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Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
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I wouldn't be opposed to automobiles in general, but I would continue to be opposed to myself owning one. Making them affordable and environmentally friendly doesn't make them any more fun, any more healthy, or any less dependent on whatever type of fuel. Also, I assume maintenance costs would be down, but if this vehicle required as much servicing as cars do these days, that would be yet another reason for me not to want one.
In this situation, tell me about parking/storage in the public space.
- traffic jams and road rage/ aggression/ Entitlement? These new cars, the road were certainly designed for them, right?
-Do these cars run on body fat? Apathy? It seems people using them may still not understand that being outdoors in any weather, will not kill them
I ask this because I live in an environment where I dont think cars are needed. Mass transit or pedicabs or bikes or walking, is all I think we need.
I am no car-hater (I live in a 3-driver, 3-car household), but I do hate and resent the huge public subsidy the private automobile has long enjoyed. Let's level the playing field and make the cost of driving truly reflect its cost to society, the environment, infrastructure, and natural resources.
My biggest gripe is with motorists, not motor vehicles. Being harrassed by an idiot in an environmentally friendly zero emission non-fossil fueled pick-up truck is still being harrassed.
Cars as the system is set up now, really isolate people from each other. You can't talk, you can't communicate, your methods of relating to others are limited to hand gestures which ususally are not seen and are assumed to be hostile when they are, honking the horn which is also hostile, gunning the engine, etc.
Humans are meant to use their bodies, we can out-walk and run down almost any other animal, we're one of the planet's champion walkers and not bad at all for runners, especially considering our ape heritage. Our bodies are meant to be used. The dream of living in perpetual ease is as old as humanity and it never hurt us having that dream because it was unattainable for almost everyone. Those few who could live it, tended to die of complications of obesity, suffer from gout, all that stuff - look up the problems of the old-time royalty, now most of us (2/3 in the US) have them.
It's nice to dream of a new, clean, nearly maintenence-free source of energy, but it still takes conventional energy, like electric motors, to transfer the energy to the wheels of the new supercar. And all the other tech to build the metal cage for you to transpors you and your lunchbox to/from work in. And, it seems sure as the second law of thermodyamics, that there's no free lunch in new sources of energy. Solar panels get UV degredation, and use more energy to make than they yield. Atomic power was thought to be the new clean dream power until we learned better. Probably the cleanest most hassle free power that's been invented is steam power, you can throw anything into your Stanley Steamer and it'll run, and it only takes fairly clunky old tech to build the things - even then, individuals won't have them, they'll be delivery trucks maybe.
Cars take a lot of room - look up the stats, it's scary! A huge amount of space is taken up by roads for cars and parking. No matter whether they're conventional cars or future cars, and most of that space prime farm land - I forget whether it's an acre per person or an acre per family of four, but land for small intensive farms is going to become very important. Put 1/3 of the land taken up by cars back into living or farming land, and the remaining 1/3 for the remaining traffic, being bikers, walkers, service vehicles while they're possible, etc., and you get more land and still less traffic congestion.
So even if cars get really clean somehow, as far as what comes out of the tailpipe, they're still not the greatest thing for us.
Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
I've never been opposed to cars. I just think there's too much asphalt and concrete for them.
I'm not opposed to cars, I LOVE cars, I just hate the morons that can barely think without spraining neurons which somehow managed to get a license.
This hypothetical car would have to be at least as big as a Land Cruiser, have 4 wheel drive and enough power to comfortably tow with to suit my purposes. And I would still ride my bike most of the time. :)
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil.
I'm not a car hater, but this is hardly a hypothetical vehicle. It's been around for decades. It's called a bike, not that I see what that has to do with hating automobiles.
I don't hate cars, actually love driving, though I do it rarely because in Los Angeles you don't drive, you creep. But the auto culture is in a way what we are stuck with, it's just a shame. I think so many peope who would benefit from fast, safe, and reliable public transportation never vote for it. So many places in big cities would benefit from high-speed trains and monorails that would alleviate traffic, pollution, and save lives. Yet people balk at the cost and talk about public transportation being subsidized, but they never look at all of the subsidization of the auto culture: road construction, fire and police services for accident investigation, and a huge insurance bureacracy. I won't go into the war topic, as no matter how we move people we still have enormous energy needs.
Just like everyone else, no matter what kind of car comes down the pike, I'll still keep riding my bike. But I wish I could take a bullet train to San Francisco or a monorail to the beach some days and leave the car at home.
-Marcus.
I'm not a car hater, but this is hardly a hypothetical vehicle. It's been around for decades. It's called a bike.
Amen brother. Now if we could just accomplish mass adoption in the U.S. To be honest, mass adoption of the bike - or any other efficient vehicle - is going to take Legislation, and/or a full on oil crisis.
People pretty much worship the car they know. They aren't going to want a decrease in power. They aren't going to sacrifice speed and control for efficiency or environmental protection. Look at all the idiots attaching giant fins and wings to their cars and putting huge coffee can mufflers on them. These are not guys who are going to jump at the prospect of driving a vehicle that is good for us and alleviates the oil problem.
For the OP:
I would not be opposed to such a vehicle as long as it didn't have a human pilot. Driver error probably accounts for 95% of all the accidents in cars and there are millions of them! Just having an efficient vehicle isn't going to fix that problem. Also, I'd say that most of the heavy traffic is related to driver inadequacy. Look at all the people on cell-phones, eating food, drinking their starbucks, putting on makeup, changing their clothes, adjusting their radio, being old and crotchety and slow... How many times have you wished all the cars could start moving simultaneously once the light turned green? Is there really any good reason to have to wait there for a minute before even moving? If the drivers were "on teh ball" that wouldn't be an issue.
Ever get stuck behind someone in a traffic circle who doesn't know how to use it? *******s... take FOREVER!!!
So yah I think there needs to be some amount of computer or machine control... perhaps a network of monorails or something? I remember reading a slashdot article a while back about a train-type transportation network that had a whole bunch of little cabs with seats for 3 or 4, and you would program a destination when you got in and it wouldn't stop til you arrived at your destination because it would figure out the best way to get there, and there were little shortcuts around the stations people used to get on and off so you wouldn't have to wait for them. The thing was only like 3 feet wide so you could install it virtually anywhere, it was elevated so it wouldn't interfere with wildlife if you went over a park or something, and best of all there wouldn't be traffic or accidents (or not nearly as many).
If they could make a system like that that ran on solar or wind or another renewable source that'd be great.
Because really, I don't think anyone here is opposed to an efficient alternative to the automobile that didn't pollute the environment, people here are still opposed to the negative attitude and behavior of the people who drive the vehicles. Fix that problem, make it so the people can't just decide to drive you off the road or fall asleep at the wheel and kill your family, and even if we still pollute a bit until we can find a more efficient vehicle, I bet you'd have 100% of the people here on your side.
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
Okay, since I hate cars, hate driving them, and have to drive them I'll bite...
Yes. I would still be opposed to _excessive_ usage of automobiles. I define "excessive" as what we currently have right now, approximately 1+ car per person in the USA.
The case against cars goes much farther than energy consumption. It goes right to the core of how we define our urban environments. It involves roads and distance and population centers. People will be just as miserable and stressed out in their renewable energy cars while in a traffic jam as they would be in a traffic jam today in SUV's.
There is so much stuff to address, that I am giving up trying to do it here.
Look at this to get a rundown on the main issues.... http://www.smartgrowth.org
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
Laws of thermodynamics say the energy has to come from somewhere - nothing's for free. With the number of cars out there now, even with "green" energy, there will be always be environmental problems. Fuel cells and other green energy sources just give us more margin so we can build and use more cars; don't think for a moment we won't take advantage.
BR
I'm not a car hater, but this is hardly a hypothetical vehicle. It's been around for decades. It's called a bike, not that I see what that has to do with hating automobiles.
Word.
Laws of thermodynamics say the energy has to come from somewhere - nothing's for free. With the number of cars out there now, even with "green" energy, there will be always be environmental problems. Fuel cells and other green energy sources just give us more margin so we can build and use more cars; don't think for a moment we won't take advantage.
BR
With the possible exception of nuclear reactions, all the energy we have available comes ultimately from our sun. Since this is, for our purposes, an inexhaustible supply, the trick is to either convert the suns energy to a usable form or find enough substances that have already done so.
EDIT: Oops. Geothermal might also be a non-sun dependant source of energy since it relies on the molten core of the earth. Whether that core would be molten in the absence of the sun, I don't know, but I suspect it might have cooled off long ago without it.
The last thing we need is ANOTHER car thread. Dead horse still being beaten.:fight:
CHEERS.
Mark
i'm no scientician, but i think the core is moltent due to the pressure of being under the "earth", not any energy from the sun.
ok for all of the people who hate cars and trucks ill gladly open a position for you to come work for me and replace my 1 1/2 ton truck you only have to be able to pull a trailer with 4 pallets of rock for when we do retaining walls . thats only between 4 and 6 tons.
"hating" anything is mindless and waste energy that be put to use doing something positive
i can see in my mind people going to cut down half the rainforest to make signs to protest car manufacturs because they polute the enviroment. and it would make perfect sense to them.
and keep in mind im not talking about the people that choose not to buy a car cause that doesnt mean they hate them. i dont own a elephant and i wouldnt say i hate them or even dislike , in fact they can be amusing and a great photography subject.
im talking about the fundementalist anti car nazis
its hard to belive people have have so much animosity twards an inanimate object.
im not going to argue the uses of cars cause i know nobody wants to be the one to carry 6 tons of sod 60 miles.
the irony in all this is that my gas consuming , air poluting truck is used for non other than landscaping (so all of you that complain about ruining the enviroment how many trees have you planted this year. and of jan 1 2005 ive planted about 50 trees and about 1000 shrubs bushes and smaller plants) oh and you can add on that that landscaping is joined to a nursey and greenhouses that grows and sells millions of plants)
now its easy for you to complain about ruining the enviroment as long as you dont have to acctually do anything about it but as soon as you guys go plant a 500 LB oak with nothing but a shovel and a nursery wagon to move the tree and dig the hole you can come talk to me about the enviroment.
i know ive only touched on one of the subjects and theres a lot of others like soeone said it takes away form human contact and communicationand dealing with alot of people most every day i can say for a fact that may possibly be a good thing.
and the health issue . people will allways find a way to be fat and lazy (and i think TV is a bigger attributing factor than automobiles in that area , to a point i think TV is the most useless invention all the news is bias depending on whats profitable for the network owners and the weather is 90% wrong everything other than that is just violence sex and commercials. but even with that argument i dont even hate TV yes i think its useless but its not even worth getting mad at let alone hating)
but all that aside i love my bike and i ride it almost anytime i dont have a need for automobiles
I like having multiple conveyances, and I'd probably like to have a few more. I've got my feet, my MTB, my recumbent, I'd like a trike I think, I've got a Vespa which I adore so much it's featured in one of my web site designs, I've also got a pickup truck. If I was a car gal, I'd want to have some kind of old Chevy or old convertible or something. But I'm not so I don't.
I think it would be great if we had some kind of non-polluting car. No more fumes while I'm out on my bike. It still wouldn't alleviate traffic or the pain of being hit by a car, but it would be better than now.
I do wish more people would use their bodies. I spent a large portion of my life sedentary and when I became active I realized there's a whole lot of knowledge you get from your body. People are really missing out. Plus it feels great to know there's nothing you can't do, no hill is too high, no distance too far.
ok for all of the people who hate cars and trucks ill gladly open a position for you to come work for me and replace my 1 1/2 ton truck ... (snippity)
I think that I speak for more than myself when I say that your situation is a completely legit use of an automobile. The problem with them is not that in some situations autos ARE required, but that they are used gratuitously in situations where they are NOT necessary and that car culture built around them has ruined our cities, roads, health, and economy. I don't think that you should have to defend your use of your truck for a second; that is exactly how trucks are MADE to be used.
I wouldn't be opposed to automobiles in general, but I would continue to be opposed to myself owning one. Making them affordable and environmentally friendly doesn't make them any more fun, any more healthy, or any less dependent on whatever type of fuel. Also, I assume maintenance costs would be down, but if this vehicle required as much servicing as cars do these days, that would be yet another reason for me not to want one.
I don't know your history, but I've had a lot of fun in and with cars. You also must be pretty young, because I'll tell you cars today need very little maintenance compared to 20 - 30 years ago. Plugs, coolant at 100K not yearly or two years, belts hoses last forever, tires 40 - 60K, oil change 5-10k. When I started driving 100K out of a car was a BIG deal, now 200K isn't unusual at all. I will say they are way overpriced compared with the past but also it's very hard to buy one without all the bells and whistles. When was the last time you saw a car W/O power everything and A/C. No one cranks down a window anymore much less adjusts a mirror by hand. I guess thats OK because ˝ the drivers don't check a mirror or use a signal anyway.
Hmm, apparently there's roughly one car per licensed driver in the US, that's a lot of cars!
I think that I speak for more than myself when I say that your situation is a completely legit use of an automobile. The problem with them is not that in some situations autos ARE required, but that they are used gratuitously in situations where they are NOT necessary and that car culture built around them has ruined our cities, roads, health, and economy. I don't think that you should have to defend your use of your truck for a second; that is exactly how trucks are MADE to be used.
yeah cars are mostly not needed but theres a few good reasons to have them. even picking up groceries for a large family seems valid to me cause i wouldnt want to carry all of them even if it were possible
but yeah driving 2 blocks to get pack of smokes or a case of beer seems useless and could be handled better.
one thing that bugs me is corperate bafoons driving huge trucks when you know theve never done a ounce of real work in thier lives
but yeah like i said in my last post i ride my bike whenever i can.
i'm no scientician, but i think the core is moltent due to the pressure of being under the "earth", not any energy from the sun.
The core and mantle are still (very) hot from when Earth formed. It has nothing to do with pressure or the sun.
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
In case you haven't noticed, this is a cycling advocacy forum. I'd say if you can't stand criticism of cars and/or you love cars so much, you are in the wrong place. And if you continue to advocate for cars, you just might be a troll.
http://www.cars-suck.org/
Right Of Way manifesto
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poe's story "The Purloined Letter" turns on the idea that sometimes the best way to hide something is to leave it in plain sight. The idea is amply illustrated for New Yorkers by two glaring scandals that can be seen in action, any day, on any streetcorner, by anybody who ventures outside his house:
There's an unacknowledged crime wave of lawless behavior by drivers -- a crime wave that takes the lives of 250 or so New Yorkers every year.
In a gigantic theft of public property, the car-owning minority of New Yorkers has stolen the streets from the non-motorized rest of us.
Thugarchy, the rule of the road
Stand at a busy streetcorner in midtown any weekday morning and just watch what happens. You'll see a dozen dangerous crimes a minute: drivers "squeezing" the light or just plain ignoring it, drivers bullying pedestrians out of the crosswalk in a very lopsided game of "chicken," drivers stomping on their accelerators and peeling out of a stalled lane into another that offers an irresistible ten feet of Open Road, only to shudder to a squealing stop half a second later.
Enforcement is essentially nonexistent: when was the last time you saw, or heard of, a driver being ticketed for not yielding the right-of-way to a pedestrian? Or for reckless driving after forcing a cyclist off the road? It just doesn't happen.
Speed limits, of course, are a standing joke; most drivers in New York couldn't even tell you what the speed limit is. Whenever there's an opportunity for drivers to open it up and make time, God help the carless. And quite apart from the nominal limit, the concept of "reckless driving" simply has no meaning at all to drivers and police alike: cars roar down narrow side streets at thirty miles an hour, desperate to make a light; they may, by chance, be under the limit, but they're way above what is safe and prudent.
Obviously, nobody cares: not the Mayor, not the cops, not the District Attorneys. The police have an informal, though freely acknowledged, rule that a driver who kills a pedestrian has to be violating at least two laws before he'll be charged with anything. So the vast majority of killer drivers roll away from the scene of the crime without even any points on their license.
Not only do the authorities not care, but most New Yorkers simply accept these conditions, without indignation, as an inescapable fact of life; the Purloined Letter principle at work.
But this tyranny of motorized criminals is not a law of nature. It could be otherwise. It will be otherwise when people wake up to the reality of what is being done to them. So the first of our goals is this: to make the invisible visible.
Who owns the streets?
Everybody knows the theoretical answer: the streets belong to all New Yorkers. But reality is quite a different matter.
The reality is that the Department of Transportation has one priority: to move as many cars as possible, as fast as possible. All other street users -- pedestrians, cyclists, skaters, people in wheelchairs or children in strollers -- are an afterthought at best.
Again: try the experiment for yourself. Go to a big, busy intersection and time how long the "walk" lights last. Go to 95th and Riverside, where people crossing from one section of Riverside Park to the other are expected to walk around three sides of a square, crossing four streets, in order to facilitate the lordly progress of cars to and from the West Side Highway. Or look around in your own neighborhood: you're sure to find a similar example of through-the-windshield engineering.
Consider the Queensboro Bridge, where the lane for pedestrians and cyclists was recently confiscated for car use. The reason given, of course, was to reduce congestion -- although all traffic engineers, by now, know the dirty secret that increased capacity results in more traffic, and thus increased congestion.
Think how much public space is devoted to free parking. Everybody knows how expensive New York real estate is, yet we reserve a huge amount of it for drivers to leave their cars in, and we don't charge them a penny. How much would you have to pay for another hundred square feet of space in your apartment? That's what a car takes up at curbside.
All this in spite of the fact that car owners are, by a substantial margin, a minority of New Yorkers: around 40% of households (not individuals!) City-wide, considerably less in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
But car owners, like gun owners, are regarded by politicians as a constituency. The carless are not so regarded, because they have -- so far! -- no consciousness of their status as a disenfranchised majority.
This, then, is the second of our goals: to awaken the sleeping giant -- the majority of New Yorkers whose civic patrimony has been stolen from them for the benefit of a greedy few.
What do we want?
Bringing cars under control is not an insoluble problem. Cities elsewhere have done it. There's a well-understood set of techniques for the purpose.
Enforcement. Easy, and obvious, and it pays for itself in fines. Are you in the intersection after the light changes? You get a ticket. Brush a pedestrian out of the crosswalk? Get a ticket. Driving faster than is safe on a narrow side street? Get a ticket. A few hundred dollars per driver later, our drivers will be the envy of the world for their tameness and civility.
Reduce the flow. One reason drivers are so hysterical in New York is that there are just too many of them trying to fit into too little space. Sure, there are people who really have a legitimate reason to be driving. But there are plenty who don't. There are lots of ways to sort out the two groups. One technique is simply to charge drivers what they really cost: including their costs in land use for roads and for parking, the costs of road and bridge maintenance, and the indirect costs of noise, pollution, policing. The list goes on and on.
Traffic engineering for people, not for machines. It's time the Department of Transportation woke up to the fact that not everybody gets around in a car. Much can be done just by changing a few settings on the traffic light controls. For example: four-way reds, so pedestrians won't be chased out of the crosswalk by turning cars. More pedestrian signal buttons, and a quicker action for them. "Walk" signals that last long enough so you don't have to be an Olympic sprinter to make it across the street.
Education. Drivers believe they own the road -- and who can blame them, since nobody has told them otherwise? Time to start telling them. Paint "YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS" in every crosswalk. Put public-service spots on TV, and make it clear in no uncertain terms that pedestrians, cyclists, and skaters are also on the street by equal right under the law, and morally by an even greater right, since their road use is less costly in every way.
The bigger picture
American car-madness has taken its toll throughout the country, not just in New York; indeed, in some ways New York is relatively fortunate (we still have a functioning public transportation system, for example, at least for the time being). These larger social costs include the waste of open space, the decline of community, the pollution, and of course the Vietnam's worth of deaths every few months. Who hasn't lost a friend, or more than one, in the killing grounds of the American highway system?
We can't change all this overnight. But we can make a start. And there's no better place to start than New York City, where alternatives to the car are already used, every day, by the majority of our citizens.
It can be done. And, as so often in the past , New York can show the way.
wow your definition of advocacy must hav been switched with borderline genocide in your dictionary.
i dont know where you grew up but advocacy is standing up for something and this forum is bicycling advocacy not (th utter and instant termination of anyone with a car)
it is very possible to say cyclist have the right to safe riding without waging a war on automobiles but im guessing you were just hiding behind the advocacy mask anyhow.
newsflash riding a bike doesnt make you any better than anyone diving a car or a dogsled you want to call people trolls because they disagre with you. wow . noally whn the word troll comes to mind i thinkig o pople cussin and useing all caps without making to much sense. but i guess if your a facist other people having veiws of thier own can be seen as being a troll.
but seriously you seem to have alot of misdirected hatred and i assume its just easier for you to target that hatred at an entire group cause if you singled out individual targets you would acctually have to deal with them instead of this passive agressive banter.
and nobody said anybody was pro cars just the majority couldnt seem to find why a few people harbor such a hatred of inanimate objects . its like if i were to say i hate doors. or i hate rocks. it just makes no sense. sure the drivers of cars can be jerks and irrisponisble but so can piolets and people driving boats and lo and behold people riding bicycles ive seen more people on bikes run red lights this year then ive seen people in cars does this mean that there should be a ban on bikes. no it means that those people should deal with their actions and more than likely they will catch up to them.
every group on earth is guilty of most things people accuse the drivers of automobils of.
yeah i know people that have died in an automobile accident. and this may sound cold hearted but for most of them they deserved it cause it was their fault they were being irisponsible. i know i know some people are going to be like how can he say that . well fact is if they had been responsible it wouldnt have happend . now come to think of it i dont know anyone whos been killed on a bke by a car. dont even know anyone whos been seriously injured riding a bike either (and thats a mirical considering 1 out of 100 people wear a helmut around here)
go ahead call me a troll i dont care i love my bike i even ride to work on most days it makes sense but im not going to go around hating everyone who seems just a little diffrent than me or hating anyone who has an oppinion just a little diffrent than mine
i think a gorup of germans tried that a while back and it didnt work out to well for them either
wow your definition of advocacy must hav been switched with borderline genocide in your dictionary.
i dont know where you grew up but advocacy is standing up for something and this forum is bicycling advocacy not (th utter and instant termination of anyone with a car)
it is very possible to say cyclist have the right to safe riding without waging a war on automobiles but im guessing you were just hiding behind the advocacy mask anyhow.
trunc
i think a gorup of germans tried that a while back and it didnt work out to well for them either
Who in the world said ANYTHING about terminating anyone with a car. I have a car.
It happens to sit in the garage most of the time.
No one said anything about hating people that drive cars either.
What we hate is the auto-centered transportation system. The way cars and car serving road systems are pre-dominent, forcing out all other transportation options. The 40,000+ Americans killed by cars every year.
Did you even read my post? Do you have any reading comprehension?
Ok---how is being a cycling advocate not compataible with tolerating the responsible use of automobiles?
wtf... where was that mentioned? From what I read (sorry, didn't read the whole thing, scarry), it seemed as if the "article" was directed at IRRESPONSIBLE drivers.
As for me, I can and DO tolerate (and very much appreciate) responsible drivers. I'm sure when you're out on the road with your bike or walking about your neighborhood, you wouldn't tolerate a reckless driver pulling crazy stunts on the road and putting you in danger.
Cars can be driven responsibly, but in the wrong hands it can be a VERY dangerous piece of machinery.
i agree with scarry, why keep posting about cars? just to start fights it seems. ok, so you dont agree with what some other people advocate so the mickyficky what.
and spine of hortus, what thehell? no one has come out with as much anti car vitriol as you suppose. if you think this discussion has been "car hating" go to a critical mass. and your allusion to the nazis was stupid and a bad effort at inciting people.
[QUOTE=scarry]In case you haven't noticed, this is a cycling advocacy forum. I'd say if you can't stand criticism of cars and/or you love cars so much, you are in the wrong place. And if you continue to advocate for cars, you just might be a troll. [/QUOTE
This is to what i was responding. Also, pleas enot that i have said very little in this thread other than posing questions.
I have to agree with Skanking Biker. His original post was simply asking how people felt about automobiles aside from environmental issues. Hardly an example of aumotive advocacy. While we can certainly disagree about our opinions, if you don't care for a particular topic, you don't have to jump all over the OP. Simply ignore the topic.
Skanking is just trying to dig out the thinking behind some of the things we say, maybe I'm wrong but it seems to be agreed that cars are a "necessary evil" at best, and even without the pollution from the tailpipe, we're not fooled into thinking any car could be "cuddly".
wow your definition of advocacy must hav been switched with borderline genocide in your dictionary.
i dont know where you grew up but advocacy is standing up for something and this forum is bicycling advocacy not (th utter and instant termination of anyone with a car)
it is very possible to say cyclist have the right to safe riding without waging a war on automobiles but im guessing you were just hiding behind the advocacy mask anyhow.
newsflash riding a bike doesnt make you any better than anyone diving a car or a dogsled you want to call people trolls because they disagre with you. wow . noally whn the word troll comes to mind i thinkig o pople cussin and useing all caps without making to much sense. but i guess if your a facist other people having veiws of thier own can be seen as being a troll.
but seriously you seem to have alot of misdirected hatred and i assume its just easier for you to target that hatred at an entire group cause if you singled out individual targets you would acctually have to deal with them instead of this passive agressive banter.
and nobody said anybody was pro cars just the majority couldnt seem to find why a few people harbor such a hatred of inanimate objects . its like if i were to say i hate doors. or i hate rocks. it just makes no sense. sure the drivers of cars can be jerks and irrisponisble but so can piolets and people driving boats and lo and behold people riding bicycles ive seen more people on bikes run red lights this year then ive seen people in cars does this mean that there should be a ban on bikes. no it means that those people should deal with their actions and more than likely they will catch up to them.
every group on earth is guilty of most things people accuse the drivers of automobils of.
yeah i know people that have died in an automobile accident. and this may sound cold hearted but for most of them they deserved it cause it was their fault they were being irisponsible. i know i know some people are going to be like how can he say that . well fact is if they had been responsible it wouldnt have happend . now come to think of it i dont know anyone whos been killed on a bke by a car. dont even know anyone whos been seriously injured riding a bike either (and thats a mirical considering 1 out of 100 people wear a helmut around here)
go ahead call me a troll i dont care i love my bike i even ride to work on most days it makes sense but im not going to go around hating everyone who seems just a little diffrent than me or hating anyone who has an oppinion just a little diffrent than mine
i think a gorup of germans tried that a while back and it didnt work out to well for them either
spine of hortus, junior member. VERY junior.
Spine, I think you make a valid point, but flew off the handle anyway. Your TRUCK is not a car, and it does WORK, hopefully someday it can be replaced by a non-polluting vehicle. Yesterday I got the special treat of having to work out in the 'burbs, I had to take a 15 passenger van out to Bethpage LI. On the LIE a major expressway into NYC, I gave up counting the inbound rush Single Occupant Vehicles, of all types. That is what I take to mean 'car'. An ambulance is not a car, a firetruck is not a car. There are tasks that cannot be replicated by an engine that is not gas powered -yet (that I know off, but I am hopeful) like a ship or a plane or some larger construction equipment.
Scarry's piece speaks directly to me and the OP's question. (The piece must be old, the number of car caused deaths in NYC is consistently over 500 these days, with 30 to 40 killed being people on sidewalks and IN buildings.) These people who drive here, and honk, and get super aggressive to get a car length ahead, yes I hate them because they are not necessary. Your multi-ton hauling truck, for now is necessary, and thankfully it does good for the environment with it's cargo.
nycm'er your right i did but whats done is done anyhow on further reflection i think location may play a bigger part than most. living in a medium size town in oklahoma i dont deal with the traffick that someone in newyork does.but my whole beef was more about judging people as a group instead of individuals. the way people talk you would assume theres a entire macro consciesness that controls anyone entering a car. but being from oklahoma i have to deal with racism and sexism and people judging humanity as groups instead of individuals respoinsible only for their own actions so im a little defensive about that mentality.
su 90% of drivers may be jerks and deserve beatngsbut that 90% is all indivduals and you give them any other form f transportation and they are still jerks.
doubt there will be any change in the forms people use to commute in the heartland till we get a public railway system for long distance traveling. but i gotta get ready to ride my bike to the shop.
Thank you all for your responses. It seems most people who possess an inherent dislike for autmobiles do so more because of concerns over urban sprawl than over the "oil" issue. I may not agree with the view that people shoudl all move back into the city---but at least i understand where some people are coming from now.
I think a big part of this ongoing debate stems from where people live. It seems most midwesterners (like myself) who do not have to deal with traffic congestion to the extent as does a someone livig in new york are much more willing to see cars as a necessary evil.
again, i appreciate your comments. While I don;t necessarily agree with the prevailing viewpoint here, I now have a better undertsanding of your views.
th...disagre...if your a facist...alot...agressive...irrisponisble...piolets...automobils...irisponsible...happend...a bke...mirical...helmut...diffrent...oppinion...diffrent...gorup...
noally whn the word troll comes to mind i thinkig o pople cussin and useing all caps without making to much sense.
Must there be cussing and caps or does just not making "to much sense" meet the criteria?
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
Just wondering with the Swiss blanketing glaciers--does your utopian car still give off mega BTUs in operation/ charging? Even those "nice" fuel efficeint hondas give off a bunch of heat.
nycm'er your right i did but whats done is done anyhow on further reflection i think location may play a bigger part than most. living in a medium size town in oklahoma i dont deal with the traffick that someone in newyork does.but my whole beef was more about judging people as a group instead of individuals. the way people talk you would assume theres a entire macro consciesness that controls anyone entering a car. but being from oklahoma i have to deal with racism and sexism and people judging humanity as groups instead of individuals respoinsible only for their own actions so im a little defensive about that mentality.
su 90% of drivers may be jerks and deserve beatngsbut that 90% is all indivduals and you give them any other form f transportation and they are still jerks.
doubt there will be any change in the forms people use to commute in the heartland till we get a public railway system for long distance traveling. but i gotta get ready to ride my bike to the shop.
Cool man, sorry for busting your chops. I think you are getting the point, we don't hate people in cars, just the system that forces people into cars with no other attractive choice.
wow pseudo you must be running out of material to attack speed typos.
anyhow dont take it personal but people online that i dont know and will probably never meet simply arent worth the extra effort to go back and correct every little typo , even more so when they are caused by a POS wireless keyboard that more often that not just leaves letters out.
but hey if its all you got go for it.
scarry to you i will apologise, when writing i tend to get umm i want to say eccentric, it reads as having more emotion than meant to. possibly due to the fact im surrounded by rednecks everyday so i cant use many words over 5 letters long durin the day or they get confused so i let it out online here others have a chance.
but it wasent really you i was targeting with what i wrote. it was more a continuation of a post on another forum and i had forgoten where i was. and yes on the other forum they were sugesting the genocide of people who drive cars i forget the url though.
but to everyone else that responded back with insults you can rot , i have a life so i certainly dont need online friends and i dont need your permission to post here no matter how much of a "senior member" you are.
scarry to you i will apologise, when writing i tend to get umm i want to say eccentric, it reads as having more emotion than meant to. possibly due to the fact im surrounded by rednecks everyday so i cant use many words over 5 letters long durin the day or they get confused so i let it out online here others have a chance.
but it wasent really you i was targeting with what i wrote. it was more a continuation of a post on another forum and i had forgoten where i was. and yes on the other forum they were sugesting the genocide of people who drive cars i forget the url though.
but to everyone else that responded back with insults you can rot , i have a life so i certainly dont need online friends and i dont need your permission to post here no matter how much of a "senior member" you are.
I didn't mean "junior member". I meant "junior mentality". But then, I expected I'd have to clarify that too.
Just to delve deeper into the mindset of the car-haters, i pose the followign hypothetical
Assume that an energy efficient vehicle that is affordable, safe, and uses renewable energy is invented. Assume further that the entire indistry switches to this technology. That is assume it is possible to have mass produced affordable vehciles that do not consume oil. Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
Skanking biker. You sure know how to stir up trouble,don't you? I remimber the last thread you started about 'car haters'. Wee, that was fun.
In regard to your question, this is a very good question for the anti-car zealots. It is a very good philisophical question to pose anti-indavidualist Kmer-Rouge style zealot car haters against Macho-Hummer owners who attempt to compensate for their little penis.
I am a bicyclist, and I ride to work and commute. And I hate being intimitated on the street while on my bike by giant pickup trucks and SUV's. And I hate being tailgated while driving my car by these same type of vehicles.
However, I do own a car. I drive a 1991 Honda CRX that I absoulutely love. And I will not apologize for that.
Would you still be so oppossed to automobiles??
Yes. The fact that they stink, clog up the roads and lower our quality of life are
just surface issues. The overall negative ramifications they have had our on our
society as a whole and how we have molded our society to them is my problem with them.
Who knows what the answer is ? I know there is no turning back though. We are
stuck with what we have created.
wow pseudo you must be running out of material to attack speed typos...caused by a POS wireless keyboard that more often that not just leaves letters out.
I fail to see how "helmut" (amongst others) could be a speed typo or wireless keyboard fault unless your keyboard's "u" is very close to your "e." Nice try for an excuse though.
people online that i dont know and will probably never meet simply arent worth the extra effort to go back and correct every little typo
People online that I don't know and will probably never meet who can't be bothered to type in coherent, non-AOLese, semi-neat text that's occasionally broken into paragraphs and given at least a token effort in the punctuation and spelling departments aren't worth the effort it takes to attempt to read what they're trying to communicate.
green cars wouldn't curb urban sprawl or the attendant consumerism/materialist lifestyle
This hypothetical car would have to be at least as big as a Land Cruiser, have 4 wheel drive and enough power to comfortably tow with to suit my purposes. And I would still ride my bike most of the time. :)
I miss my Landcruiser. It got about 8MPG when I bought it, and after a lot of tuning to the intake/exhaust, got almost double that. More than 2 tons of steel, 4.2 litres of thump, 8 quarts of oil, and untold gallons of toxic coolant. I make no apologies for it or the time I spent in the California mountains, on legal off road trails. I miss it. I also had a Honda Civic with a roof rack for transporting bikes, and I rode with a mountain bike club on a regular basis. I'll always have several bikes, and several cars.
As for you guys that are having your little stupid argument over spelling and grammar and all that, do us a favor and grow up. I wish I had the time to argue over such foolishness.
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