this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
73 points (97.4% liked)
Asklemmy
43874 readers
1325 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Cars are fucking deathtraps and a massive waste of public and private resources.
I've always been a proponent of cutting down their use. Also, more stringent licensing requirements until we invest in effective public transportation (which is a hard fight already as manufacturers and even police have interest in dangerous vehicles being sold to the public).
Also, why the fuck do we have so many gigantic trucks on the road for shipping? Invest in fucking rail freight.
And, on a personal note, my grandmother still has her license and there's no fucking way that's safe for anyone.
I agree with most everything you said. My store actually even allows us to use mopeds but man... not doing that with the way these roads are.
With the licenses, I actually kind of find it crazy how lax we are about them in the US. Like, I'm in Washington and we're kind of known for having the hardest test in the country, and all I did was parallel park, park on a hill, back around a corner, and park in a parking bay. That's it. And it's so easy in fact that you can fail all four of these sections and still pass as long as you're fine when driving to and from each section, with the way the points system is set up. You start at 100, each section is 5 points and you need 80 points left over to pass. Looking back on it now those things are definitely like some of my least worries on the road. It's nice that I can parallel park, but I think it was much better that I learned lane changing, you know?
Exactly! When I took my test way back when, they didn't even have me drive on a highway... Like, most of the crazy shit I see happens on or entering/exiting highways. I feel like mandating that in a test would keep a lot of people from danger.
And I get that people need to get to work and do errands, but the standard for getting a license is so low that their convenience comes at the expense of public safety and increased private costs, medical, legal, tickets to police vultures that just fund further oppression.
We treat driving as a necessity and cut all corners to keep selling environment destroying death traps to every member of the public. Driving is very convenient, but also inherently dangerous and the testing involved needs to accurately reflect the fatal consequences that occur wayyy too frequently.
Even if the consequences aren't fatal, victims end up with significant injuries and even life changing disabilities. Then they're compensated fucking pennies by greedy, profit pinching insurance companies and any actual burden for their treatment, rehabilitation, or stabilization is then borne by the victims and eventually the state.
It's lazy, demented, and cruel, all the way around. I feel like states should have standing to fuck up auto manufacturers and insurance companies for the massive costs they shift over to the public, but we've never really had a justice system so that's a ways away if it's even possible.
As a MASSIVE fan of cars, there is literally no reason to have any cars in a city centre.
Wanna get to the other side of the city? Bus/team
Need private transport? Bike
Cars suck for city transport
Totally, I mean a lot of my gripe with cars is about how they're currently used and their safety and environmental impact.
I recognize the need for low occupant vehicles, but definitely also see that we've blown past any reasonable projection of their use.
As far as cutting cars out of cities goes, it's pretty important to cut commuter cars as well. Commuter trains are safer, way more easily regulated and keep cars out of the city.
I shed no tears for the owners of parking lots and ticket writers who would lose out with an increase in commuter trains. They bet on the continuation of inefficient forms of transportation and sought to capitalize on convenience, let 'em fail like commercial real estate and have the cities restructure their downtowns when the prices on those buildings plummet.