Fuck Cars
Fuck Cars
133 comments
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It's less disability-friendly than a car, can't carry cargo, and can't transport passengers. You try to have a suburban family with just bicycles - especially if one of the kids has balance issues from early childhood onward. It's not possible. The automobile is viewed as the ultimate symbol of freedom because it can serve multiple roles and has a massive variability in speed.
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"Less disability friendly than a car"
I completely disagree but it's debatable.
What kind of handicap can allow you to drive but not bike ? Bike are extremely adaptable to any kind of handicap, to the point that they can basically be turned into an electric wheelchair.
can't carry cargo
I disagree again, it does carry way less cargo but can still carry cargo.
can't transport passengers
Why do we need to carry passagers ? Because a lot of people (child, elderly people, people without license) cannot drive and because car are expensive. If everyone can use a bike and the bike are so cheap that you can have a few aroumd for guests it greatly reduces the need for carrying assengers.
And you can still carry passagers on a bike, the best example is longtails bike that can carry an adult or several kids as passagers.
kid with balance issue
Longtail and tricycles.
Cars are amazing pieces of technology, they do have unique capabilities like doing unscheduled, flexible long distance drive, or carry a lot of cargo at once.
But for a lot of the daily living a bike (and proper bike infrastructure) would be way better suited to the situation.
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I want to add my experience to this :
I'm disabled, on a good day I just get tired pretty fast. On a bad day even walking hurt and I need to rest every 15 min or so. I can't drive because I have narcolepsia.
You would think that I would love getting around car but I don't. When everything is made for car I need to walk a lot more even if someone drives me because parkings tend to not have a lot of benches and everything is farther because parking take space. It also makes crossing street horrible because I have to wait a long time for cars to stop.
If everything is bike friendly dedicated transport is faster and can afford to stop exactly where I need it and when I need it. I can take the bus, tram or train if something is too far, and I can stop when I need because bus stop have benches. On top of that everything is closser together since there little or no parking so a 15 min walk get me to more places. If i need to take a lot of grocerie I can just take a chariot, the only downside is sometimes there is noisy kids in the bus but this is solved by noise canceling headphones.
I know this is my experience ( which is obviously not universal ) and public transit / bikes are not a silver bullet that fixes everything mobility wise but earing the "bike centric infrastructure is ableist" rant feels downright insulting when it's the thing that allow me to not depend on friends driving me.
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E-bikes are great for people with disabilities who can balance and the elderly. I see old people zipping along on e-bikes a lot here in LA. For everyone else, public transit or para transit is often a better option than a car. A car that can accommodate a wheelchair or disabled driver is usually expensive.
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Adult tricycles are great for people with balance issues.
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The main reason wheelchair-accessible vehicles (usually a minivan) are so expensive is because no major manufacturers construct them in the factory. So you're paying for the original vehicle, plus a third party to remove the middle seats (what happens to them, I'd like to know!) cut the sides and lower the floor, adding sections to the doors and rerouting the wiring, install a ramp and "kneeling" capabilities, plus tiedowns and in some cases special controls for driving. Also the driver's and front passenger seats are set into removable raised platforms. The automatic doors have become standard but used to also be part of the conversion. If the body were constructed with these differences from the start, perhaps in a dedicated factory, the savings would be considerable.
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Yeah, honestly the "just get a bike" rhetoric is general pretty ablist.
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If everyone except for those with disabilities switched to public transport, bikes, it'd be a massive improvement.
I don't think anyone wants to outlaw motor transport, especially for those without other options.
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Everything is ableist if you think about it enough. "Just get a car rhetoric" is ableist against blind people. Even "just take public transit" is ableist against immunocompromised people.
A society should make accommodations for those with special needs, but we don't have to give those accommodations to everyone who asks. Some people will need a car, that doesn't mean your average able bodied person should be driving one, and most of the "just take a bike" rehtoric is directed towards those people.
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There are 3 wheel trikes that help with some disabilities and balance issues, you absolutely can carry cargo with a bike and while you can't carry a family of 4 on a single bike you can on 2 bikes. I literally can't imagine being a contrarian about freaking bicycles.
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Nonsense, you can absolutely have standard cargo bikes like this:
Or cargo bikes with gunner seats mounted in them
And there are recumbent and adaptive ebikes and normal bikes too, for people with disabilities or balance issues. Heck, you can even attach trailers to virtually any standard bike, and many different trailer options exist, from pet carriers to cargo, to food service to fully adult men.
Bikes shouldn't be going above 28mph anyways. We have high speed rail if someone wants to do 150mph through a city.
Cars are definitely the present, but they absolutely don't need to be the future.
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less disability-friendly
Trikes exist, and some even have a bench seat and storage behind the driver
can’t carry cargo
The humble milk crate begs to differ. Also you can buy a cargo trailer if you need to haul more than a panier's or a milk crate's worth of stuff
can’t transport passengers
Hook up a trailer. They start at just $100 on Amazon or get one from a garage sale or local buy/sell listings or even the local bike shop might have used ones. The one I use for all of the kids school pickups and dropoffs I got at a garage sale for $20 and it's also got space for cargo as well as children
You try to have a suburban family with just bicycles - especially if one of the kids has balance issues from early childhood onward
Mom and dad each ride a normal grownup bike, then each kid rides what's appropriate for their age, needs and abilities, whether that's a trailercycle, riding in a trailer, their own bike or even a trike
The automobile is viewed as the ultimate symbol of freedom because it can serve multiple roles and has a massive variability in speed.
Ehhh. Cars are great at what they do, but they're expensive as fuck to own and completely suck when too many people want to drive to/from/through the same place.
Honestly in the car dependant hellscape that is America I think the best possible balance is one car and a family of bikes for every family. You can usually take bikes on the bus, bikes don't require any meaningful amount of fuel (ebikes take like one laptop's worth of energy to charge) and they're freaking fun to ride as well as being good for fitness and mental health. But you also have the car for longer trips or trips on roads that you can't safely/legally bike on. Bikes are freaking awesome, and you can throw so many attachments onto them to make them carry just about anything
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Try having a disability that prevents you from driving and you may see just how shit car dependency is.
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My unfortunate blend of disabilities means that I can neither drive nor bike. I'm at my best in places with good taxis/rideshares supported by buses. Trains, light rail, and the like are nice ideas, but I have to take a cab or a bus from the station anyway, so I might as well go door-to-door in the cab. So I do want car dependence, because as we become less car dependent, we lose mobility.
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I miss cycling. I live in the middle of goddamned nowhere, so driving in mandatory to get anywhere relevant. I hate that this is the case, but there's just about fuck all I can do about it.
I will comment that I take issue with bikes being "cheap". If you ride a bike even remotely seriously, your bike is not cheap..... It might not be expensive, but you quickly realize why cheap bikes are cheap.
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If you ride a bike even remotely seriously, your bike is not cheap… It might not be expensive, but you quickly realize why cheap bikes are cheap.
Spot on. I've got about $3k into my bike, but it's not a fancy race bike (it's a steel fixed gear), so I invested in bombproof parts that could end up outliving me. Once a year I'll replace the tires/chain/brake pads, service the bearings, and strip/regrease a few parts, so the running cost is maybe $15/month. If you've got a road bike with a 2x drivetrain, or if you're paying people to service your bike that might go up to $30/month, but still negligible compared to a car.
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This doesn't work if you have any distance to go. I spent 8 years without a car, and I'll never do that again. I love my bike, but no.
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That's... What you have trains for. If you have proper public transit, that need is covered. Oh, and you can get shit done while you're on the train. Or sleep. Or relax.
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I really wish most places had better public transit.
A major city near me ends public transit at midnight, despite most late night venues being open much later than that.... And their transit system is "good" by comparison to what's in cities nearby me, and I'm still a 15 minute drive from any of them (at least). It would take me most of the day to commute to the nearest major city by bike/public transit.
Still... I wish.
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Motorbike.
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Vroom
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I live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. I can't park anywhere, my bike will be removed if not stalled in a bike parking spot. I do need insurance, my bike was 4k. There are bike traffic jams sometimes. The rest is all true. No parking fees, no road tax, etc. Just a bit wet sometimes. But my city has one of the best, if not the best bike infrastructure in the world. It's stupid it's not standard everywhere.
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"Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well."
Ivan Illich on the bicycle. Energy & Equity
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real freedom is heelys
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I don't miss falling on my face... that would probably hurt a lot more now than it did two decades ago.
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Out of curiosity:
What's that "note" a bike doesn't need?-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan_note
Shorthand for a loan I imagine.
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Thanks, didn't know that.
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Leases are often referred to as car notes in slang.
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Thanks, never heard that before...
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Bikes are cool and all, but no AC. And no good for a 40 mile highway commute. I also enjoy comfy seats and being able to easily and comfortably transport multiple people with a nice sound system etc…
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And no good for a 40 mile highway commute.
Your infrastructure sucks.
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You’re not wrong, but am trapped here. 🧐 Bikes will still never be as comfortable or have entertainment like a car unfortunately. There’s just something different about driving and playing music.
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Yeah im sure all the trams and busses go exactly where I need them to.
Also, you cant carry anything with a bike outside of a few grocery bags.
Im all for bikes. But cars are insanely useful . what needs to happen is banning of anything larger than a Ford focus, special license required for a pickup (unless its a tacoma size) and better infrastructure supporting bikes and cars together.
Me driving around in my 99 miata is the least of our car problems. Its soccer moms in 100,000 pickups that they are almost always driving alone and never hauling a thing.
My town is 200k, and there's no way you could bike around it, there's no shoulders or sidewalks on most roads. Thats a problem of city planners being absolute dumb shits.
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By those metrics, a tram wins.
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Cars are obviously good for long distances but maybe cars could be banned from city centres (perhaps with exceptions for disabled people who rely on cars, and goods vehicles should probably be allowed). For getting around a city, people can use public transport, or bicycles, or their feet to walk.
Also in cases where cars are used, electric cars are probably a good idea because it results in cleaner air.
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I wish our downtown banned them. They take up the whole damn downtown and are way too big now for the original main street.
My town is too spread out to not use any vehicles, and we have 2 huge interstates going through it. Not bikeable.
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You guys have zero understanding of America.
The only way this will even get started is if there's a push for motorcycles over cars. Thats a good middle ground.
People in every city between LA and New York will laugh at you for trying to use a bike for daily activities. Shit is just too far apart. Which is fine with me, I dont like neighbors, im loud and dont like people watching me in my yard. Probably autistic.
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I agree.
However I cant think of a single person in my life who would choose public transit even if it was available more. Im sorry but the ugly truth is, it's dirty, smells, loud, and the people on it are often on drugs (notice im not saying we need to deport and kill homeless people, some people think im saying this but I am just speaking from experience here). Public transport is not the utopia people think it is. Unless you have security and 24/7 cleaning, humans will ruin it (like everything).
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Inexpensive? In THIS economy?
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Compared to a car they are damn near free for a used one.
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You should visit one of the university cities in the Netherlands, and then tell me if you're still fine with cities designed around bike traffic.
Edit: this one's on me for getting down voted. In my experience, if you go to the university cities, you have to have eyes in the back of your head as a pedestrian. There's alway some cyclist coming from a random direction at high speed, ringing the bell and expecting you to give way (even in pedestrian zones). So as a cyclist it's probably nice, as a pedestrian not so much.
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Can you write down the problems you have with them? I've stayed in Copenhagen for a few weeks with a bike and it was lovely.
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I have, I am?
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What?
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Gonna need some elaboration on this one...
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Car go fast
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Okay... fine argument.
But... inexpensive?
Really?
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I spent 100 euros on my current bike
50 for a second-hand bike at the bike shop 50 for a cargo rack
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I got my bike used under 100euro - less than a 5th of it's original price ant it is a very good bike. Used usually is not so expensive. Unless you are going e-bike, cargo bike, family bike, trailer for a bike, or any specific type. These shits can go pretty much expensive even used. Not as expensive as a car, but still bit cost-y.
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Bikes are good for short distances of say 5-20km. Try to bike 500km in 5 hours? Or haul a couch on a bike? Yeah, much freedom.
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short distances of say 5-20km.
That's like 95% of all trips.
500km in 5 hours?
Take a train. Even if trains are not available, those trips are rare enough, for average people, that renting a car for them is cheaper than buying.
haul a couch.
Unless you're a professional furniture mover, you're going to do this so rarely that it would be cheaper to just hire a professional furniture mover, than to buy a truck.
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I live in a major German city, have a car, bicycle and a public transport subscription. I use public transit daily, ride bycicle 2-3 times a week and drive car 2-3 times a month. I do transport heavy loads when driving car. I use bike in my area to get to shops. I go with public transit to and from work.
Inter-city trains are fast, but fuck schedules and interruptions. I'd rather wake up, pack my backpack and hit the Autobahn for 4-5 hours and be there rather than go though a hellhole of trying to reach central station on time in the middle of the night just to save me 20-40 euros one way cause later time tickets are more expensive.
I don't want to rely on a tram in the night that not supposed to be there, but schedule says it will, and then it still doesn't arrive just to run quick to a nearby parking lot and try to pickup a Carshare and drive to central station under time pressure and spend shit ton of time trying to find a parking spot in the night.
I don't want to get a ticket with a connection train just to have my or connection train to be late for the connection schedule and then wait god knows how much for the next train and pray that won't happen during cold weather.
One time I took Flixtrain to save some money and that shit was extremely noisy even my noise cancelling headphones didn't help much.
One time I took bus that would go 15h one way. I will never take a bus in my entire life again for this much time. I value my painless back much more over money.
I still would fight for much more better public transportation in any city of the world. But that is bullshit to think that bike of all things gives much more freedom than a car.
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It helps if you have an old car that doesn't cost a lot of money. In terms of cost vs renting. And a trailer hitch so you can just rent a trailer for furniture and stuff. I've used mine a lot. Doesn't need to be a truck for that, even a small car can do a normal sized trailer.
I don't live anywhere near an airport so no rental cars available to me either, it'd take at least 2-3 hours to get to one via public transit
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bike 500km in 5 hours
haul a couch on a bike
Skill issue.
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Bikes are good for short distances of say 5-20km. Try to bike 500km in 5 hours?
Ride bike to station, take bike onto train, ride from station to your final destination.
Or haul a couch on a bike? Yeah, much freedom.
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How often are you hauling couches, most cars can't take one either. Mine came with free delivery.
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Have 3 friends help you out with a sofa, or, listen to me for a sec, have a vehicle that can do that by design.
Fuck cars, and all. Ofc they are not good for environment and are a cause of millions of deaths but you cant be saying bicycle is superior to a car while having a straight face. Apples to oranges ffs.
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This is why it's nice to split a car and hitch with friends and neighbours (and other lending library stuffs while you're at it). Just like the lawn mower you might share, no one (well no one with access to quarter-decent infra) needs a car every day, but it's handy to have access for hauling big stuff.
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sore bum tho
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Recumbent, like being in a recliner on wheels.
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With an appropriate seat, this is not a problem, even in regular clothes. For longer rides, bicycle shorts are recommended, which are padded to avoid saddle discomfort.
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some pay lots of money to get someone to get their bums sore.
so another bonus
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It's the symbol of freedom because kids in north America are locked up until they start to drive. Since you can't walk or cycle without risking your life, parents have to drive their kids everywhere until they are old enough to drive. This then is perceived as liberation.
Of course car centric infrastructure is the reason you need to be driven in order to be safe. It's the product of decade long lobbying by the car industry.
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Freedom is not having to use cars. Having the choice to use cars or other methods of transportation.
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Plus a car takes a bullet much better than a bike
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I guess cars must feel like parole to kids who have been locked up.
I grew up in a place that was not even big on cycling, just not a hellscape like the US. We would go on crazy bike trips and barely find our way back home at like 14.
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Plus a car takes a bullet much better than a bike
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Well I guess that's another problem Europeans don't have, but we're not here to take your guns away!
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Some are. But unless they are in a truly rural area, that is just not true. According to recent numbers 80% of people in America live in urban areas.
Those urban areas, while often not designed for bicycles are a lot more frindly to bicycles then true rural areas. Saying kids are trapped untill they have a car wrong most of the time. Yeah they may have to bike or walk a few miles to get anywhere but that's not a big deal.
The people living in true rural America truly do not have the ability to do so. But again, that's less then a quarter of the populations and likely far less then a quarter of all kids.
We have a culture that prioritizes physical comfort above most other things. A car is more comfortable so that is what most people what to do.
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The people living in true rural America truly do not have the ability to do so. But again, that’s less then a quarter of the populations and likely far less then a quarter of all kids.
Counterpoint: I lived in an extremely remote part of Vermont (population 400) for a couple years without a car, and I got around fine on my bike. The trick was living close to my work, which was easy since housing was dirt cheap. That said, getting out of town was difficult, as the buses (Greyhound) were notoriously unreliable. I also got random people buzzing me in pickups screaming at me for existing once in a while.
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I have lived in urban, suburban, and very rural places. Rural is my favorite and most comfortable to commute on bike even if some things are a long ride away. The concept of what's "too far away" is very different depending on whether you ask someone who is afraid to get on a bike, vs someone who actually rides.
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I wish I could still ride a bike. I walk for most of my errands and just enjoying the local nature trails, but bike seats are agony after both a bike accident 40 years ago (thrown 10 feet after an RV sideswiped me) and catastrophic car accident 11 years ago. Both made my existing lower back issues far more urgent and exceptionally painful before getting on a bike.
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Oh noooooo
So sorry
Is sitting on seats hard as well? I imagine it probably is so some kind of recumbent trike, besides being very expensive, wouldn’t be a way to get you back riding…
In which case I’m glad you’re able to enjoy those trails even in spite of the tragedies!
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I've had scoliosis since before those accidents, so it's a whole host of back issues. Sitting sucks, but is ameliorated by a quality cushion (a very thick memory foam pad I've had for a while now). I can't sit on benches or hard seats for any length of time at this point.
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Is there any kind of rehab you can do? One thing I've found with modern medicine is that they focus on getting someone healed until they can do basic things like sit and walk, which allows them to sit in an office, and sit in a car. But, they don't address the other needs someone might have, like if they're a dancer, or a martial artist, or a cyclist.
I've had some severe injuries over the years, and they basically called my rehab done when I could sit, stand and walk. But, on my own I've worked on my range of motion and strength to do more than just those basics.
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Part of the problem is that I've learned to accept and work around so much chronic pain that I just realize there are activities I can't engage in. I really need to do something as this has gotten markedly worse in the past couple years despite being quite active (I walk at a very brisk place for 5-8 miles per day).
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I've heard full suspension bikes enable some people who have back pain. Might be worth giving it a shot, depending on your pain levels.
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I honestly love walking, despite my screwed up back and panoply of other issues. I can mostly manage without a car for anything but large shopping at this point. And since kids and grandkids moved out, most shopping is reasonable and amenable to backpack or cart.
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Plus, as we’ve seen, it is much easier to escape the secret police on a bike
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That's exactly how I arrived at this theory. Went on a particularly nice bike ride last summer and suddenly remembered that feeling of freedom I got from owning my first bike.
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i grew up in Barcelona with a bike.
never in my life I've felt that sense of freedom.
even with a car. not even close
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"Probably one of the most fuel efficient vehicles in existence" is one of the dumbest takes I've ever seen. The human body is a ridiculously inefficient machine.
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sort of the human body is pretty inefficient but a 20 mile bicycle ride can burn around 1000 calories while a gallon of fuel contains 31,000 calories.
http://berkscountynature.org/calories_in_gallon.html
I am not a chemical engineer so I am not sure how equivalent these two measurements are... I mean for starters I can eat 1000 calories... but I think if I tried to get 1000 calories by consuming gasoline; I would die.
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133 comments
So for people criticising with rain, wind, snow, and groceries - none of these are nearly the issues you think they are, and there are a wide variety of bike configurations and gear that address these challenges.
The real issue is having to share the road with cars. I've just had too many close calls, and the growth of self-driving vehicles makes me more nervous to be on the road than ever.
Because of cars I hate being on the road whether in a car or on a bike, and every car that passes by automatically makes me tense up these days. I hope a new Carrington event makes all of them useless.
Yes, weather is just a matter of gear, and these days the wet and cold weather gear is amazing. The best bike gear isn't cheap, but it's much cheaper than the typical repair on a car when something breaks. Panniers are an easy way to carry a lot of groceries with minimal effort. If someone has a huge family there are also cargo bike options. But, of course, with modern American cities, there might not be a grocery store in a reasonable biking range. There used to be mom-and pop grocery stores all over the place. And, in Europe it's pretty common for there to be a small grocery store within a 5 minute walk of your house.
But, North American roads are designed only for cars. Bicyclists and commuters pay taxes to maintain roads, but the roads are built for cars and trucks. To really feel safe on a bike, you need separated bike lanes. You build those, and people will use them.
In many places in North America, a bike lane is merely a thin strip of pavement that's centimetres from passing cars, and in the door zone of parked cars. Even in good weather that's dangerous. In bad weather it's truly awful. But, people still use those bike lanes. In fact, some people even bike and share the road with cars where the bike lanes don't exist. That should be a clue that people are dedicated to cycling, and if you built actual good bicycle infrastructure, a lot of people would use it.
Bitch it’s negative 40 I’m not taking a bike. I’m not walking. That’s insane.
Well just keep on burning your fossil fuels, and you won't have to worry about it getting that cold again :3
Most people aren't driving in that weather either. Temperatures like that happen very rarely even in very cold places.
Where the fuck do you live that it gets -40?? Antarctica??
Negative 40 (yay, I don't have to clarify whether it's Celsius or Fahrenheit!) is navigable. Take proper clothing!
Source: living and walking in a northern city
I've made bike commutes in those temperatures, and yeah, I would say it's dangerous and most people shouldn't do that unless they've got some kind of fully enclosed, motorized bike with active heating.
It is worth noting that with proper winter gear, since biking is more physically demanding than driving, it is possible and likely that most winter bike rides will cause you to generate enough of your own body heat that you might actually feel the need to remove your jacket. At negative 40? Absolutely not. But I've done so at temperatures as low as zero.
And to be fair, you shouldn't be expected to drive at temps as low as negative 40 either. If you've got a long car commute and your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you are dead. At least with a bike-centric lifestyle it pressures you to prefer jobs that are closer to home, so it might actually be less dangerous.
I don't share the road, I take the road. You will overtake me like you would overtake a car, plus it gives me the space I need to swerve around the craters in the road. Some roads are bumpier than Paschendale.
I used to do that, then a car flew by and damn near killed me.
Vehicular cycling is a bad meme