281–290 of 480 posts
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Fuel tax is the best solution. Pay as you go. More fuel you consume more emissions you produce, more distance you go, more road your wear occurs. Do you want to get 8l V8 engine? Fine, just pay your fuel taxes.
Each US state has a gas tax already. Higher gas prices also don’t seem to stop people from buying giant trucks and SUVs.
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I live in the US and my kids walk and bike to school. You're making wide generalizations across a large country.
Yep, but on the other hand aren't there regions where you'd get arrested for letting your kids go to school alone?
The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…
My particular bugbear here is the absolutely insanity of truck and SUV heights, to the point that even full-grown adults are no longer clearly visible from inside new vehicles ( https://i.imgur.com/1dHWVxn.png ).
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> I live in the US and my kids walk and bike to school. You're making wide generalizations across a large country. I've learned from HN discussions that there is a vast difference in what people think of as a "suburb". Some will say it takes over 30 minutes by car from a suburb to the nearest store. To me that's very rural, I'd never consider that a suburb. But some do. So we get these disconnected discussion on how…
> I've learned from HN discussions that there is a vast difference in what people think of as a "suburb". In Australian English, “suburb” roughly means “neighbourhood”. So to us, downtown (or the CBD as we call it), is a “suburb”. In the Australian sense of the term, the Financial District and the Upper East Side are suburbs of New York City.
The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…
Why does HN love this narrative so much? The article is about very different causes, cars are mentioned only once in passing. It's getting really stale to have to read this same comment over and over rather than people discussing the topics that TFA is actually about.
Car dependent design is the problem that prevents children from being able to play with friends, because they are dependent on an adult to bring them somewhere.
Car dependent design also has negative feedback loops for community in other ways. Local shops can't compete with big box chains in the suburbs due to economies of scale and are forced to close, further increasing the need to drive further for basic necessities. Cars are dangerous, further decreasing our base level of trust for interaction with our local community.
These are just the surface of the iceberg though - take an open minded approach to reading up on the second and third order effects of car dependent community development before being so quick to dismiss the topic.
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Why does HN love this narrative so much? The article is about very different causes, cars are mentioned only once in passing. It's getting really stale to have to read this same comment over and over rather than people discussing the topics that TFA is actually about.
> Why does HN love this narrative so much? Because it distracts from the parts that many people don't like to talk about because it goes against their personal beliefs (such as religious conservatives being more connected with their communities and overall happier than everyone else)
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> The court decided that the driver was at no fault as it was impossible to see the girl from his position. I hope that means that the vehicle manufacturer is on a murder trial then. But I do not have illusions that this will lead to actual change.
Well, the driver should also be on the hook for driving such a dangerous machine in the first place.
The design of the physical environment is in no small part responsible for this. Don't believe me go to Europe and Japan where kids are still allowed to walk and bike to school, to friends places and just in general play and exist outside unattended to a much higher degree than in the US. Because in the US they would be roadkill, and even if they somehow survived outside of a car, car centric design means there's now…
Why does HN love this narrative so much? The article is about very different causes, cars are mentioned only once in passing. It's getting really stale to have to read this same comment over and over rather than people discussing the topics that TFA is actually about.
I think back to my childhood and roaming the streets. There wasn't any formal community venue or organisation. No one then or now was going to church. No one was going to a community centre or youth drop-in facility. I don't remember parents coordinating much. We rode bikes on the street, kicked a football and walked to the school basketball court or ovals. Parents generally felt safer about their kids doing that, so it was trivial to walk out front and find another kid to socialise with.
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>Just turn on the blinkers and boom, the road became a parking slot! Taxis and occasionally even limousine buses are notoriously guilty of this...
I wonder what subtle differences are there between road codes across countries. For example, in my romanian road code you are not permitted to turn right at a red light unless there is a separate green blinking arrow pointing that way (and no, the blinking green isn't always there). I know that in the US the default is you can turn. How about stopping on the side of the road? Here it's permitted anywhere it's not exp…
Here's a little mind twister:
In the US there are Right Arrow signals. A Red signal indicates you can turn right if it's safe just like ordinary Red signals. A Green signal indicates you can turn right, obviously.
Wait, what?
You see, this Right Arrow signal exists alongside ordinary signals at an intersection. Specifically when the ordinary signals are Green (so you can go straight ahead or turn as appropriate) but the Right Arrow signal is Red, you cannot turn right. Usually this is because someone is crossing the intersection and you would risk running them over.
This specific arrangement is very rare.
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Why does HN love this narrative so much? The article is about very different causes, cars are mentioned only once in passing. It's getting really stale to have to read this same comment over and over rather than people discussing the topics that TFA is actually about.
> Why does HN love this narrative so much? Because it distracts from the parts that many people don't like to talk about because it goes against their personal beliefs (such as religious conservatives being more connected with their communities and overall happier than everyone else)
In more religious countries, are the religious conservatives the ones that are freely roaming streets and socialising more than their peers in a "play-based childhood"?
The obvious changes to me, as a parent now, and someone who still visits the street they grew up on in the 80s, relate to cars.