Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.

[platinumsage]

Although (because EVs are heavier) ...

Non-exhaust PM emissions from electric vehicles

Particulate matter (PM) exposure has been linked to adverse health effects by numerous studies. Therefore, governments have been heavily incentivising…

www.sciencedirect.com

We could go back to wooden rimmed carts, although someone will no doubt protest against that on the basis that wood dust is a Group 1 carcinogen.

 

[two sheds]

We could go back to wooden rimmed carts, although someone will no doubt protest against that on the basis that wood dust is a Group 1 carcinogen.

Your original post:

The main problem for decades was asserted to be exhaust emissions, but that is clearly on the way to being solved.

The link I posted showed this was actually bollocks because non-exhaust PM emissions are now much higher than exhaust emissions. Your correct response would have been "Ah sorry I was talking bollocks I'll withdraw that".

Second time you've shown you're not interested in actual discussion and as last time I'm not going to bother engaging with you because you're only interested in arguments, which are just ego-fuelled and have no profit to anyone.

 

[teuchter]

Cars were effectively banned when cv struck weren't they? (Haven't got a car so don't really know, and I've not followed the thread for a while so don't know whether this has been addressed).

So it is possible - banning them would just extend this.

Use was certainly reduced quite a bit initially. But in fact what happened was that existing inequalities were exaggerated: car owners, after a while, were basically told they could go where they want, while the rest of us were told not to go anywhere. So, car owners could drive hundreds of miles to beaches and the like, and those who didn't own cars could go to a park within walking distance of their doorstep. Dominic Cummings took full advantage of this.

Reasons for discouraging public transport use included keeping trains and buses clear for essential workers to use, protecting staff who work on it, and of course avoiding crowding situations where infection could spread.

All these reasons are fair enough, to some extent. But it was notable that the same thinking was barely applied to car travel. No thought given to the benefits of keeping roads quiet for those whose only choice was to navigate them on foot or bicycle. Nor the impact on all the workers who are needed to keep the road infrastructure functioning. Nor the fact that unlimited travel distances were going to inevitably lead to crowding in certain popular locations.

If I were Prime Minister, I would do the following now, to redress this inequality. I would designate 2 out of 3 weekends for the remainder of the summer as "car free". The rules would be reversed: no non-essential travel by car, anywhere. Those who did not own a car would be given priority access to a system where seats could be booked on trains and buses to anywhere in the UK. There would be a limited number of seats allocated per vehicle, to guard against overcrowding on board. Those who, in addition to not owning a car, live in flats with no outdoors space, would be given free tickets. Britain's non car-owning people could then go and enjoy beaches and natural beauty spots anywhere they liked, and enjoy a taste of what car owners could do throughout the lockdown period. As a bonus, none of these places would have SUVs parked everywhere, and the air quality and noise levels would be even better than usual.

 

[Spymaster]

Have you read any of this thread?

LOL!

Nobody has!

 

[platinumsage]

Your original post:



The link I posted showed this was actually bollocks because non-exhaust PM emissions are now much higher than exhaust emissions. Your correct response would have been "Ah sorry I was talking bollocks I'll withdraw that".

Second time you've shown you're not interested in actual discussion and as last time I'm not going to bother engaging with you because you're only interested in arguments, which are just ego-fuelled and have no profit to anyone.

I think you missed my point. Exhaust emissions were seen as the big problem. Once those were brought down and on the way to being eliminated, then that enabled another, previously less serious problem to come to the fore. Non-exhaust emissions of particulates are only higher than exhaust emissions now because of the tremendous progress that has been made in reducing exhaust emissions.

At what point will the level of exhaust plus non-exhaust emissions be acceptable given the benefits that cars provide? Some would say zero, but that is not rational and is not applied to other areas of daily life, such as the size of housing. And make no mistake, the benefits of high-speed load-carrying personal transportation are absolutely massive.

 

[T & P]

I'd certainly be very interested in an alternative to alcohol that eliminated most of the problems associated with it, which still allowed you to enjoy most of the benefits associated with it, and then offered some further benefits on top.

Have you got this alternative ready for use and discussion yet?

So given that no such alternative exists, it is, at the present time, a binary issue. Would you ban alcohol if you had the power to do so? Because it certainly creates a great deal of problems.

Incidentally, assuming you were serious I'd be interested to know what issues would remain in your mind with cars that "had zero emissions, generated no particulates, were made 100% accident proof causing no injuries, ran on virtual roads by hovering above green landscapes, were grown from vats using only organic materials, were totally recyclable and ran on solar power" that were so significant you would still advocate banning them. Because I struggle to think of any...

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

You do? The main problem for decades was asserted to be exhaust emissions, but that is clearly on the way to being solved. At what point will the considerable benefits outweigh the remaining problems? We surely won't need hover cars to achieve that, unless of course you haven't accounted for the benefits as thoroughly as you've accounted for the problems.

The benefits of private cars are tiny compared to the problems they cause.

 

[platinumsage]

The benefits of private cars are tiny compared to the problems they cause.

How have you quantified the benefits to arrive at that assertion?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

How have you quantified the benefits to arrive at that assertion?

It’s not exactly that radical a conclusion to come to.

 

[platinumsage]

It’s not exactly that radical a conclusion to come to.

It's a highly radical position, especially when it leads to an assertion that private car use should be eliminated.

 

[teuchter]

Exhaust emissions were seen as the big problem.

So you claim, but plenty of people have been banging on about all the other problems for decades. The problem is that you have not been paying attention.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It's a highly radical position, especially when it leads to an assertion that private car use should be eliminated.

The only radical thing is that somehow we have been conditioned to accept the horror they inflict as either normal or an acceptable price to pay for them.

 

[teuchter]

So given that no such alternative exists, it is, at the present time, a binary issue. Would you ban alcohol if you had the power to do so? Because it certainly creates a great deal of problems.

I don't think so. I would legalise other less harmful drugs though.

Incidentally, assuming you were serious I'd be interested to know what issues would remain in your mind with cars that "had zero emissions, generated no particulates, were made 100% accident proof causing no injuries, ran on virtual roads by hovering above green landscapes, were grown from vats using only organic materials, were totally recyclable and ran on solar power" that were so significant you would still advocate banning them. Because I struggle to think of any...

If you can't think of any, then you haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention to any of the relevant points made on this thread and many others, over and over again.

 

[teuchter]

LOL!

Nobody has!

This is why there are a lot of people who still haven't realised that I'm right on this subject.

 

[platinumsage]

The only radical thing is that somehow we have been conditioned to accept the horror they inflict as either normal or an acceptable price to pay for them.

There is always a balance between costs and benefits. It could easily be argued that car ownership should be reduced, by for example, crushing supercars owned in London by the spoiled kids of Saudi oil millionaires. But there comes a point where you're removing a Volvo from a 70-year old farmer in rural Queensland who then has no means to leave their property.

By properly assessing the benefits of car ownership, it should be possible to determine when private car ownership should be encouraged, and when it should be discouraged. This could then be done in such a way to bring the most benefit and the least harm. Without such an assessment we'll get crude measures such a anti-car taxation penalising those on low incomes in areas of low population density, while middle-class city dwellers reap the rewards.

 

[Spymaster]

This is why there are a lot of people who still haven't realised that I'm right on this subject.

Don't be daft.

 

[teuchter]

By properly assessing the benefits of car ownership, it should be possible to determine when private car ownership should be encouraged, and when it should be discouraged.

Go on then, what are your criteria?

 

[T & P]

I don't think so. I would legalise other less harmful drugs though.


If you can't think of any, then you haven't been paying the slightest bit of attention to any of the relevant points made on this thread and many others, over and over again.

Or perhaps no points of merit were made, certainly in the scenario when we remove the issues of pollution, congestion, and accidents.

 

[platinumsage]

Go on then, what are your criteria?

As I said, it needs a proper assessment.

However you started this thread with the aim of "eliminating the private car from the planet forever" so you presumably don't see any way in which private car ownership could be of net benefit to anyone or to society.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

As I said, it needs a proper assessment.

However you started this thread with the aim of "eliminating the private car from the planet forever" so you presumably don't see any way in which private car ownership could be of net benefit to anyone or to society.

Oh their benefits to an individual are quite clear. That’s the entire problem.

 

[platinumsage]

If you want to eliminate something that is so beneficial to e.g. a billion people, enabling them to work, see family and countless other things, with consequential benefits to society, you really are going to need a better reason than "but look at all the bad things it also causes".

 

[teuchter]

As I said, it needs a proper assessment.

However you started this thread with the aim of "eliminating the private car from the planet forever" so you presumably don't see any way in which private car ownership could be of net benefit to anyone or to society.

That is what I called my "long term agenda" and it will probably depend on technological changes and not be possible within my lifetime. I explained a couple of posts later that my more immediate aim is a reduction in car dependency.

So, have you done a proper assessment?

 

[platinumsage]

That is what I called my "long term agenda" and it will probably depend on technological changes and not be possible within my lifetime. I explained a couple of posts later that my more immediate aim is a reduction in car dependency.

So, have you done a proper assessment?

Of course I haven’t, because i don‘t have the credentials necessary to obtain research funding on that topic.

I have however conducted an assessment of your contributions to this thread and have found no valid argument for eliminating car ownership (or reducing it as forcibly as you appear to advocate)

For example, this is why you bumped the thread recently:

More than a third of city space in Scotland taken up by cars and parking, study shows

It found that roads, car parks and on-street parking account for between 34.5% and 41% of space in the cities.

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com

Good to see this point gradually being more often made in mainstream news.

Why is it a bad thing that a third of a city (plus the railway line and bus station etc) is allocated to transportation? Should we be equally outraged that more than a third is devoted to housing, and seek to eliminate houses larger than 200sqft for example?

 

[teuchter]

Why is it a bad thing that a third of a city (plus the railway line and bus station etc) is allocated to transportation? Should we be equally outraged that more than a third is devoted to housing, and seek to eliminate houses larger than 200sqft for example?

It's not saying that a third of the city is allocated to transportation - it's saying it's allocated to car use. A large proportion of space is given over to uses that exclude people. The space could instead be used for things that provide a wider benefit. And the more space that's dedicated to car users, the less convenient everything is for anyone else. Ever visited a supermarket by bus, where you have have to walk across a vast car park to get between the door and the bus stop?

Yes in principle we should aim for greater equality in housing too. Yes we should be outraged that people have to live in overcrowded, poorly maintained flats while others knock about in big properties set in large grounds with multiple cars parked up in their garage.

I'm not sure where your 200sqft comes from.

 

[Saul Goodman]

The benefits of private cars are tiny compared to the problems they cause.

No they're not.

 

[platinumsage]

It's not saying that a third of the city is allocated to transportation - it's saying it's allocated to car use. A large proportion of space is given over to uses that exclude people. The space could instead be used for things that provide a wider benefit. And the more space that's dedicated to car users, the less convenient everything is for anyone else. Ever visited a supermarket by bus, where you have have to walk across a vast car park to get between the door and the bus stop?

Yes in principle we should aim for greater equality in housing too. Yes we should be outraged that people have to live in overcrowded, poorly maintained flats while others knock about in big properties set in large grounds with multiple cars parked up in their garage.

I'm not sure where your 200sqft comes from.

Space in a city allocated to car use is allocated to transportation. If you can't agree with that then it's no wonder your reasoning is flawed. Such space is part of the transportation infrastructure and does not exclude people any more than a train station excludes people who don't travel by train or a swimming spool excludes non swimmers.

It's not equality of housing I was using as a comparison, but eliminating excessive use of space. Most houses consist mostly of empty space and are of no use to anyone other than the occupants. If their size was capped at a reasonable limit, then there would much more space available in cities for things that provide a wider benefit, not to mention the environmental benefits from reduced material use and construction time.

 

[teuchter]

Space in a city allocated to car use is allocated to transportation. If you can't agree with that then it's no wonder your reasoning is flawed. Such space is part of the transportation infrastructure and does not exclude people any more than a train station excludes people who don't travel by train or a swimming spool excludes non swimmers.

Space allocated to car use is a subset of space allocated to transportation. The article points out the size of that exclusionary subset.

A train station does not exclude car owners, or anyone. Space dedicated to car owners excludes those who are not car owners.

It's not equality of housing I was using as a comparison, but eliminating excessive use of space. Most houses consist mostly of empty space and are of no use to anyone other than the occupants. If their size was capped at a reasonable limit, then there would much more space available in cities for things that provide a wider benefit, not to mention the environmental benefits from reduced material use and construction time.

Correct.

 

[platinumsage]

Space allocated to car use is a subset of space allocated to transportation. The article points out the size of that exclusionary subset.

A train station does not exclude car owners, or anyone. Space dedicated to car owners excludes those who are not car owners.

Car space serves a significant majority of the population, just as train space and swimming pool space do.

Claiming anyone can get a train or learn to swim is no different to claiming anyone can own a car.

Correct.

Great. No one needs more than two 10ftsq rooms, so let's cap house sizes at that level and save the planet.

 

[Saul Goodman]

A train station does not exclude car owners, or anyone. Space dedicated to car owners excludes those who are not car owners.

Cycle lanes take up a massively disproportionate amount of space. That space should be shared.

 

[weltweit]

platinumsage there is no reasoning with Teuchter, Teuchter hates car owners because they have freedoms which non car owners don't have. And rather than bringing non car owners improvements to bring their freedoms closer to car owners, Teuchter prefers to consider removing car owners of their ownership of cars.

Levelling down rather than levelling up is his mantra, because some people have something that is good, which not all people have, they should be prevented from enjoying it and have it removed by edict. Rather than steps be taken so that more people can enjoy the good thing.