441

McSweeney's bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.

You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Zeke@kbin.social 80 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was hit on my bike while heading to college. Simply crossing a crosswalk with a stop sign and someone decided they didn't feel like stopping while I was already crossing. I now live with back pain. Drivers can't be trusted to follow traffic signs.

[-] rexxit@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In most states, riding a bicycle in a crosswalk is not legal, and you are not considered a pedestrian that cars are obligated to yield to. I was taught at a young age to dismount the bike and walk it across for this reason.

[-] tekcaj@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I will say that, especially in college towns, this does not always hold up legally. My buddy got hit by a car on a crosswalk (they rolled down the window and told him to watch where he was going, while he was on the ground); and even though he was on his bike, the cops took his side.

[-] rexxit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Courts have also ruled that cops don't have to know the laws, and they are given broad discretion to ticket/arrest on any pretense that seemed reasonable to them at the time. It doesn't mean the law allows cycling in a crosswalk. Everywhere I've lived treats bicycles as non-pedestrians and doesn't afford the same considerations to them as someone on foot. Bikes are considered a type of vehicle.

I don't think that's totally ridiculous, but there are some effects that are: running a stop sign on a bike can be a moving violation that counts against your driver's license, and cycling while drunk can and has been charged as DUI. I think that's absurd.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
441 points (100.0% liked)

Fuck Cars

9776 readers
47 users here now

This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

  1. Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.

  2. No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.

  3. Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.

  4. No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

  5. No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.

  6. No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

  7. No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS