this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
576 points (98.8% liked)

Fuck Cars

11938 readers
619 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
 

The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] BigBenis@lemmy.world 4 points 41 minutes ago

Anything to shift accountability away from drivers, huh? Cars and the people behind the wheel of them are just an unavoidable force of nature now?

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 6 points 57 minutes ago

The us is so fucked. I've been letting my kid take the buss to the other side of town alone since she was 9. And traffic accidents are very rare despite most neighbourhoods not having sidewalks at all. Of course we drive a lot slower and it takes months of obligatory coursework to be eligible to take a driving test. https://www.vegvesen.no/en/driving-licences/driver-training/how-to-get-a-driving-licence/passenger-car--b/

[–] korazail@lemmy.myserv.one 41 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm SO mad at this story. There is no reason to charge the parents. As others have stated, helicoptering kiddos is detrimental, and they need to be allowed to roam their environment -- That can come at the cost of danger, but we cannot be expected to grow with 0 risk.

Sure, as a parent, you can state: 'don't go there', and 'always look both ways', but kids are kids and there's only so much you can enforce without being overbearing. In this scenario, without video evidence, there's no clear conclusion about fault for either the driver or the child.

I'm okay with letting the driver off (criminally, let insurance pay the family but don't put the driver in jail) and acknowledging this as an accidental death, especially since he stuck around and is complying. Charging the parents for negligence, though, is just fucking brutal when they are suffering the loss of a child, not to mention the impact on the older son, who probably is feeling an unreasonable amount unreasonable of guilt: "I could have held his hand; I could have reminded him of the road..." (not his quotes, my presumed internal dialog). Again, as others have stated, this is a city planning problem, not a parental one: If there was a way to walk to a grocery store that didn't cross a 4-lane road, that'd be a better option, but there are plenty of places where that is not possible.

These parents do NOT need the extra burden of being held legally liable for an accident and anyone blaming them for this without knowing them personally and being able to describe other aspects of their parent as negligent is just an asshole.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 31 minutes ago

it's ghoulish.

[–] RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world 43 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

They got it backwards. I will hold the road planners, the city government, the driving license issuer, and the driver responsible. It start with poorly designed roads and ends with poor driver training. The parents are the victims here.

[–] jnod4@lemmy.ca 12 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

It's the parents fault for birthing a child into this hellscape into the first place. We've built this inherently violent landscape and your letting your spawns roam free? /s

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 1 points 31 minutes ago

but they want people to have more kids. lolwtf

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 8 points 8 hours ago

This feels like an origin story for a Punisher reboot.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 22 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Never blame the asshole in the car. Always blame someone else.

[–] Aragaren@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Did you read the article? The kid ran out into the street. The driver wasn't speeding or impaired. They did nothing wrong so what exactly do you want them to be blamed for and why are they the asshole in this situation?

[–] GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

No he did not read. People here do not read and just go for "oh the poor kid" without knowing the whole story. Also they want to stop a vehicle going 45mph to 0 in a dime. Literally these commentator have never driven a car.

[–] mcv@lemm.ee 3 points 4 hours ago

In Netherland, max speed is usually 30 kph (about 20mph) when there's any chance of interacting with other traffic (bikes or pedestrians). The idea of walking along a busy road where cars go 45 mph is ridiculous. Separate the traffic streams and give them crosswalk with traffic lights, or slow down the cars.

[–] Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 44 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

This is absolute bullshit, just because the US is incapable of making good walkable neighbourhoods doesn't mean the parents are at fault of letting their childeren be normal.

[–] GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Explain normal? If this was a street inside a subdivision, I would totally understand. Speed limit on that road is 45mph

  1. Either come up with engineering to stop from 45mph to 0mph in a dime
  2. Take care of your kids, watch the surrounding, be vigilant else don't have kids

Yeah, there just need to be places where its okay for anyone to murder children. These filthy fucking europeans just don't understand, because of their low birth rates, but as proud r strategists, americans need to be able to kill some of their children, and must have robust mechanisms for culling the weak.

No but see we need designated zones where it's okay to murder children.

Otherwise how will we get rid of the most annoying ones?

[–] andybytes@programming.dev 13 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Mountains of shame looking for someone to blame in the dum dum land of lowest common denominator. This Yankeeland, this imperialist empire, this empty vessel of lesser things, this pit of despair we lean into the Edward Bernays dreamland of sucking the tit of the rotton corpse of the rugged individualtic mother. Ohhhh the humanity. Ohhhhh the humanity thots and prayerzzzzzzz. Fascist are the useful idiots of empire and capitalism and fascism are like peas and carrots. The liberals are fascist. You call me negative and I think you are stupid. Welcome to the lords and ladies of the clown kingdumb. The leader is a follower ,the follower is a leader that is dead. If their is a hell it is inside your head. Nothing WILL EVER change in Yankeeland. It is like demanding for HBO in Alcatraz. You can not solve generational issues until the boomers in office finally die this won't happen in your lifetime. This evil empire is gonna set the world on fire.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 38 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

I walked two blocks between home and school every day when I was 7. This is insane.

[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, in first grade I'd walk several blocks to school and back

[–] Pnut@lemm.ee 5 points 8 hours ago

Half the kids in my school lived in town, they all walked home. A lot of our streets didn't have proper sidewalks.

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 12 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Back in the 60s, I walked to and from kindergarten in a school that was at least a mile away, starting when I was 5 years old. Once I could ride a bike, around 6 years old, a typical Saturdayor summer day meant hopping on my bike after breakfast, and disappearing for the day, with no phone, wallet, id, money, etc. My pockets would be literally empty. If I needed a drink of water, I would knock on a stranger's door and ask for one. The only rule was be home by 5 for dinner.

Everybody was a free range kid back then.

[–] crank0271@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

I'm so disappointed that I don't see these days coming back.

[–] disco@lemdro.id 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

5 blocks for me but it's the same thing.

Glad I grew up when I did and in Canada.

[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

About a Kilometer for me. Felt longer as a kid... My brother had to commute by bus at 8, because the school was fused together with the one in the next village.

The US are seriously weird.

[–] disco@lemdro.id 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Everything felt longer as a kid and I kinda miss it :')

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 20 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I bet it's in a Republican shithole city in a Republican shithole state?

I don't even have to check

[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 36 minutes ago

Ive literally never heard a good news story out of NC.

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 21 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Was the driver driving a child-killing American truck? If so, both the driver and car company should be charged with voluntary manslaughter.

They knew this was going to happen, yet they still bought and produced the child-killing tank.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Look, americans are proud R strategists. Maybe you sluggish europeans dont know what that means, but we need ways to cull the weak before we waste too nany resources on useless eaters, so designated zones and tools, in/with which it's considered okay to murder children are an absolute necessity. Doing it with our cars, integrqting it into our transit system, more than makes up for the loss of efficiency from not using trains and bikes. So how do YOU propose we murder children, then, huh?

Do you think we should just stop killing children on purpose? Fucking yankeephobic eurotrash.

[–] showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website 54 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

This some serious bullshit not even the cops can't be that heartless ... Oh wait the parents are black ... in North Carolina ...

Also, there are designated child culling zones.

[–] RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

Racism explains a lot of court decisions in the US. Jim Crow laws never truly went away.

load more comments
view more: next ›