71–80 of 451 posts
According to Wikipedia [0], the number of MV-related deaths has been right about 10 or 11 per 100,000 per year for the last ten years. Which makes the opening claim "Americans are condemned to lose friends and relatives to traffic violence" seem particularly overwrought. And while the legal system may have been of some help, I rather suspect the main reason cars took over is because they give the user a tremendous am…
Not just the legal system but also the city planners who designed all sorts of things like suburbs, malls, etc. that favour cars and are pretty much copy-pasta all over each city on the whole continent. All these people want bike lanes, I want my horse lane.
Atleast things were "planned" in the US. In my country (India), there is hardly any planning -- empty land == lets buy and build a building. No regulation even on buying cars, keep on piling and spend an hour or two for a 8 KM ride home from your office. There is no incentive to use public transport. There is no special lanes for public transport. No one follows the "lane rules" either. They(us) got enough money to b…
Public transportation is the backbone of India. I can only agree to the point is that it’s uncomfortable and overcrowded to use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not always the drivers' fault, some pedestrians are just asking to be put in a coffin. Where I live, most people jump on the road, jack-in-the-box-style. They don't wait for the cars to stop, they don't even bother to look around. They walk slowly, sometimes crossing the road at an angle (which takes a lot more time, obviously), even if it's a single physically fit individual blocking a busy 4-lane road. I'd say…
Let me float you a hypothetical situation: you're in command of a few tons of steel, and your priority is to get to some arbitrary location. Your second priority, I assume, is to not murder anyone. Here's what you know about the environment : it is populated with (harmless fleshly) people who are also going about fulfilling goals 1 and 2. You know with high probability that at any given moment one might quickly cross…
I think you'd see it in a very different light if you were living here. I am honestly very worried for my friends and relatives who drive, most of whom do it very, very carefully, and still they have yearly encounters with adults who behave like feeble-minded children.
BTW, didn't I say I don't have a driver's license?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps I shouldn't speak for Scott Sumner, but I feel pretty sure he wouldn't recognize your opinion of what he supposedly thinks. If you make your comment at econlib, he's not unlikely to respond.
My comment is a critique of the content of his article, not an "opinion of what he supposedly thinks" in need of his recognition. If "thinking that" are trigger words now, replace it with "acting as if" to same effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree and totally ignores the fact that people like the flexibility and freedom (in fact as well as psychologically) Unfortuetly this area and "green" in general does I am afraid does tend to attract "hobbyist" / "crank" activists. (I am using these terms in the political sense and not dising peoples hobbys Eg the green movement needs to concentrate on the present problem (runaway global heating) and not on p…
Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…
“Given New York’s lax enforcement record, the Freakonomics podcast described running over pedestrians there as “the perfect crime.”” I was driving in Oakland when the car in front of me didn’t slow down for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The pedestrian disappeared in front of the car. I stopped my car, got out, found the struck young woman trembling and bleeding in the street. The speed limit was 30 miles per hour. I…
In Europe if you strike a pedestrian on the crosswalk you'll definitely loose your license and be looking at manslaughter charges too while your insurance company will murder you after paying the victim's medical/disability/court bills.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet if you look at the countries that are held up as examples to follow you will find the one thing they have in common is no substantial domestic car industry. You can't ignore the politics of this.
Aren't Japanese cities often talked about as an example of good public transport (particularly trains) and reasonably dense areas with low housing prices?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not always the drivers' fault, some pedestrians are just asking to be put in a coffin. Where I live, most people jump on the road, jack-in-the-box-style. They don't wait for the cars to stop, they don't even bother to look around. They walk slowly, sometimes crossing the road at an angle (which takes a lot more time, obviously), even if it's a single physically fit individual blocking a busy 4-lane road. I'd say…
Let me float you a hypothetical situation: you're in command of a few tons of steel, and your priority is to get to some arbitrary location. Your second priority, I assume, is to not murder anyone. Here's what you know about the environment : it is populated with (harmless fleshly) people who are also going about fulfilling goals 1 and 2. You know with high probability that at any given moment one might quickly cross…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…
And it helps to live in a famously flat country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…
And it helps to live in a famously flat country.