Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 451 posts

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#101

Post by sokoloff »

majewsky wrote: post #57
joking wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the trolleys where substituted by the coaches because there were more cheap to use, you don't have to create a network of cables overhead, and with cheap gas there where no need to electrify the public transport. The coaches have the benefit to be able to go anywhere and modify your routes as suits you, while the trolleys need a fixed infrastructure. Both have their own pros and cons, so i don't see the need fo…

As a rough estimate, a streetcar line is more efficient than a bus line above 40,000 passengers per day. My city (Dresden, Germany) has a bus line with 70,000 passengers per day, and you can really see it cracking at the seams. During rush hour, busses run every 3 minutes, and that interval cannot be increased any further because the busses would start blocking each other, thus backing up from the bus stop into the r…

The German bus systems I’ve used have been night and day better than US ones. Buses that mostly run to a schedule are incomprehensible to most in the US.

Probably related, I doubt we have a bus line with anywhere near that ridership.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#102

Post by sokoloff »

dannyw wrote: post #89
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, although Japan is so different from the West culturally that I'm not sure you can make realistic comparisons.

Counties with significant domestic car industries: * USA * Japan Countries out of the first list, with policies favouring cars: 1/2 Conclusion: Insufficient data.

German public transportation is also excellent and if they aren’t considered to have a significant domestic car industry, I’m not sure who else does qualify.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#103

Post by sokoloff »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36
dalbasal wrote: post #12

Another way of stating this could be "transport is a policy question." How cities are built and what transport infrastructure they're built around. Im fairly sympathetic to the overall aims of this article. I think a transport system more similar to those in the Netherlands makes for better urban landscapes. But... this habitual style of treating everything as a conspiracy, built around a personified enemy ("They gav…

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.

I’d be pretty happy to follow Germany’s guidance on public transportation.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#104

Post by donatj »

chronolitus wrote: post #67
unwrap wrote: post #51

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 disagree with it being so black and white. Higher speed travel saves time and energy. 55mph is generally considered optimal for vehicle fuel consumption. Slowing speeds pretty directly affects climate change and pollution.

I’d like to see a direct comparison of loss of life vs mph including figures on deaths from increased air pollution and other climate considerations.

I think one could also argue time lost in transit as a “loss of life” but that’s understandably too far for some.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#105

Post by marvin »

stevenwoo wrote: post #87
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what!? 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.

It's like the article states - it's actually unusual for a non drunk driver in America to face charges when in any incident with a bicyclist or pedestrian even with a death unless there is a LEO watching or LEO victim. It's a common topic on blogs about cycling in the USA.

In parts of Europe, any motor vehicle accident where a pedestrian or cyclist dies is likely to result in a charge of manslaughter for the driver, unless the pedestrian or cyclist was obviously at fault.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#106

Post by sokoloff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #32
achow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But doesn't the point still stays that contrary to the popular belief electric cars would not bring about much change? Research paper: ..it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels.

Electric vehicles will bring about significant changes. As said, and as your quote highlights, this focusses on particles. But the main emission of internal combustion engines is CO2, and other nasty stuff like CO, NOx, hydrocarbons, etc. These are eliminated by electric vehicles.

They are moved by electric vehicles to some remote place (where they might also be more efficiently handled), but even as an electric car driver, I don’t think of them as eliminated.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#107

Post by jacobush »

imtringued wrote: post #78
chronolitus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reducing your speed increases the likely hood of collisions because pedestrians tend to no care about their safety at all if they can shave off 2 seconds. They don't wait for your car to pass. If you are on the left lane and the right lane is free then they will walk onto the street and anticipate that you will pass them by the time they have reached the left lane. If you reduce your speed then their guess turns out…

There is a threshold where the speed will likely injure, not kill. It's prudent to keep below or near that speed, so you have at least time to bring your car down that speed when braking, if not managing to come to a halt.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#108

Post by zimbatm »

Jaywalking is also a notion that was created by the car industry, with regulation and a PR campaign to shift the blame from cars to pedestrians.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Origin_of_the_term

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#109

Post by Ygg2 »

chronolitus wrote: post #67
unwrap wrote: post #51

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…

Shouldn't the same logic apply to a pedestrian? I mean his goals are getting to some arbitrary location and arriving at that location intact.

Why should only the driver carry the responsibility? Driving slower than average increases the driver's chances of getting in an accident.

Also, lower speeds aren't guaranteed safety. I know of an accident that occurred around 10-20km/h right next to a hospital, which resulted in instant death. Pedestrian was crossing on red, behind a car parked at the traffic light and flew right into a path of a vehicle, trying to pass the car parked at the semaphore, this bounced him just enough to fall and crack his head on the curb. Ironically, according to policemen, was that had the driver driven faster, he might have bounced pedestrian harder, and not kill him on the spot.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#110

Post by dalbasal »

tomohawk wrote: post #49
dalbasal wrote: post #12

Another way of stating this could be "transport is a policy question." How cities are built and what transport infrastructure they're built around. Im fairly sympathetic to the overall aims of this article. I think a transport system more similar to those in the Netherlands makes for better urban landscapes. But... this habitual style of treating everything as a conspiracy, built around a personified enemy ("They gav…

No conspiracy required when a lot of people are acting according to a common view. People see the real advantages of owning a car and the freedom it brings, and that activity builds industries and has an impact on policies. Of course, GM really did conspire to put the trolleys out of business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... However, this is the kind of thing organizations (companies,…

>>Prescribing a top down solution that gives even more power to the state at the expense of the people is a non starter.

In a certain (much softer) sense, I think this is an example of the type of thinking I was complaining about in the original comment.

I do it myself, most people do it.. especially us "rational" thinkers. But, it is taking a particular and instinctively fitting it into a story that we're used to. Maybe the story is regulatory capture, maybe it's corporatism, overeaching governments and unintended consequences, patriarchy, empire, globalism... Whatever story we're used to refering to.

In any case, I think the next transportation revolution will be related to autonomous vehicles, so this particular conversation is probably moot.. AVs might just dissolve lines between public and private transport. It will, however, probably remain very impacted by both consumer choice and government (generally municipal) choices.

Post reply on HN