Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by mytailorisrich » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #106

mytailorisrich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are eliminated and electricity production does not have to produce any of them: The short term goal is total elimination across the whole chain.

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

#112

Post by sokoloff » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:55 AM UTC

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…

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.

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

#113

Post by lmilcin » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:56 AM UTC

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 agree completely.

After watching hundreds or even thousands of accidents on Youtube it could be said that there typically are two parties that could be blamed for the accident. One is officially at fault but there typically is somebody else who did not pay enough attention or did not slow down at intersection or did not do one of the many things that careful drivers would be expected to do.

Drivers (or pedestrians) with certain attitude that I would describe as expecting everybody to follow the rules but at the same following the rules only selectively and not giving anybody any margin for error are people that I think cause most of accidents.

Everybody makes mistakes and it is in human nature to miss a sign or occasionally misplace attention for a second or two. If everybody was driving defensively most of the time it would take two people to make a mistake at the same time which would cause accidents to be very rare. On the other hand if drivers give no margin for error it only takes a single person to make a mistake.

I have an uncle who thinks he is a good driver. Yes, he can drive fast, precisely, he knows rules and knows how to not be the driver at fault. But while he is not officially causing accidents over the last decade he took part in around a dozen accidents. He is not giving anybody any margin for error and this attitude is what I think is more damaging than people that make mistake from time to time.

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

#114

Post by oftenwrong » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:56 AM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #75

tremon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…

And it helps to live in a famously flat country.

It helps, but there is much more to it. Florida is flat, but Floridian cities are almost entirely non-bicycle-friendly. San Francisco is hilly, and has many people riding bicycles.

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

#115

Post by C1sc0cat » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

tremon wrote: post #69

C1sc0cat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree and totally ignores the fact that people like the flexibility and freedom (in fact as well as psychologically) Unfortuetly this area and "green" in general does I am afraid does tend to attract "hobbyist" / "crank" activists. (I am using these terms in the political sense and not dising peoples hobbys Eg the green movement needs to concentrate on the present problem (runaway global heating) and not on p…

Speaking as a Dutchman, I experience much more flexibility and freedom riding a bike than my car. That's probably a consequence of both the overcrowding of our roads, and the density of our infrastructure -- I rarely have to drive more than 15 minutes to reach any kind of shop, and by bike I can take shortcuts that my car can't follow, especially in inner cities. Ultimately, my car has been relegated to recreational…

You know in larger countries like the USA they consider a hundred miles a short distance and a hundred years a long time :-)

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

#116

Post by yt3 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:58 AM UTC

It's also our values system that allowed the legal system to do it's thing. Cars are also a product of values that focus on "me and my personal needs".

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

#117

Post by dalbasal » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:59 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #28

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…

I'm not saying we should never think in abstractions... but there is a formulaic pattern here that's old, paranoid and harmful. Except these conspiracies were (and are) generally real, and their effects are real. The pattern isn't journalistic, it's historical.

It's both historical & journalistic. Capitalism, corporatism, empire, patriarchy, globalism public choice, regulatory capture... these do all relate to reality, but they are not reality themselves. They are abstractions. A potentially useful way of seeing a broad picture, but also hazardous.

Spending too many brain cycles in these abstractions makes us formulaic. We no longer see unique & specific examples, just uninteresting specific examples of a greater truth.

We all do it. It's inevitable. It's how we think, especially politically. But, it is worth consiously avoiding, in my opinion.

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

#118

Post by dalbasal » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC

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.

If you add in Germany, I think you get 1.5/3

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

#119

Post by acdha » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #76

methodover wrote: post #43

“Given New York’s lax enforcement record, the Freakonomics podcast described running over pedestrians there as “the perfect crime.”” I was driving in Oakland when the car in front of me didn’t slow down for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The pedestrian disappeared in front of the car. I stopped my car, got out, found the struck young woman trembling and bleeding in the street. The speed limit was 30 miles per hour. I…

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 many neighborhoods (which commonly won’t even have sidewalks) and relatively few people have the resources to hire someone to replace that lost autonomy. I remember when an older driver killed someone by backing over them in the church parking lot near here and so many people framed it in those terms when talking about whether she should lose her license, largely ignoring the person who no longer had to worry about it.

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

#120

Post by lostjohnny » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:02 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #80

vixen99 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it helps to live in a famously flat country.

It helps, but is not necessary. Counterexample: Arhus, Denmark.

> Counterexample: Arhus, Denmark.

91 km2

Counter-counterexample

Rome, 1,285 km2

I'm from Rome

Rome is particularly bad regarding cars (we are probably the western city with the highest number of cars per capita, 73 every 100 inhabitants, if I remember correctly), but it is also a very complicated city for biking.

For two reasons

- hills: they are not a problem for the majority of expert bikers, they are if the average age of the citizens is 45 years, most of them are not expert bikers and there are hills everywhere. Add to it the road surface which is less than optimal for biking in large areas of the city, including the city center (for many reasons, historical in primis, but also political, even more so lately that we have the worst major in the world).

- distances: many people live very far from where they work, 1.5 million people everyday come to Rome for working, but live outside of it, most likely in the range 30-50 kms from the city, not counting the distances you have to cover when in the city (it's easily around 10kms, or 20kms total in a day). How many people can bike 100kms a day and make it alive? How long would it take?