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Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

thedrive.com

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Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#151

Post by avalys »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #130
avalys wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because we're a wealthy and productive society and the fruits of human progress in the past 300 years have allowed us to build a civilization where nearly everyone can afford to use a multi-ton machine of nearly incomprehensible complexity and sophistication to carry them around, instead of pushing a cart like a peasant 5,000 years ago did.

Check out eg https://youtu.be/hmk5cxpAfcw where he’s flying by all the cars stuck in traffic on his human-powered peasant wheels. Auto companies lobbied governments and put out propaganda to get cities to rip out street cars and rail in the early 1900s. They did this to sell more cars, so this is what we get.

If you want to ban cars from New York City, that's fine with me. Do you realize that NYC makes up 0.008% of the land area in the United States?

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#152

Post by eep_social »

richjdsmith wrote: post #23

With the continued shift to EVs, petrol taxes just don't make sense as a form of taxation to pay for roads. I think we should be shifting entirely to a gross curb weight tax for all vehicles. The fourth power law states that the greater the axle load of a vehicle, the stress on the road caused by the motor vehicle increases in proportion to the fourth power of the axle load. Meaning heavier EVs cough hummer , are doi…

Just let’s please not require a government-approved mileage tracking device to make sure that each vehicle is charged it’s fair share. That’s one really nice property of gas taxes they will be hard to replace without going full dystopia, and there is a significant contingent that doesn’t give a shit about the privacy and security implications.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#153

Post by Uehreka »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #46
bedobi wrote: post #34

Typical hackernews to have threads full of well meaning but ultimately misguided people saying ah we have some technological solution for this. The solution to this problem and every other problem caused by driving is not driving . Period. Not driving doesn't require any new technology, it just requires getting serious about alternatives to driving. (safe, separated bike ways, ebike and micromobility subsidies, rail,…

In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible, if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible social solution. I'd call that misguided. Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into practice. In the real world, you can't " just " get people to not drive…

The “social solutions” are just policy solutions, and people on HN don’t like the idea of regulation, so they act like “social solutions are impossible”, when the truth is just that “social solutions are impossible without policies I find distasteful”.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#154

Post by djhedges »

ok_computer wrote: post #136
dragontamer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EVs have higher torque but that doesn’t matter unless to drive like a mad-man Its not torque that matters. Its simply friction and normal force. And that's directly caused by weight. Tire Wear is something like (weight^4), so small increases in weight will have huge increases to wear-and-tear. --------- I think the real issue is that 3000lbs to 4500lbs, while a significant increase in tire wear, is still small comp…

Honest question how does shear force proportional to torque not factor in? Coefficient of friction is shear over normal. Mechanical properties are a function of temperature and quick startups assuredly contribute to wear. An extreme example is drag racing. Cars are highway driving in steady state cruising for more miles and time but in the US around town driving has stop lights.

Even at steady state cruising the the tires are flexing and stretching with each revolution. Tires are round but a driveway is flat. If you look at the contact patch of the tire it flattens a bit to confirm to the driveway's shape. Now visualize with each revolution that flatten part of the tire is cycling around the wheel.

At a microscopic level there's a lot edges in the road surface that we don't fully appreciate which also contributes to tire wear. http://insideracingtechnology.com/tirebkexerpt1.htm

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#155

Post by qwerpy »

avalys wrote: post #104
danny_codes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Designing transit systems around cars was a colossal mistake. Now that the data are clear, it's time to rebuild. Over the next few decades, we need to tear down existing car infrastructure and replace it with walking/biking/transit. A side benefit (aside from the particulate pollution, energy waste, noise pollution, high death toll, increased inter-destination distance, decreased QOL) is that it'll be like a…

Transit systems are designed around cars because people want to use cars. This idea that it was some kind of a massive conspiracy from the auto manufacturers is just bullshit. Yes, cars are expensive. We can afford cars today. No one wants to get poorer and go back to walking.

The car shaming mindset makes sense if you live somewhere like Japan where transit is clean and fast, and you don't have problematic people who assault other riders and do drugs. As a family man living in a large American west coast city, there is no way I would ever give up my car lifestyle.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#157

Post by savanaly »

bedobi wrote: post #34

Typical hackernews to have threads full of well meaning but ultimately misguided people saying ah we have some technological solution for this. The solution to this problem and every other problem caused by driving is not driving . Period. Not driving doesn't require any new technology, it just requires getting serious about alternatives to driving. (safe, separated bike ways, ebike and micromobility subsidies, rail,…

No, the typical hackernews comment is yours. Take a very complicated issue, present your favored simple solution without evidence, then say "period" as if that somehow settles the issue.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#158

Post by enragedcacti »

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #70
dragontamer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EVs have higher torque but that doesn’t matter unless to drive like a mad-man Its not torque that matters. Its simply friction and normal force. And that's directly caused by weight. Tire Wear is something like (weight^4), so small increases in weight will have huge increases to wear-and-tear. --------- I think the real issue is that 3000lbs to 4500lbs, while a significant increase in tire wear, is still small comp…

I was in the market for a small electric city car and found out that we're not allowed to have small cars in the US. Europe and Asia have really nice small city cars under 2,000lbs but none of them are available here. I believe the smallest car sold in the US is the Mini Cooper around 3,000lbs. I actually ended up with a souped up street legal golf cart and it's worked out well for my purposes of picking up kids and…

The Mitsubishi Mirage is available in the US and comes in at just ~2100lbs, but it really ends up just serving the purpose of showing how huge of a gap there is in the American market. The fact that Mitsubishi can make a 4-door, 40mpg, 2100lbs car that passes US regs on a shoestring sale price shows that other mfgs could but just don't have the incentive to. You have the cancelled Chevy Spark at 2246lbs, the 2-seater Miata at 2,341lbs, and then the next lightest is a Versa with +500lbs on the Mirage.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#159

Post by SoftTalker »

hyperhopper wrote: post #63
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: you're proposing to replace a set of possible, if difficult, technological solutions, with an near-impossible social solution. I'd call that misguided. Technological solutions tend to be discussed because they can be implemented. Social solutions may work better, but only in imaginary la-la land where they can actually be put into practice. In the real world, you can't " just " get people to not drive…

It's not impossible, much of the world operates without 99.9% car usage like the USA. Every major European city metro area can be traversed without a car. Hell I went through 18 countries and 35+ cities in Europe without renting a car and only using a bus or plane maybe 4-5 times. This is an entirely self-made problem. A world not reliant on cars is not la-la land. It's a land where a car isn't treated as more import…

The USA is a lot more spread out than Europe. In places where it isn't (NYC, Chicago) you can get around without a car pretty well.

Guess what, in small towns in Europe and in rural areas, most people have cars too, and they drive to get their groceries.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#160

Post by wnoise »

dragontamer wrote: post #71
undersuit wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do we want 100-people in a neighborhood driving 100x cars to a store? Or would we rather have 1x large truck deliver a (heavier) package to 100x different people? Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck?

My overall point is that the "last mile" we're just screwed unless we fundamentally redesign our neighborhoods and shape of our cities. Its pretty damn obvious that as the USA is laid out right now, we don't have any good last-mile solutions outside of 100x different people driving to the same store and picking up what they want. And its not like houses are going to pick themselves up and move to a store, and given z…

> (People won't like the crime that comes with it).

Does crime come with it? I certainly wouldn't expect that.

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