Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I have not moved any goalposts. I explicitly made the point that the impression is common, despite the actual numbers not supporting it. That was the entire point of my comment. I don't know what you thought you read. And I agree it's usually about racism. If you live in Europe, just look at the EU Parliament elections and see how the far right did. Or follow the political discourse in pretty much any European co…
If it's so common you could have linked to one report rather than write this mini essay
Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
461–470 of 480 posts
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars slow down in narrow winding steets. Wide straight streets are very prone to speeding.
That is true. Still, driving through a dark and narrow street or road, especially at night (coming back from work), with pedestrians wearing dark clothes (some people are smart enough to wear reflecting bands, but they are few and far between), is quite stressful. Many times I have been surprised by a pedestrian appearing out of the shadows only a few meters in front of me. Likewise, being the pedestrian is also stre…
If you think driving in those dark streets being surprised by pedestrians is stressful, imagine how it feels for the people walking outside your vehicle when you barely miss them and their children.
If you can't see your neighbors, slow your vehicle down to a safe speed. You are driving too fast for the conditions. It is entirely under your control and you continue to choose to put your neighbors in danger.
You are the one operating heavy machinery and introducing danger into a situation where there would be none if it wasn't for your disregard for their safety.
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a silly tangential point, but with good design a V8 can be as efficient as an I4 (and with bad design a V6 can be more wasteful than a V8). Pinning fuel use seems to be the way to go, rather than penalizing engine geometry, for this reason. It's important to remember, though, that semi-trucks get 5-8 miles to the gallon due to their weight/purpose. Perhaps these new fuel taxes should only affect classes other…
>t's important to remember, though, that semi-trucks get 5-8 miles to the gallon due to their weight/purpose. Perhaps these new fuel taxes should only affect classes other than A, B, and C to avoid knock-on effects. What's interesting here is that semi-trucks cause exponentially more wear and tear on the roads than consumer vehicles, while not paying the corresponding fuel tax — they're being subsidized by everyday d…
What I was worried about was trucks used to transport groceries, not delivery trucks.
Last thing the poor need right now is the cost of food going even higher. They're already struggling to get by as it is.
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#464Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in the US and my kids walk and bike to school. You're making wide generalizations across a large country.
I would LOVE to know where this is?? If it's more walkable that JUST the school. I have lived in suburbs near enough to schools that you can walk on 2 occasions in both NC and AZ but this was a very lucky quality, not the norm AT ALL, highly desirable, and you could walk to practically nothing other than the school. Leaving the neighborhood on foot was not a good place to be walking.
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#466Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#467Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was actually my father's arguement when I turned 16. He hypothesized that I was a new driver and therefore more likely to be involved in a crash, but if I wanted to survive a crash I needed a larger vehicle than the other one involved in the collision. I didn't much care either way, but I do still consider this when comparing new vehicles.
Better to kill than be killed?
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's so common you could have linked to one report rather than write this mini essay
If you claim not to have encountered it despite its prevalence, nothing will convince you. Especially as you already demonstrated your willingness to misinterpret what I claimed in the first place.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-...
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the US comments are true in the large areas of Georgia and Arizona that I'm familiar with. Sidewalks are very uncommon. One side of street only, if even there. Which is problematic at multilane intersections. Then the kid has to cross twice on each side. I actually managed to get a crossing light installed on my kid's bike route to school by complaining to a city council member. There are traffic jams at ever…
> There are about 7 grocery stores within 5 miles of my suburban house. I have 2 (soon to be 3) grocery stores within a 8-12 minute walk of my very suburban home in my master planned community full of tract homes. I see some people walking to and from the store occasionally and I’ll walk there on occasion in the winter when the weather is nice. I just don’t understand why I would spend 20 minutes doing something that…
Re: Deterioration of local community a major driver of loss of play-based childhood
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the US comments are true in the large areas of Georgia and Arizona that I'm familiar with. Sidewalks are very uncommon. One side of street only, if even there. Which is problematic at multilane intersections. Then the kid has to cross twice on each side. I actually managed to get a crossing light installed on my kid's bike route to school by complaining to a city council member. There are traffic jams at ever…
Yeah, the American comments here seem to boil down to "technically I could walk to a school/store/cafe if I wanted to (but it's quite shit so nobody does) so it's basically Europe and Japan" and think that's comparable to a town of people who walk around daily and bump into neighbors while fetching milk from the local shop. Even Mexico is like that. If we swapped some of this cope energy with a push to change things,…
Assholes exist everywhere in the world but I would walk across an ungoverned street intersection in Mexico sooner than cross your average 2+lanes each fully lighted intersection in the US.
Edit: and so I now add, that that's what it means to bump around with your neighbors, near daily. Humans seem to need the street life of a busy neighborhood with pedestrian traffic toward the local suppliers of the banal things of daily life, before they retain the idea of the sanctity of humans when they are thinking more abstractly.
The contradiction of course is WW1 and WW2, which happened in countries all adhering more or less to these characteristics.
So I dunno. Maybe we're all fucked in the end, and I at least will indulge my family in the residual beauty before the inevitable next societal upheaval.