Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your point was car's are no longer a problem once kids grow up which is a total bs. If you wanted to say something else, it's your fault you didn't comvey your thoughts in a proper way
I'm not going to do your thinking for you. If you don't understand that after a certain age, cars are no more a threat to children than they are to adults – then I don't expect you to understand why and how criminals are a threat to people around them.
Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
371–380 of 480 posts
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
we are talking about dangers for kids. How many kids were killed+mutilated+lifetime injuries by cars vs drug addicts(deaths+other impacts)? I didn't add the consequences from heavy pollution, but you can add them too in the second step if you want
Because it’s easy for me to avoid the deaths by cars. If somebody wanted to build a highway directly through my children’s daycare I would think it was just as ridiculous as turning their parks into open air drug markets and homeless shelters.
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
The manufacturer should be jointly liable for producing a defective vehicle.
I don't think you can legally sell a new small vehicle in the US, so the root cause is legislation that prevents this. I believe that if you could legally produce kei sized vehicles in the US, there would be a massive market for it, especially in urban environments. And I'm sure US manufacturers would be happy to sell them to all comers. Edit: Basically any car from Suzuki would be a hit in the US: https://www.suzuki…
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#374The 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 ).
I always wonder if cars that are particularly top heavy could be flipped over while parked by particularly strong pedestrians
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ).
There was a case recently where a little girl was crushed by a SUV making a right turn at a pedestrian crossing. She was walking right behind her parents, but the driver could not see her because the vehicle was too high, so thought the road was free when the parents had passed through. The court decided that the driver was at no fault as it was impossible to see the girl from his position.
WTF !
Pedestrian mirrors (allowing lorry drivers to see any pedestrians immediately in front and to the side) have been a legal requirement for years in Blighty.
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/images/safer-lorries-schem...
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only the most frugal and businesses are thinking about that tariff. Ads for these excessively large "utility" vehicles (which have sacrificed bed size for cabin comfort and are often not 4WD) are very indicative. They don't talk about price (and when they do, it's focused on credit terms rather than the capital cost). They talk about power, lifestyle, and giving the perception of masculinity. That is why people buy t…
That's part of it, but not all: it depends on the buyer. People buying big trucks as a fashion statement are definitely doing it for this reason, but there's people who genuinely need trucks, and they're all bitching and complaining about 1) trucks costing $50k-100k because they're basically luxury vehicles and they don't make cheap, utilitarian versions any more, and also because all those fashion-statement buyers h…
Weird that the more unsafe (to everyone else) and wasteful and polluting but also more profitable to industry modern trucks and SUVs are legal in their place!
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#377The 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…
Of course I went to the houses of my friends by foot/bike after school. Unsurprisingly there were roads with cars everywhere, which do exist here in Europe. Blaming "road centric infrastructure" is delusional, road centric infrastructure has been the norm for at least 60 years and if that were the cause you would have noticed a degradation then and no degradation after. Clearly not the case.
I find it quite offensive to suggest that "European cities" are somehow this extremely car unfriendly place. We Europeans like cars as well, we like to drive them a lot and like to live in places with good car connections. Places like Germany, where I live, also have very good car infrastructure. Outside of large cities cars are the only way to get around as other modes of transportation are very unreliable and not serviced often. None of this has prevented me from going outside with my friends or biking to school alone.
If I had to guess why kids are playing less outside than they used to, maybe it is because the park we hung out is now inhibited by drug dealers. Or because of the girl who got raped there.
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#378The 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…
You're also putting Europe on a pedestal. In many urban areas (where the majority of the population lives) it's no longer safe for kids to walk + bike to school freely. Not necessarily because of cars but significant crime.
The crime that has been *falling* throughout the entire western world after peaking in the mid 1990's ?
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#379The 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…
What? How do roads prevent you from going outside. Of course I went to the houses of my friends by foot/bike after school. Unsurprisingly there were roads with cars everywhere, which do exist here in Europe. Blaming "road centric infrastructure" is delusional, road centric infrastructure has been the norm for at least 60 years and if that were the cause you would have noticed a degradation then and no degradation aft…
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/05/19/a-crosswalk-too-far-v...
"In the Boston suburb of Burlington, Massachusetts, the AMC movie theater is right across the street from the Burlington Mall. But if you're planning to travel between these two destinations on foot, you're in for quite a hike. The closest crosswalk is more than half a mile down the Middlesex Turnpike. That means crossing the road -- if you're going to do it 'the safe way' -- requires a 1.2-mile journey, and it's definitely not going to be a pleasant one. Local resident David Chase reports that only one side of the street has a sidewalk."
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that this is a much larger contributor than many realize. Moving is a total reset for the individual and a hole left behind for the town moved out of.
You could compare the US today with the US a few decades ago. I think people where on the move a lot, too?
Some of this is undoubtedly going where opportunities exist; my graduating high school class (late 00s) for example all moved away from the area I grew up in simply because there’s nothing out there except for a handful of dead end minimum wage jobs, with prospects declining further as time goes on. The prior two generations by comparison largely stayed put, with moves being very local in nature and mostly driven by finding suitable housing (e.g. apartment became too small for family or keeping rent down).
I also believe that people who’ve had to move around a lot for career are more likely to continue to move regularly because they’ve grown accustomed to not having deep roots anywhere which the resulting reset less of a big deal, which multiplies the impact of needing to move for work opportunities.