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

#341

Post by magduf » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #274

bspammer wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cognitive decline happens to everyone the longer they live, if that's ageism then I'm afraid it's also reality. Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. Hopefully, self-driving cars will eventually render these discussions redundant. But that still seems to be decades away at this rate.

> Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. I reiterate that we're driving huge pieces of metal at nearly a hundred miles per hour. Let's stop sacrificing people's lives for the privilege, and start sacrificing time and money.

Every society has to make some kind of sacrifice of compromise in usage of resources. Testing everyone yearly is a massive waste of time and resources and money, and won't achieve any benefit, whereas testing old people will.

I don't care if that's "ageist". It's a biological fact that older people suffer from cognitive decline, slowed reaction times, etc.

Is it also "sexist" to claim that only women are able to get pregnant?

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

#342

Post by darkarmani » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #287

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…

That's because you don't live in a country as big as the US is and don't need to move around like we do in the US. I am from Denmark who also have plenty of bikes and it's a thing. The reality is however that thats fine as long as you live in the cities, it's not way to get around if you live in the suburbs and have to drive 30 miles to work and take care of your picking up the kids and drive 20 miles to the nearest…

> it's not way to get around if you live in the suburbs and have to drive 30 miles to work and take care of your picking up the kids and drive 20 miles to the nearest grocery store etc.

That's a consequence of cars not the other way around. If cars were never invented, you wouldn't have the problem of traveling 30 miles to work and driving 20 miles to a store. Those things are possible because of cars and now it chains us to those kinds of design.

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

#343

Post by caconym_ » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #302

caconym_ wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given my observations of how frequently and flagrantly (and objectively ) drivers (and other road users) break laws put in place to keep all the users of our public infrastructure (including themselves) safe, I'll have to go with a). If your definition of being responsible explicitly allows for breaking such laws, you may want to re-evaluate it. I'm not interested in hearing the word "anecdotal", either. Check out DU…

Oh quit your puritanical hand wringing. Average people can drive in an average manner and go years or often decade, sometimes entire lifetimes without screwing up badly enough to attract law enforcement attention or get in a crash. We as a society have determined that is mostly good enough. Most people are satisfied with the current level of risk/reward of driving and unless improvements come with minimal trade-offs…

> puritanical

> religious

Nice.

Your point has regressed from "most drivers aren't irresponsible" to "most drivers are irresponsible but it's fine". If you can support the former with hard data, great, let's see it. The latter is an opinion; it's one I do not share, and it's not something I'm interested in discussing because there is zero chance of that discussion bearing any sort of fruit.

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

#344

Post by jmull » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #321

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…

How is it possible that we don't have mandatory driving tests once you reach certain ages, ie 80, 85, 95+? I just heard the other week that my friend's great-great grandma (98 years old) is still driving. If someone that old can still drive safely, good for them, but there should be a mandatory test to check that.

Here's some data to inform:

https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuri...

From this, 60s is peak age range for driving safety.

In the 70s people are still good.

80+ are still pretty good in the "All crashes" and "Injury crashes" categories (a little better than people 25-29, a little worse than people 30-39), but they are really bad in "Fatal crashes" -- even a little worse than 16-17yo.

Digging into the fatalities, the spike in deaths caused by old people are themselves and not passengers or others.

So I guess the motivation for driving tests for old people would be to protect them from themselves and should apply to people 80+.

If we want to protect people from bad drivers generally, we should really want to do something about 16-17yos (just pushing back the driving age might not do it because inexperience is probably a significant factor). Actually something like more monitoring/training/tests for drivers, say, 16-24 would be the best place to start. (Drivers 25-29 are also a problem, but presumably if you improve younger drivers the older age range will take care of itself as the good young drivers age.)

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

#345

Post by alistairSH » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #337

alistairSH wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can. That's pretty much the whole point of the article. You live in a suburb and have to drive 30 minutes because America decided decades ago that sprawl was preferable to dense urban cores. American decided 3000sqft McMansions on 1/2 acre lots was preferable to 1000sqft flats in the city. And that spending billions on road infrastructure and subsidized parking was a fair trade-off for that personal spa…

No "America" didn't decide that. The geography of America dictated how America evolved to become a car preferring nation of sprawling cities. The car is the perfect combination of flexibility, scale, speed, utility and so on. Sprawls are a byproduct of what the car made possible, they where not created to promote the car they where created because the car made it possible and gave a number of benefits for the individ…

Yes, and we turned around and codified all of that so we can't easily do anything different. For example, as noted in the article, developers are REQUIRED to supply parking in most locations. Looking out my office window, there's a sea of surface parking. If that was legally mandated, the developer could in-fill with mixed-use and some of us could live literally right next door. Instead, the closest I can get to work is a bit over a mile down the road.

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

#346

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #342

ThomPete wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you don't live in a country as big as the US is and don't need to move around like we do in the US. I am from Denmark who also have plenty of bikes and it's a thing. The reality is however that thats fine as long as you live in the cities, it's not way to get around if you live in the suburbs and have to drive 30 miles to work and take care of your picking up the kids and drive 20 miles to the nearest…

> it's not way to get around if you live in the suburbs and have to drive 30 miles to work and take care of your picking up the kids and drive 20 miles to the nearest grocery store etc. That's a consequence of cars not the other way around. If cars were never invented, you wouldn't have the problem of traveling 30 miles to work and driving 20 miles to a store. Those things are possible because of cars and now it chai…

Of course you would have that problem, it would just be even harder to get around and to get things around or to go anywhere.

The reason why people choose to live further out is among other things to get more nature for their children, it is to get cheaper houses, it used to be safer etc.

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

#347

Post by nrook » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #279

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then cities have to radically change. I don't know how people can ever commute from the current urban sprawl to their place of work without them. Cities would need to build massive bus and rail infrastructures at the cost of billions or similar amounts are going to have to be spent to increase densification. I chose where to live because of a desire to be able to commute easily - the bus is 10 minutes, walking is abo…

Simple: they need to bulldoze most everything and start over, building cities the way they are in Europe with high density and public transit lines built in (and under). Add in either closed roads for anything except delivery trucks (you can't deliver goods to the supermarket with a subway), or huge tolls/taxes for personal vehicles to keep people from driving there and causing gridlock and get them out of the suburb…

Er, you definitely don't need to bulldoze everything. You "just" need to upzone everywhere and build lots of public transit. Upzoning has negative price (since you get more tax income). Public transit is expensive, and building new subway lines is even more expensive, but it could be less expensive if the US could build transit lines as cheaply as they are built in Europe.

It is hard, but it's mostly hard due to a population of motorists who have confused the privileges granted to them by the state with rights.

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

#348

Post by mistersquid » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #232

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…

As a pedestrian (or cyclist), you should always give way to cars, even being prepared to jump out of the way when you have the right-of-way. Unless the driver is intoxicated, they get inconvenienced with higher insurance premiums for a little while at worst, while you get stuck with life long injuries and pain at worst.

Even a professional athlete would have difficulty “jump[ing] out of the way” of a vehicle (or anything, for that matter) traveling at 25 miles per hour.

It is unrealistic to expect pedestrians and bicyclists to avoid automobiles by yielding to them.

EDIT: spelling; more spelling

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

#349

Post by WhompingWindows » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

joshuaheard wrote: post #340

People drive cars because they are the most efficient mode of transportation. Laws and policy followed. Anything else is a moronic conspiracy theory. Let's just take the two examples in the article. First single family zoning. I would argue that before cars (and cities) people lived on farms and ranches. Cars were not to blame. The trend has been towards smaller living areas, not larger. Second, parking requirements.…

They aren't the most efficient mode of transportation, depending on your definition. In terms of carbon, energy utilized, or even time, in many places walking/biking will beat cars. It's not a moronic conspiracy theory to suggest that bringing a 2 ton wheel-chair everywhere we go is inefficient.

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

#350

Post by magduf » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #150

stellar678 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a small town of 100,000 people, that means 11 of your neighbors will be killed by drivers crashing their cars every year. And that doesn’t account for the deaths and health costs caused by road pollution, by inactive lifestyles forced on communities due to car-centered infrastructure, etc... Given the car-oriented status quo, perhaps it’s true that cars give owners tremendous freedom and agency (at the…

> If you live in a small town of 100,000 people, that means 11 of your neighbors will be killed by drivers crashing their cars every year. True. But for comparison, if we live in this small town of 100k people, then 192 people will die from Heart Disease, 178 people will die of Cancer, 47 people will die of Respiratory diseases, 43 people will die of Stroke, and 16 will die from the flu (influenza or pneumonia) every…

>Which is a strong argument for cars. Cars make things drastically more affordable for people. If you remove them, you increase the costs for everything (food, transportation, housing, healthcare, education, etc), to heights no regular person could ever afford.

So why is it that the US has the most expensive healthcare costs in the world, and also extremely high food and housing costs?