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Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

theatlantic.com

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

#121

Post by sokoloff »

chronolitus wrote: post #99
unwrap wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no point in wasting words seeing how differing viewpoints are received here. Somebody has even bothered to go over my comment history and downvote everything. 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-mi…

> I see no point in wasting words seeing how differing viewpoints are received here. Somebody has even bothered to go over my comment history and downvote everything. I understand how you feel. However if you are right and I am wrong - then your words are not wasted, even if they are not well received, as long as they are read. > and still they have yearly encounters with adults who behave like feeble-minded children…

Any transition from here to there on the scale of transport and land use policies is going to take a holistic and well-communicated strategy, durable commitment to that strategy, and multiple decades to play out.

I'm not sure the first of those pre-conditions has been met and I doubt our ability to commit as a nation to the second.

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

#122

Post by spaceribs »

unwrap wrote: post #66
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based off your parent poster's description of the situation, it sounds as if the pedestrian had the right of way. However, if the driver was half their age, all else equal, would we say the DMV should assess if they're competent to drive? The primary cause of the accident could be independent of age.

For a pedestrian it doesn't matter whether you have "right of way", because you can be right a hundred times over and still go to a mortician. That's all I am trying to say. If you are crossing the road, please wait for the cars to stop, or make absolutely sure there aren't any nearby. Cars are multiple-ton steel monsters, it takes a lot of energy and space to slow them down. Just bringing some perspective from a cou…

You've used the word "Idiots" a lot to describe people who walk into the street, but I think it's idiotic for pedestrians to follow the same intersection rules as a 2 ton vehicle.

You want to take out your air-conditioned garbage-spewing box out to race across the city without a single care for anyone else using the streets? Well I think you're an idiot for advocating towards that selfish goal.

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

#123

Post by scatters »

donatj wrote: post #104
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…

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 tra…

Completely incorrect. Rolling resistance is largely independent of speed, and drag is quadratic in speed. 55mph represents a speed where drag dominates rolling resistance.

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

#124

Post by joelhaasnoot »

acdha wrote: post #119
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.

I’m certain that the police officers the original commented mentioned actually said that they had no grounds even though it is completely incorrect just because the United States is so heavily built around people driving everywhere (and that public transit is for poor, distasteful people). Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death because there’s so little you can do with driving in ma…

> Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death

I'm not sure this is just because of the way neighborhoods are set up. It's also a lack of social structures to catch this. The richest country one earth, has Uber, yet can't keep healthcare costs low enough to keep the elderly alive longer.

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

#125

Post by admax88q »

sokoloff wrote: post #112
donatj wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tra…

Driving an electric car for 4.5 years has helped me experience the tradeoffs in speed and efficiency (range) on a daily basis with fast feedback. Though 55 mph is much more energy efficient than 65 mph, 35 mph is much more energy efficient than 55 mph as well. I think the 55 mph point is realistically a balance between energy and time efficiency, not an optimum of energy efficiency alone.

The tradeoff will be different for electric cars.

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

#126

Post by mkagenius »

inapis wrote: post #72
mkagenius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No incentive to use public transport is exaggeration. More than half of India is reliant on public transportation in some form or another. If the Delhi Metro or the Mumbai Local shuts down, there’ll be riots within an hour. Just a couple of weeks ago a 1km stretch of Delhi metro on the yellow line shut down and the whole south of the city was gridlocked in 30 mins in the afternoon (when it usually isn’t). Even in rur…

> No incentive to use public transport is exaggeration

There isn't a single person in India who will not buy a car if they have the money to. How many of these 'rich' people really use the Mumbai local and Delhi Metros?

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

#127

Post by ElKrist »

lukeqsee wrote: post #85
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.

In Europe, if you strike a pedestrian outside a crosswalk, the same might happen to you depending on the jurisdiction. Pedestrians create their own right of way, practically speaking (if not judicially). :-)

A relative in France hit a pedestrian outside of a crosswalk, the aged man died after a few days at the hospital.

It was night time, rainy and the victim popped out from the space between two parked cars and ran just in front of the motorbike to quickly cross the road.

There was automatically a trial anyway for manslaughter and my relative was not found guilty of anything. I think it's a good thing to automatically have a trial anyway. The rule here is "the driver must be in full control of its vehicle at anytime". It basically means that if you could have physically avoided a pedestrian (factoring in response and braking times..), you'll be found guilty even if the pedestrian was outside of a crosswalk for instance.

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

#129

Post by scatters »

scarejunba wrote: post #44
megablast wrote: post #22

Imagine if someone invented cars today? Hey everyone, we want to make you use this killing machine, that kills a million people every year around the world directly, many more indirectly. We just need to clear out the parks currently around your houses to turn into horrible bleak roads, so they can bring the pollution directly to your door.

But in exchange you get to go anywhere in America. You aunt in San Jose you haven't seen in months because it's a day's horse-ride. Well you can pop over for lunch, and be home for dinner. You can go see Yosemite and Tahoe in the same day. Your groceries will be 10 mins away. No. If someone invented cars today, he'd be considered a hero. We'd talk about him in history books.

You think there wouldn't be trains?

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

#130

Post by rocgf »

anonymou2 wrote: post #58
LeonidasXIV wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a resident of Copenhagen this was not really my impression. Yes, Palo Alto is cycleable, kinda in the same way any small town in the world is cycleable - low amount of traffic and comparatively wide streets. San Francisco is cycleable because it is 7x7 miles large so not that much space to sprawl but cycling infrastructure is basically completely absent. What surprised me though is how overall passable public tran…

they have the best cycling infrastructure, they are called roads.

I get the feeling you do not know what good cycling infrastructure looks like.
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