Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Getting the angry drivers and riders like teuchter off the road will result in a much safer place for everyone. Maybe a psych test should be a mandatory part of the driving test, to weed out people whoForce people on to public transport, let covid cull them and there'll be plenty of space on the roads for cars
...and make the roads safer.
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
Good. They should employ a vast army of traffic wardens to punish selfish drivers. Park on a pavement? Car is seized and sold, no compensation and you get a huge fine.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
An outright ban on private ownership of a mode of transportation for little benefit overall of course, in particular when similar results that could be achieved by different, far less authoritarian methods.
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T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
It's not about reducing the number of vehicles on the road, it's about the way about trying to achieve this.
You could ban cars altogether. Or you could, perhaps as a less of a nuclear option, do such radical things as increase parking charges or reduce parking capacity at popular beauty spots prone to traffic congestion. And a myriad of other measures, financial, educational and infrastructure-wise that could be implement to reduce car use without resorting to banning the things altogether.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I think you've got in a panic from my proposals for nationalised car ownership. I've already said that I realise that's too much like real socialism, even for people on here, for it to gain enough support that it would actually happen. I don't think you need to worry about that.
I've also talked about lots of ways of reducing car dependency that are less radical. You seem to be wilfully ignoring all those, and spending the whole time arguing against something different from what I suggest as more pragmatic approaches to the problem.
Let's all calm down and not get in a panic that I'm going to
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
For the record, I don't own a car, haven't done so for 11 years, and have no plans to own one in the future even though I could afford buying a second-hand one at least. And like many if not most drivers I would like to see an overall reduction in car use.
Just don't agree with the general characterisation of car users, or indeed cyclists and other road users that goes on in this country, both IRL and on the interwebs, never mind the solutions and proposals that are often proposed around here. Far too much tribalism, demonisation, draconian OTT suggestions and axes to grind all around
mauvais
on reddit or something
I used to go to Lulworth a lot, by bike and car. In the league of 'places damaged by cars', it doesn't really rank. Under normal circumstances - perhaps not right now - the field for cars is about the right capacity. The road system is not regularly blocked up by traffic, nor do cars flood the nearby roads (just as well, there aren't any). It would certainly be better if you could get there without a car or a difficult bike ride but apart from improving accessibility I'm not really sure what problem would be solved or what would be gained.
The nearest station is Wool. The nearest big towns, Dorchester and Poole, are about 15 and 20 miles away respectively, and people don't travel from there, they travel from all over the south coast and beyond. It's in rural Dorset which otherwise has terrible public transport provision, it has no prospect of a railway. The village itself is almost entirely a tourist attraction now and so the car park being bigger than it doesn't really fit into the usual model.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
There’ll be no shark teeth left on the beach at this rate
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Improving accessibility would be enough in itself - I would see that as a significant gain.
I just think the "build a bigger car park" approach is a rubbish one. If you do arrive at one of these places by public transport (which normally means a fair bit of planning, and grappling with sporadic timetables) it's quite dispiriting to arrive to find that half the place is basically just a car park. Not just because it kind of ruins the "coastal scenery" vibe but because the sparsity of public transport could lead you to believe that hardly anyone actually wants to go there - and yet you are presented with the evidence that they do, because at the end of your tortuous journey on a half empty bus, you are presented with hundreds or thousands of gleaming cars. In fact these kinds of places, with a specific destination and perhaps a highly seasonal demand, could quite effectively be served by public transport, let's say in this case a frequent shuttle bus from Wool station that is co-ordinated with train times, well advertised and with integrated fares so that it's all as easy as possible for people to use.
I don't know Dorset all that well so shouldn't get too much into the details of this particular location. I do know about the Scottish Highlands though, and in the past few years there's been quite an increase in tourism, a lot of it targeted at a few popular destinations. These have always been known but for whatever reason have recently become suddenly very popular, and now there are places where, in most of my memory you might have seen 5 or 6 cars parked up, but now there are tens times as many, all trying to park or get past each other on single track roads. Obviously there's much discussion about how to deal with this increase in places with little or no dedicated infrastructure, but to me it's depressing that most of the talk remains along the lines of building car parks or widening roads. I wish there was a stronger effort to improve the public transport instead. Take the Isle of Skye where most of these sights could quite easily be linked on some kind of circular route with an hourly bus during the summer months.
Even in the states they have a system in many national parks where you can't drive in - you have to leave your car and use the buses they put on. Not quite the same scenario of course, but the principle is there - you have a place of great natural beauty which a lot of people want to visit and enjoy. So try and keep it like that instead of gradually making it into a car park, and make sure that it's not only people with cars who can get there without engaging in a major logistical challenge.
Cid
Proper break this time
For the record, I don't own a car, haven't done so for 11 years, and have no plans to own one in the future even though I could afford buying a second-hand one at least. And like many if not most drivers I would like to see an overall reduction in car use.
Just don't agree with the general characterisation of car users, or indeed cyclists and other road users that goes on in this country, both IRL and on the interwebs, never mind the solutions and proposals that are often proposed around here. Far too much tribalism, demonisation, draconian OTT suggestions and axes to grind all around
Honestly I'm a bit baffled as to your line of thought on this... Granted we do come out with outright anti-car stuff, but this is about so much more than tribalism. I drive quite regularly. I share workshop space with a guy who does up... well... er... I'd say classic cars, but it looks like we're stuck on VWs at the moment and frankly we're all a bit bored of the sodding things. I enjoy driving. I like the convenience and flexibility (though obviously flexibility depends on traffic conditions). Fine, there's some trollish aspects to the thread title, and some of the replies. But there is also a very, very stark reality:
- Vehicle infrastructure in most cities (and between them) is strained.
- CO2 emissions (from vehicles) are still rising. And of course there are many other associated pollutants.
- Public transport infrastructure is strained.
- Accessibility is a huge problem for many people; whether that's not being able to afford a car, having wheelchair routes blocked etc.
- 26,610 people KSI in 2018 (1770 killed).
I mean, upthread you suggested increasing parking charges, the effect of that is largely just er... increasing parking charges. It has been done. It is essentially telling people on low incomes they can fuck off if they want to visit here/commute here, if there's limited public transport. Educational measures have been around certainly since I was at primary school 25-30 years ago. The problem is that much of infrastructure is designed around private car use... I make furniture, I don't use my car much, but I need it. And having that option there means that I look at it for longer journeys, then I look at the prices for an advanced train ticket that is probably a bit unreliable, and is certainly only useable at one time and is still more expensive than fuel. And yeah, you can see where that goes. People are aware of the problems of private vehicles but, where they have no other options, or even where the other options are just a bit shit, yeah, they'll get a car. Most people do not have the time or headspace to overthink these things and stick rigidly to their morals.
So that leaves financial and infrastructure measures. And those are exactly what we're talking about... Updating infrastructure is not 'draconian'. We're not going to improve anything by making getting about more annoying. But at the moment we are at a point in engineering, computing and planning where it should be entirely possible to rethink how we design transport infrastructure... Most of the car industry is working on autonomous vehicles. That is somewhere we are going. That can make the roads safe for smaller, more efficient vehicles for local transport, combined with vastly more efficient intercity connections, and in-city public transport. It allows us to think about narrowing roads, to think about improving equal access to transport. To deal more effectively with other issues like the colossal shit-heap that is house prices.
This is not 'little or no benefit'.
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teuchter
je suis teuchter
While I might sometimes prod "car users" as a provocation, when I am discussing this stuff seriously I am quite careful to talk about "reducing car dependancy".
Do you feel like you understand what I am on about when I talk about "car dependancy" as a thing and a problem?
That is, I am talking about a structural problem, not about individuals. When I am talking about the behaviour of car users, I generally see that behaviour as an inevitable consequence of the structural problem of car dependancy.
For example, if someone drives at 50mph on a 20mph road, I am happy to criticise that individual: they have made a choice to behave badly. But ultimately that does nothing to solve the problem: the fact that they do it is a consequence of things like lax enforcement, and the refusal to adopt technology that could make speeding virtually impossible. And those things stem from cultural/societal things, they are to do with what most people see as priorities. People tend to rate notions of freedom and privacy above road safety. And in my view that all comes from "car dependancy" - a society (and its physical infrastructure) that is mainly set up around the assumption that most people have a car and there is stuff that is very difficult to do without a car, but that's just how it is, and why change. This is fundamentally what I would like to see change. If you can eliminate car dependancy, there's a whole load of stuff that follows. Being more specific, what I'd really like to eliminate is "private car dependancy". In other words, I think there will always be a use for something car-like for certain journeys and tasks. And I would like those car-like vehicles to be available to anyone, not just those who are able to own their own. They can come in the form of car club cars and/or maybe autonomous vehicles (I am less convinced than Cid that these will be with us anytime soon, but as soon as they do become real, they'll change a lot of stuff and can become part of a fully integrated public transport system).
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
We have very safe roads, but yeah, if we rated road safety higher then helmets would be mandatory for all car users.
mauvais
on reddit or something
This wouldn't be a safety improvement.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Oh, do go on.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
It's not just the car parking either. I grew up in a small, very touristy village and there were only two roads in and out, both narrow and windy. On a busy summer day these would get snarled up to the point where they were impassable. It seems to be universally accepted that you can queue down the road to get into a car park in the countryside, in a way nobody would do in a city.
Now I'm living in another small touristy village and even in a pandemic, it's the same thing. If the car park is full people don't simply fuck off as god intended, they either idle in the road waiting for someone else to leave or they just park on the road. There is nowhere you can safely park in the road.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Maybe speak to your local tourist information board about getting some "fuck off as God intended" signs erected.
mauvais
on reddit or something
I mean, this is a stupid idea that noone is considering, but helmets in the context of a closed car are designed for motor racing and come with serious downsides. The most obvious is they add a lot of weight to your head which to avoid neck injury has to be compensated for by restraints - hence HANS. The sum total of this is something that's much more restrictive and particularly impairs all-round vision.
If we cared about safety we would do more to prevent or reduce the severity of accidents, not do things to deal with them.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Straight from the motoring lobby. But yes, no one is considering it because the 50% of serious head injuries deriving from road accidents is not considered a serious issue.
This is stupid. For starters, severity is determined by consequences. And it's not an either/or. If it was we wouldn't bother with seat belts/airbags etc.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
People are mentioning car safety as if there have been no improvements, crash testing and classification of vehicles (The European New Car Assessment Programme | Euro NCAP) etc is big these days and there are measures to reduce the damage a car will do to a pedestrian also. There has been progress on vehicle safety.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Another issue arising from car dependency and the associated assumptions is the effect on the building of infrastructure and how it favours motor vehicles over cyclists.
A simple example - the south London junction shown here has temporary traffic lights at the moment because there is construction work going on. The temporary lights for the northbound traffic have been positioned level with the start of the cycle box, i.e. level with the stop line for the cars. Accordingly if you are in the ASL box you cannot see when the lights change. I doubt the person setting up the lights deliberately chose to endanger cyclists; more likely they just didn't think at all because they are not a cyclist and are not properly trained to think about cyclists.
A simple example - the south London junction shown here has temporary traffic lights at the moment because there is construction work going on. The temporary lights for the northbound traffic have been positioned level with the start of the cycle box, i.e. level with the stop line for the cars. Accordingly if you are in the ASL box you cannot see when the lights change. I doubt the person setting up the lights deliberately chose to endanger cyclists; more likely they just didn't think at all because they are not a cyclist and are not properly trained to think about cyclists.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Most of that is focused on the safety of car occupants.
Any measures to "reduce damage to pedestrians" are undermined by a trend towards larger and larger vehicles and easily wiped out by non-observance of speed limits.
I'd be interested though in any data that you can provide that demonstrates a significant improvement in pedestrian safety in recent times, related to vehicle design.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Have you ever tried to drive whilst wearing a helmet? I'm guessing not, or you'd know that it would be impossible to drive safely on the road whilst wearing one.
mauvais
on reddit or something
Oh aye, the motoring lobby. I'm actually President.
If it's just a failure of society to take the issue seriously, why don't you do it then? Full face helmet and HANS, possibly a cage but maybe you can add that later. Off you go.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
It's nice to have dreams.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Best get all those motorbikes off the road if the riders won't convert to Sikhism, eh?
Also, if drivers of performance cars gave much of a shit about this argument they'd have better visibility. Ever tried seeing out the back of a Lamborghini (the idea that you don't need to see out the back if you're faster than anything else on the road is another indicator of how safety is prioritised, or not).
But anyway, yes, I have driven with a helmet (not on the road).
We wouldn't likely be looking at exactly the same helmets that racing drivers use, though. There has been a small amount of research into options, but while it is considered more acceptable to bear the cost and suffering of a very large number of life-changing and fatal head injuries, then that is going to stay a small amount.
It's like rearward-facing airline seats. Personal preferences over-ride safety concerns. And convenience and economic concerns. We could wipe out road deaths by simply re-instating the 1865 Locomotive Act.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
There have certainly been efforts, though I notice how my little old banger, which does not have much in the way of fancy new safety features (for me), has much better visibility than newer cars which have airbags baked into the roof pillars, a higher dashboard etc.
Saul Goodman
It's all good, man
Then you've obviously never ridden a motorbike, either, or you'd know the difference.
