing other people?
The report did parse out some more specific info related to causes of accidents. It’s quite detailed. I didn’t see the comparison of bikers killed by cars vs killing other people though.
In 2021, there were the most motorcycle fatalities since records were collected in the mid 1970s at 6,084. Compared to 26,585 passenger car fatalities the same year. So at the statistical peak, there were still ~4.37 car fatalities for every 1 motorcycle fatality.
You’re likely thinking about the rate of deaths per 100,000 vehicles which is much higher for motorcycles than cars.
Look at any road, anywhere, any time of day, any time of year and you will see way more cars than motorcycles. There simply aren’t enough motorcycle on the road to account for more fatalities than cars.
What do you believe is the critical difference between Americans, and people from countries where they saw the climbing death rate and decided that it was important enough to reorganize their transportation? You’ve said that it has something to do with the nature of Americans themselves. What is wrong with Americans, then?
Oh boy, this is a complicated answer. Stay with me, there no TL;DR
First, I think the death part has nothing to do with how transportation is organized outside the US. Nor will it influence transit inside the US.
Transportation has been organized by urban development. I don’t know of any example where cars were banned or taxed or otherwise discouraged due to death rates. In America, regulation was the response to automobile deaths; seat belts, removal of steel dashboards and steering wheels, inclusion of airbags, crumple zones, and as of 2018, backup cameras are mandatory due to too many deaths of children behind cars. If you have an example of other countries organizing transportation based on automobile deaths, I’d be interested to hear that.
I don’t believe that’s a thing though, so for the purpose of my response I will be disregarding death as a factor of how countries organize transportation.
I know more about European urban development than anywhere else so I’ll stick to what I know and use Europe to compare. It may be different for Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America, etc.
Here we go.
European countries had been populated with developed civilizations hundreds of years before the US. There were well developed cities and roads prior to the invention of automobiles, and they were not developed with cars in mind. The result is that there wasn’t enough room to make big wide roads to accommodate cars.
Trains came first, so some infrastructure that could have been auto centric was already dedicated to rail infrastructure.
European populations were used to living within a confined territory that has already been built out for generations before the car came along. Europeans tend to have a greater sense of shared space, community, and commonwealth; private ownership is less of a priority, and strong/strict government regulation is more common, compared to the US.
Next…
In the US, there were huge swaths of undeveloped land when the car was invented. Henry Ford was an early adopter (some say inventor, I don’t know and don’t want to look it up so we’ll say early adopter) of the assembly line, bringing car ownership within reach of average folks. I can’t remember the exact figures, but Harley-Davidsons were more expensive than a Model T. (Fun fact, both companies started in 1903.)
So you have cars being mass produced immediately upon their inception, they’re useful and flexible and extend people’s sphere of experience, and can even be cheaper than motorcycles, certainly more practical (remeber, roads are more a suggestion for ~50 years after the car was born in most places in the US). They are widely adopted, several other manufacturers join the party, and almost immediately after the invention of the mass produced automobile, the auto industry is a significant part of the economy.
One defining characteristic of America and Americans is individualism. We have all this “freedom” so we make a wide spectrum of choices about everything.
Part of that is private ownership. I am an individual, and as such I have my stuff and it’s not for anyone but me.
Now, after WWII, European economies are recovering, European cities are rebuilding within the same constrained infrastructure that was there before, while the American post war economy is flourishing, manufacturing is strong, and soldiers coming home have access to advantageous home buying programs.
In response to this confluence of events, and due to the vast swaths of undeveloped land, communities sprung up outside of, but adjacent to, urban centers. Suburbs have entered the chat.
To connect them, roads are built, and all these new cars are being manufactured now that raw materials are available again after the war. Suburbs have single family homes, not apartments or the kind of housing blocks of flats common in Europe. There’s a period of suburban sprawl, enabled by and coexisting with, roads and cars.
Now you have people experiencing an apex of private ownership: their own land, home, car. When they’re in their home the Commonwealth is not visible. When they’re in their car they’re using the Commonwealth, but individually, physically separated by steel and glass. These cars are powerful and relative to what came before, comfortable, and technical marvels.
Ok, still with me?
Branding is a thing. Advertising is a thing. Cars advertise a certain identity. Teenagers start taking old cars from the 20s, 30s, and 40s, customizing and modifying them into Hot Rods. A car is more than a car, it’s an extension of self. An exercise of personal agency. AND it’s still a vehicle (pun very much intended) for individual freedom - both freedom of movement and freedom from the Commonwealth.
Now you have this recipe where cars are baked into the DNA of America and Americans. Even though the internal combustion engine wasn’t invented here, America’s coming of age after WWII is inextricably linked to cars.
At this point, its hard to conceive of being American without at least access to a car, if not direct ownership of one. Our urban planning lost out in many ways to the suburban dream, and suburbs are too far flung and disconnected to link via rail. Suburbs then grew into their own population centers, but not in an urban manner with density. The population is all spread out. Public transit isn’t effective without density.
In order to find cheap enough housing and good enough jobs, one has to live many miles away from work, necessitating a car. Suburbs were built for cars, not walking and biking. Many don’t have sidewalks at all. Suburbs have big driveways and big garages, for big cars.
It’s also shockingly easy to get a driver’s license. Because it’s understood that you need a car.
In Europe, there’s less room to accommodate wide streets, driveways, garages. Gas is more expensive. It’s costly and more regulated to get a driver’s license.
SO!
It’s not that there’s something wrong with Americans that makes them addicted to their cars, it’s that there’s something very American about car ownership. So much so that our built environment logistically makes public transit difficult to be efficient, and people have strong relationships with their cars.
That’s my oversimplified but long winded OPINION based on my subjective experience as a former certified Harley-Davidson mechanic, former Tesla mechanic, and son of a 50+ year mass-transit city planner. I love cars and motorcycles. And I also love buses trains and trolleys.
Dude… Dude. Come on. This is like a cliche about American’s warped self-perceptions. You denied the premise without explanation (“I think the death part has nothing to do with how transportation is organized outside the US,” a truly absurd thing to say) and then went … away. Far, far away.
It isn’t about whether or not Americans are “more addicted” to automobiles. Simple political choices could be made regarding road infrastructure that would save lives without requiring that people drive any less! You don’t even mention that in your multi-story wall of text that frankly no human being is ever going to do more than scan briefly. Americans are choosing to have dangerous infrastructure, when safe infrastructure exists. Driving deaths are going UP in the USA, dramatically up, while every other major jurisdiction is continuing to bring them down, some from levels a fraction of what the USA had before the recent spike. You need to have a more sophisticated model to explain it than, “Driving is American.”
Yes, I used too many words. In doing so I buried the point.
First - you asked what I thought made Americans different which I answered. Now you’re making a different point that better policy options would result in better outcomes. Sure, that’s fine, and it’s true - but it’s not what you asked. My answer is that Americans have a relationship with cars that is not based on rational policy or optimal mobility, or mortality rates - but instead, we have an emotional and cliche warped self-perception that informs our choices, including transit in general and automobiles specifically. We can keep on that thread if you want but that was my answer. I tried to give background by explaining where I think this comes from, and disclosed that I’m basing this on my own experience; it’s my opinion.
Next - you seem to start with an assumption that I don’t agree with or frankly, even understand; this notion that transportation is somehow organized around mortality or fatality rates. Why? You have not cited anything that credibly makes this connection, and I don’t see one, so I dismissed it. It’s not a thing. Show me, prove it, explain what you mean at least; I can change my position. Currently, my position is that your premise is false or flawed. Or that “organized” is maybe a bad word choice and you mean something else perhaps.
Also - I absolutely DID provide an explanation: transit is organized around population mobility, and is related to urban development, not death rates. (Again this word organized. I have a problem with this word. Maybe “regulated” is what you’re looking for? I feel that I did address the fact that inside the US, individual freedom is sacrosanct. It’s politically very hard to get voter support for taking away personal freedom, and the status quo is a high level of personal freedom when it comes to cars.)
I sense a gulf of disconnect here: Americans are choosing to have dangerous infrastructure, when safe infrastructure exists. And I full on guffawed at Simple political choices could be made…. What American political system are you looking at? I would like two orders of that, please!! Don’t conflate “simple” with “easy”. Playing the flute is “simple” with only two elements, your breath and your finger movement. It’s not “easy” though.
A large part of my tome was dedicated to showing how Americans don’t make choices based on optimal outcomes, common sense, or what’s best for society. I don’t want to go down another rabbit hole here, but in the last presidential election nearly 75 million Americans voted for Trump, not because he’s the best choice for a leader, not because he was effective in his prior administration for the country as a whole, but - massive oversimplification warning: because he appealed to a narrow sense of self interest and proved extremely effective at delivering self interested results.
Simply put, Americans could choose a less dangerous infrastructure but don’t, in the same way they could choose less gun deaths but don’t. I don’t need a more sophisticated model to explain it because it’s not a sophisticated thing; it’s the opposite of sophisticated. It’s basic. Confounding? Frustrating? Stupid? OK, yes. But sophisticated, it is not. Sorry?
I don’t care if no human being is going to do more than scroll my wall of text, by the way, I was talking to you.
At this point, its hard to conceive of being American without at least access to a car, if not direct ownership of one.
Well, that’s privilege speaking. Poor people do not own cars. When you lose your income and calculate your runway before you starve to death on the street, the first thing you sacrifice is your car. The car’s primary function for the working class is to serve your employer. There are an entire class of Americans who do not drive.
While I agree generally, just check for a handicap license plate first, please.
My mom is disabled, and we have to use a pick up truck for hauling her power chair (too heavy for a lift gate). They don’t make small trucks anymore. We drive a Nissan frontier, so not as ridiculous as this, but still a large truck. She has to use a step to get into it. Our other car is a small SUV, and we pull a trailer when we need to take her wheelchair. I’m all for shaming people for driving gas guzzling monstrosities, but it’s really important to check the tag first. When we first moved to our current location, the nearby city had a group that would slash tires on oversized cars. We got signs printed explaining, because honestly, if it weren’t for the whole wheelchair situation, I’d be down for that. Lol. I wish they made an electric vehicle capable of hauling her chair that we could afford. Shit sucks. :(
And it really does. It’s damn near impossible to afford an actual wheelchair van, and the only options outside of that are SUVs and pickups. And if you want anything newer than 25 years, it’s gonna be absolutely enormous. We got lucky when a friend had a decent running 2002 CRV. It’s “small,” at least when compared to most SUVs, but capable of pulling a trailer.
I love this sub so much. It’s as if confidently incorrect had a weird little clone with just the right mix of sass, poorly thought out arguments, and environmental awareness to vex both cyclists and drivers in equal amounts.
I bought one and while I with they had a version that was compact sized instead of midsized, your hot take is terrible.
It is expensive, but my cars prior to it were a used 1992 Civic si I owned from 2001 till 2014, then I drove our 2005 Camry from 2014 till Dec 2022.
When buying a new car I wanted two primary things: a decent AWD ride and a bed I could put nasty stuff in and hose out after, like mulch and dirt. Something that did not work with enclosed spaces. I tried a few light trucks and they handled poorly or seemed cheaply made. The Tacoma has apparently needed to continue growing and is almost a full size now, too tall. The Ridgeline was the smallest one that seemed well made, had a decent ride, and has a bed I could hose out.
It sits lower than other trucks, so I generally feel small compared to other trucks. No idea why you think it is huge. Don't think I am hot shit, just someone who couldn't find a well made light truck and settled for the closest thing.
On a side note, it works perfectly fine as a truck and nobody buys trucks to seat 8 people.
Honestly I would love a compact fully electric or hybrid truck that gets better mileage but rides the same as a car with a bed in the back. A two seater or with a short back seat to load stuff in the cab so it is shorter would be even better!
I like the idea of a smaller and less expensive light truck and hope they are successful!
Local dealers didn't have one in stock to test drive when I was looking, I don't like buying the first year of a new or completely overhauled model. I also don't trust Ford to make a vehicle that I can rely on for 10+ years.
With Toyota's success with the Prius I was hoping for a hybrid Tacoma, but they only went hybrid with the Tundra (the bigger one).
A new Transit (at it’s smallest) in North America would be…
12" taller
10" longer
3" wider
$6,000 more expensive comparing base sticker prices (Cargo)
$11,000 more expensive comparing base sticker prices (Passenger)
Use 20-30% more fuel (using Fuelly data to estimate)
This is what grinds my gears about people saying to get a minivan instead of a mid-size crossover - yes I get ego is something to get past but MINIVAN’S ARE 80" WIDE THESE DAYS.
In fact, if that person bought an Odyssey instead of a Ridgeline, they’d net a total difference of five inches of length.
Yes, as has been pointed out buying an Odyssey would have been better, not that the Odyssey is good (also hate the enbiggening of minivans). I think people buying ridgelines are driving them empty and without passagers (like almost all trucks in north america), but are trying to justify having a truck. This thing is basically the “just the tip” of trucks.
If you have use of a truck bed, you likely are not buying this. If you think you would like the option of a truck bed then you are likely buying this.
Bikes don’t work well in places like where I live when you can easily get 1-2 feet of snow in the winter. Or very icy roads. They definitely should be used more, but they aren’t a panacea.
Some nations that experience harsh winters have well maintained bicycle infrastructure year round. Access to effecient, maintained, and safe bicycle infrastructure is the biggest factor preventing or enabling cycling.
Biking in sub-zero temperatures when it isn’t even safe to be exposed outside for more than a few minutes (also happens here in the winter) is not a good idea either.
Again, I am all about bikes. I think bikes should be widely adopted. I would also never ride one in winter conditions here no matter how well the infrastructure is maintained. Have you ever seen a road plowed after there’s been a huge snowfall? Keeping a bike lane clear is not especially reasonable an expectation for a snowplow.
Most bike lanes get a differnet treatment creating a tightly packed snow surface to pedal on.
Safe bicycle infrastructure does not equal bicycle gutters. Bicycle gutters are unsafe on most roads even in the summer and were designed without winter maintaince as a consideration.
Skipping through the video, those look like roads dedicated to bicycles. Unless you repurpose an entire city to be bicycle only, which is a very unlikely scenario in most places in this world with harsh winters, that really doesn’t apply to the way snowplows usually work.
What do you think good, safe and dedicated bicycle infrastructure looks like? Cars and bicycles has vastly different needs and therefore should have differently built roadways.
When your city repaves its 4-6 lane roads, it has the choice to change some of those car lanes to bicycle/pedestrian/multiuse paths.
How do you think you build a good, safe and dedicated bicycle infrastructure in a city which has not been designed for it? There are roads here, like the one where my office is, that only have one access route. How do even get the delivery trucks in if you make that only road bike-only? And if you say “just build another road,” who is going to pay for that?
Also, almost every road here has two lanes, one in each direction.
No bike friendly city, and very few advocates for them, are suggesting to ban motor vehicles entirely. Rather, we can structure infrastrucrue to serve both, instead of just cars.
A 4 lane stroad can be turned into a two lane, limited access road with protected, separated bike lane and a median. This actually improves auto throughput, travel times, and emissions.
A 2 lane residential street can have restricted parking, narrower right of way, and wide rsidewalks. This naturally slows cars, making shared right of way safer for all.
A pedestrian zone can have moveable bollards, so that deliveries and mobility services can still access, whil keeping the street safe for people.
In all these cases, its not about bulldozing buildings, its about changing the way we use existing land.
How do you think you build a good, safe and dedicated bicycle infrastructure in a city which has not been designed for it?
The Netherlands did it. Just change construction requirements/guidelines, zoning, etc, get some biking activists, and wait 50 years. All of these problems have already been solved.
And to answer your specific question, I think they normally close off roads to regular cars but let delivery vehicles go through. In the short amount of time the vehicle is there, people just bike/walk around it. And they also make smaller delivery vehicles, including branded cargo bikes for when the situation fits.
No. Because infrastructure needs to be replaced every so often and after 50 years you’ll have gone through most of it. 50 years ago is around when the Netherlands switched from building car infrastructure to also building bike infrastructure.
Such a bike-only city just have to build heated underground tunnels for biking. If a New York subway style bike highway isn’t good enough., since wind chill and all that, instead build a city-wide roof over the first floor of all the buildings in the city to basically make that first floor a basement.
This is obviously an extreme answer, but if a city wanted to be bike-only, the only barrier is cost.
no city wants to do that, but they could. Stick Solar panels on the first floor roof and do the solar freaking roadways idea to heat up the tiles and avoid plowing (without needing to make them car-proof.)
I got myself all excited, I wish this was more than a modern fantasy.
Bike lanes cost less than car lanes. Bike-path-sized snowplows probably cost less than car-lane-sized ones, too.
Bike infrastructure only seems unaffordable for those who dishonestly see it as an add-on on top of car infrastructure, rather than correctly as a replacement for (some of) it.
Bike infrastructure only seems unaffordable for those who dishonestly see it as an add-on on top of car infrastructure, rather than correctly as a replacement for (some of) it.
Well sure, bike infrastructure is cheap if you take a road for cars, ban all cars, and declare it bike only.
But that’s so ridiculous it’s not worth mentioning.
Again, these problems have already been solved. Compress the snow on bike paths, and make a reliable public transport system for when its really too cold.
Biking in sub-zero temperatures when it isn’t even safe to be exposed outside for more than a few minutes (also happens here in the winter) is not a good idea either.
It’s funny how many of the same people making this sort of argument would happily go skiing in the exact same weather.
My family lives in a rural town of 1600, my wife works 800m from home and I commute 50km to the nearest city for work. Most days she walks to work for 7:30 or takes the ebike. I take our EV to arrive at 9am. My daughter takes the school bus , which arrives at my home at 8:17am.
There is a bus that comes to my town and goes to the city each day at 7AM and 8AM. Unfortunately, I cannot take the bus, or I would have to leave my daughter unattended. I don’t think I need to explain why taking my bike 120km a day round trip by the bike path won’t work.
By taking the EV, I make my life work and I save a good amount of CO2 in the process. My old hatchback would have burned 7.7l fuel to make the commute , or 7.7 * 19.6 lbs CO2 = 150lb CO2 per day. My EV gets 16kwh/100km generating between 3/4 lb and 5lb CO2 for the trip, based on local energy mix.
I think a mixture is the real solution. Public transport and human-powered transport such as bicycles should be encouraged as much as possible, but they cannot apply to every scenario. I have to drive about 10 miles down a 4-lane highway to an industrial park whose only access is that highway. Both my home and that industrial park are outside city limits. The nearest bus to me is 2 miles away and goes the opposite direction. Even with robust public transport in this area, it wouldn’t be economically justifiable to get a bus to go from anywhere near my semi-rural subdivision to that industrial park. Not enough people would ride that bus and it wouldn’t be safe to ride a bicycle there.
So I’m a case where I have to drive a car. I don’t like it. I wish I had another option. I would never drive again if I could, but right now I drive a car and the most eco-friendly car I could afford, which was a used Prius.
So people in this community can berate me if they want, but I’m pretty much out of options unless I do something drastic like quit my job and move. And “quit your job and move so you don’t need a car anymore” is not advice anyone should take. Maybe one day, I will be able to do that. I rode public transport all the time when I lived by the train in L.A. and I loved it. But I don’t live in L.A. anymore, I live in a small city in Indiana where public transport throughout the county, which is mostly farms outside city limits, is just not viable.
Your situation doesn’t reflect the majority’s situation, that’s what people need to understand, with better public transport it’s a very small minority that needs a car.
The meme makes a blanket statement forgetting about a big swath of rural people, falsely claiming that EVs don’t address climate change when the cold fact is that EVs do represent a way for people like me to contribute to the solution. A meme like this deserves a reminder like mine.
Or, I could make a small post so that one of our rural neighbours, driving an SUV, doesn’t read “EVs don’t solve climate change” and think to themselves “Hey, that’s true, may as well continue on with my SUV”.
In a way it does, if cars didn’t exist you would have found work closer to home and your environmental impact would be lower. Your situation exist because cars allow it to.
That’s a bad way to phrase it because it frames cars as technological innovation providing a benefit.
The reality, and the best way to phrase it, is different: his situation exists because massive government subsidies for car infrastructure allows it to. He’s not an enjoyer of modern convenience; he’s a welfare queen.
Thank god it’s not like that because I have a great job and a great life that was enabled by the freedom that my cars have given me. Y’all can get rid of your cars but I will always have one regardless of the law or society’s opinion. I’d build my own fucking car if you couldn’t buy one even.
Your situation doesn’t reflect the majority’s situation
In America this is an extremely common situation. Public transit is abysmal here. We need to build that up before we start removing car infrastructure.
Sure, you google me a snow clearing device that will clear plowed snow after a 2-foot snowfall away from a bike lane that abuts a bunch of parked cars on a narrow street and also doesn’t create a traffic hazard. Because that’s what we deal with in my town.
Yeah, you do see that bike lane is separated from the rest of the road by a concrete line so that plow can plow that area separately from the rest of the road, right?
Do you think maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that there isn’t a single solution for every city and town in the world and there are unique problems they can face which make things other cities can do untenable? Is that even a remote possibility? Or does it not apply to plowing snow?
First of all, cars have a much greater grip on the road in icy conditions. So they can handle things like black ice when riding a bicycle on it would be extremely dangerous.
But sure, every small city and town with harsh winters are beyond relevance.
Small cities and towns have a big problem solving things like black ice for cars. Hence the many accidents on days like that when people drive in those conditions. I know because I used to work for the local news station.
I thought I meant beyond relevance for urbanism, and by the way I mostly meant for this discussion about snow on bike lanes.
Guy who said “don’t put words in my mouth” literally 10 minutes ago
Small towns going bankrupt is a result of newer means of transportation concentrating centers of activity within a region.
If you can’t clean the ice for cars, cleaning it for bikes is cheaper. If you can’t do any, then don’t do any - you’ve got worse problems. Thus, irrelevant for this discussion.
You literally didn’t. You cut it off mid sentence.
It’s insane how you’ve moved the goalpost from “It’s impossible to clean snow off bike lanes” to “it’s impossible to clean snow off some bike lanes when the conditions of the bike lanes are very specific” to “it’s impossible to clean off bikelanes when the city is tiny and too broke to clean it off roads in the first place”
Guess what? Then don’t clean them. Discussion has been moved to a segment of the problem that is so small and uninteresting that and if you had been clear about your message in the first place, nobody would’ve needed to answer you
That’s another thing I never said. I never said impossible. And I have always been talking about where I live, not anywhere else. I made that very clear.
Neither do cars work well in those conditions.
If you clear and salt the bike paths in a timely manner, like we also expect for other roads, then bikes are a perfectly viable option even in winter.
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