this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
371 points (95.6% liked)

Fuck Cars

11973 readers
666 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

That's like saying "I'm pro-life and anti-gun control".

Oh. Wait.

Edit: Guy confirmed that he is, indeed, pro-life and anti-gun control.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 94 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Always check twice whenever someone claims "it's simple math"!

[–] lime@feddit.nu 58 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the simple math supports the idea. the normal math does not.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] littletoolshed@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Right? If it’s so simple, show me the damn math! I’m happy to check your work, it being so simple.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 week ago

If it is simple, it is often an oversimplification

[–] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 week ago

"It's simply meth"

[–] blargle@sh.itjust.works 91 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They're still on xitter, and they paid for blue checks. Who cares what opinion they hold on literally anything?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 76 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I'm anti bike lane. Roads should be for bikes and pedestrians. Cars should get their own single separated lane on the occasional road.

Bike lanes are car infrastructure. They are not needed unless you consider the entire street to be for cars by default.

Also dave is an idiot. Maximum capacity would be a cycle and transit only street because those have the highest throughput per lane. Cars are incredibly space inefficient.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Relevant not just bikes about the streets in Tokyo that prioritise pedestrians: https://youtu.be/jlwQ2Y4By0U

[–] destructdisc@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (15 children)

Slight disagreement there. Streets are for pedestrians and bikes and trams and the occasional car (in a dedicated car lane). Roads (as in large arterial roads in very limited areas, meant for fast travel between faraway zones when trains are inconvenient, or highways between cities) can be considered as intended for cars, and even those should have pretty good space dedicated to bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks.

load more comments (15 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 51 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] TheRealKuni@midwest.social 2 points 6 days ago

I’m stealing this.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 41 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (13 children)

Vehicular cyclists are the fucking worst. I find that they fall into two groups:

  • "The John Forrester", generally oldhat nerds festooned with side mirrors and blinking lights and fluoro vests who are basically at the point of cosplaying as a car.
  • "The Dentist", young and middle-aged guys with money for whom cycling is purely a sport and nothing else, who annually dump $20K into prebuilt bikes and clothing like it's nothing.

Either way they're almost 100% athletic white men who for some reason never picked up on the fact that cycling in a car culture is a near-perfect analogy / example of what it's like to be a marginalized minority and a first-hand demonstration of privilege. Instead they're defenders of the status quo - By way of their own athletic, gender, or monetary privilege - All the way to their bloody meat crayon deaths. They're that one asshole who shows up to the community board meeting about a new bike lane that will make cycling accessible for children, the elderly, and any person in between who is more risk-averse or less athletic than they are in order to speak against it "As a cyclist". Because to them battling for your life in traffic, being on the bleeding edge of death, breathing in truck exhaust from the shoulder of a stroad is a gatekeeping measure. They're masochistic elites, they rake pride in the danger that they put themselves in so much that they'd deny accessibility to anyone else unwilling to accept that danger.

Gordon Ramsey is an example of someone in the dentist group. A few years ago he very nearly got meat crayoned by a car while cycling in the US. He didn't provide the details of the crash but it was obvious from his injuries that he'd been hit from the side by a car or truck and likely went over the hood. His public plea in revealing this wasn't that the US needs to make roads safer for cyclists, or more accessible to people who don't have a group of equally wealthy friends to peloton around a foreign country with, maybe separating cars from cyclists so that the two may never conflict. His one and only adamant request was that we all wear a helmet. Cycling is wasted on these myopic asshats.

Oh bother, I've gone and ranted again.

[–] Johnmannesca@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I'm living proof that a helmet will do nothing to protect your pancreas; sure it coulda been worse, but as an 8yo kid I had a tough recovery because they wouldn't give pain medications until the last minute, but I guess that's just another rant for another place and time.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Cause and effect. When you make cycling a challenge, the only cyclists will be the most radical/motivated. If we had the infrastructure to make cycling safe and easy, many more casual cyclists would exist. Europe proves that

“If you build it they will come”

As it is, building it doesn’t even work so well because we are so starved for opportunity that so many “bike paths” are overwhelmed by pedestrians that also never had options

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ahh a classic vehicle cyclist!

[–] destructdisc@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

I can hear John Forester screaming in his grave

[–] Nefara@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Hey I get it though, bike lanes are expensive new infrastructure. So pro-bike, anti bike lane just means all roads are now for bikes, cars not allowed. Ban cars and you don't need expensive new infrastructure! Sounds great!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 week ago

Sorry but I will not take infrastructure advice from someone with the last name "carr".... /s

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago

who the fuck said anything about novelty?

[–] al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Even better is the pro life /pro death penalty.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I can at least see the logic in that one. No child is born deserving to die, but some adults have absolutely earned it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I disagree, but I’ve definitely heard this argument before. NYC bike lanes are almost never respected. Cyclists need to be just as aware in a bike lane as they are splitting lanes.

[–] destructdisc@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

That's because most of them are unprotected and drivers are assholes. Paint doesn't mean shit to them

[–] ProvableGecko@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yep the concept is called "vehicular cycling". Proponents argue that cyclists fare the best when they act like and are treated as any other vehicle in traffic. It's bullshit of course, cyclists are safer in dedicated infrastructure and we should try to transform urban areas to be less car-centric and more walkable in general.

Oh The Urbanity! youtube channel made a video about this in particular: https://youtu.be/XpnZy7RrO3I

[–] ephemeral_gibbon@aussie.zone 1 points 5 days ago

I'm all for separated bike lanes etc. They're nicer and safer than riding on the road. however when that doesn't exist the safest way to ride is to behave like a car, so holding the leave etc. Otherwise people try to squeeze past you or your less visible and it gets really dangerous

[–] kubica@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago

Places that implement bike lanes in a decent way have physical dividers between the car and bike lanes, not just paint.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If we add a novelty bike lane, what's next? Novelty unicycle lane? Novelty camel lane? There is no end to silly positions on things that nobody is asking for but I can pretend they do. You people need some common sense.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›