For the record, this is about preventing accidents, not "terrorism." (If nothing else, you can tell by the fact that the other sides of the pedestrian platform aren't protected.)
I'm pretty far out on the radical fringe, but this title is too sensationalized even for me. Tone it down next time, please.
I’m pretty far out on the radical fringe, but this title is too sensationalized even for me.
Usually this is just an indicator that you aren't actually on the radical fringe. Not trying to contradict your point or anything, but this is a sort of overton window-shifting rhetorical tactic that gets on my nerves because it actually works against a movement. Even if you didn't realize you were doing it.
Regarding the opinion on terror rhetoric though, I do think it's a fine strategy to call what cars do to our street like terrorism. It's usually not definitional political terrorism (Usually), but the situation we have today required political choices which have resulted in actual terror on our streets. It's a bold choice of words, and sometimes you have to be bold to hammer home a point.
And on that count... It should be "crash", not "accident". "Accident" partially aliviates blame and suggests an inevitability.
Alright, back into my pedantist cage.
I think the problem here is that terror and terrorism are quite different things. Saying car terrorism implies the intention is to cause mass terror. You can't really accidentally or unknowingly commit a terrorism. Call cars death machines or a scourge, but calling them terrorists seems inaccurate, and maybe more importantly, not useful. It seems to shift the blame from the system that leads to car dominance towards individual drivers as terrorists.
And on that count... It should be "crash", not "accident". "Accident" partially aliviates blame and suggests an inevitability.
I often make that point myself, but in this particular instance I chose "accident" deliberately in order to emphasize the lack of malicious intent.
Anyway, it can be a fine line between shifting the Overton Window and destroying your credibility, and IMO this was just on the wrong side of it. I'm not unsympathetic to the strategy of hyperbolic rhetoric you're talking about (which is why you'll notice I didn't remove the post or demand OP actually change the title); I'm just trying to dial it back a tad. Besides, IMO we shouldn't cheapen the word "terrorism" because then it loses its impact when we use it to describe when drivers actually do engage in violence against cyclists/pedestrians deliberately.
Not pedantic. Matters. Thank you.
We need to start using differently terminology. While injury and deaths prevented by such an island may not rise to the level of “terrorism”, they’re no “accident”. When it’s reckless endangerment, that’s not accidental.
It feels like 5 years ago, but it was only back in January that a man used a truck to kill 14 people in a ramming attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, LA. The city had been warned, and knew of the need to have bollards installed, but cheaped out on temporary bollards, which were apparently malfunctioning at the time of the attack. There had been a vehicle-ramming attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg in December, and an attack in Munich following in February.
I'd say that the title is right on. Car terrorism is a thing.
I'm certainly not denying that actual car terrorism is a thing now, in the 2020s. But that's very different than claiming it was being described in a comic from almost a hundred years ago, or claiming that the single-direction barricade depicted was intended to be a countermeasure for it (let alone an effective one).
Been saying it for years, and starting to feel like I'm going insane. How in the fuck have so many municipalities around the world, especially those concerned with vehicle-based terrorist attacks on pedestrians, not settled on bollards? If it works for embassies, military bases, and other sensitive sites, why not exclusively vehicle-free areas?
not settled on bollards?
I remember, maybe last year, there was city "debate" over installing bollards at intersections to protect cyclists and pedestrians. From what I recall, NIMBYs pushed HARD against the idea, saying it was "confusing" and "dangerous" for motorists...
Anything to save lives or improve safety tends to be an automatic "NO!" in most places because of NIMBYs.
That's why certain safety projects should just move forward without public input.
You're giving me flashbacks to the implementation of traffic roundabouts in my country. They've been used for a long, long time all over the world with minimal complication, but people were talking as though the cities were reinventing the fucking wheel. Long story short, they got installed anyways and work fine - much ado about nothing lol
In Oslo in Norway there's these really big and heavy cast iron flower pots. Wish more places used something like this. Something that's also pretty or serves some other purpose.
I'm so thrilled right now that we've gotten a bunch of bollards installed in my neighborhood, even in some places to cordon off entire blocks or direct traffic only for right turns. It's possible that I'm noticing the benefit more than someone who isn't as enthusiastic about this stuff as I am but it just feels like it lightens the whole mood and comfort level of the area.
There have been some neighbourhoods in my city where the ends of entire blocks have been redone to physically prevent access by cars. Not so simple as bollards, but running the sidewalk straight across what used to be the sidewalk and installing either giant planters or other barriers has worked well. It's a bit of a pain in the ass where one-way streets already complicate non-pedestrian access, but it's better that way IMO, as these are all residential streets anyways. Whoever was mad about it decades ago has been long forgotten by the birds bopping around, and kids playing in the street.
They have in some places. Most large events inside german cities have bollards now in my experience.
Glad to hear it, it's such a simple solution to such a serious problem.
I'm hitting a language barrier here (this was not meant to be a ballad joke but take it as you want).
I had never heard that word. I looked up images and it seem like there are two kinds: the kind that is fixed on the sidewalk, and the kind that pops up in the middle of the road. To which you are referring to?
I’m not quite sure where your confusion comes from, but a bollard is just a sturdy post. For the purposes of forming a barrier against heavy vehicles they’d be fixed in place and usually relatively strong.
There’s different kinds. some are weaker/lighter and just meant to make it difficult to accidentally drive into a pedestrian area, basically the same function as a curb but a little stronger or where you don’t want a step up/down for the pedestrians. Others are quite able to stop even heavy trucks.
The other kind you mentioned are probably rising bollards, meant to function as gates or to allow only certain types of vehicles (often buses) to pass.
Understandable, some of the sites I'm describing have a combination of more than one you're talking about.
Bollards are the sidewalk kind, all metal or short metal-cored concrete poles, optionally also used to protect building corners and natural gas meters on properties with vehicle traffic. The kind that pops up in the middle of roads is a security barrier, which I think are hydraulic and rise to wholly block even heavy vehicles up-to-and-including heavy trucks.
We definitely have in Melbourne, bollards in many places because of a couple of vehicular attacks in the CBD
Good to know, it's such simple stuff, albeit not at a cost of zero dollars it's worth it.
Trees are great for that too, and it has added benefits like another patch that is no longer impermeable, helps manage storm water, filter rainwater into the aquifer, lowers flood risks, provide shade against heat. It is also an habitat for plants, insects, birds, and small animals, while also improving air quality by absorbing pollutants and providing a natural sound barriers, reducing noise pollution and stress levels related to it.
Down with the empty patches of grass and up with the masses of trees and bushes!! Here here!
I’ll disagree with that one for this use case. Usually trees are a great answer, but we’re looking for something that can reliably protect people’s lives while maintaining good sight lines. A tree is not enough.
I'm not saying we shouldn't consider this in urban design but I've seen a number of cycling schemes be ruined because of the advice that no gap greater than 1.5m can be left to prevent this sort of attack.
I can't help but feel we shouldn't be accept living in a fortress in order to avoid universal access to machines that can cause such damage.
I’ve seen a number of cycling schemes be ruined because of the advice that no gap greater than 1.5m can be left
Ruined in what way? Could you post a picture or something? I'm having trouble imagining it.
This one comes to mind https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/new-city-centre-cycle-scheme-24598715
Been a while since I looked but my understanding is that 1.5m max widths excludes best practice to allow cargo bikes and accessible bikes movement.
If two of them weren’t trying to hail the cab they all would’ve been fine.
Uhh. Wouldn’t the terrorist just swerve around it and hit them anyways…?
This is clearly for accidents dude, the hell kinda stretching you doing here?
I think cars are pretty terrifying most of the time. And that's the point. We're supposed to be terrified to use the roads, because we might be run over. That's terrorism. They even told us it's our own fault when we die, because using the roads is "jaywalking".
It’s just for different scenarios. Complete bollards are used for terrorist scenarios, while OPs is used for accidents.
People are apparently too focused on their bias to comprehend that… different scenarios exist with different solutions. Don’t conflate them because you have an axe to grind.
We should stop car terrorism the same way we stop other terrorism. With a ‘targeted’ campaign of airstrikes that hit not just the car terrorists but car civilians and car women and children too.
car children are just car terrorists in training after all.
Even Seattle has this problem to this day.
In a 2,100-word, emoji-filled email blast (that’s about three times the length of this post!) announcing a compromise that will keep a traffic safety divider in place while allowing cars to park in the bus lane on Delridge Way SW, City Councilmember Rob Saka blamed a “radical proxy ‘war on cars'” for demonizing his efforts to remove the divider. The barrier, a standard-issue hardened centerline identical to hundreds installed around the city, was installed as part of Metro’s RapidRide H project.
[...]
Saka has consistently portrayed the lack of left-turn car access into the small preschool as an issue of racial and social justice, and his newsletter doubles down on that canard, accusing people who oppose eliminating the divider of “targeting the very immigrant families they claim to support” by denying cars from turning left into the parking lot.
Huh, that's close to one of Melbourne's older tram stop designs (slowly being phased out and replaced with accessible platform stops).
-- wongmThe Netherlands, Denmark: we saw, we understood, we put it to action.
Rest of the world:.....
Which postwar car-brains have sadly forgotten. 😤
I bet they said the same shit too "I understand you dont like this and want to protest it, but you inconvenienced me and therefore are wrong!"
We just got one of these installed and it’s amazing. This was one of the most dangerous sections of road, with a hockey rink on one side and parking on the other so frequent pedestrian crossings. However people impatient with waiting would blast though on the wrong side of the street to get into the turn lane, endangering pretty much everyone. That can’t happen anymore. Too early to see stats though
