this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
258 points (98.1% liked)

Fuck Cars

14511 readers
909 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
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

How you liking your Volvo?

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 17 points 13 hours ago

WOW, THAT IS BLANKED-UP, I hate Capitalism’s commercialization.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 3 points 10 hours ago

Time to switch to an EV?

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 56 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

My local gas stations just play ads on the payment screen. There was a mute button (usually top right, even if it was unlabled) but some have disabled that. I keep a note of those who do and have stopped going there.

Remember folks, Advertisment is theft and vote with your wallet.

[–] RockBottom@feddit.org 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

For EV it‘s not a thing, is it?

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 15 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

No because you just plug in and walk off or sit in your car, I can't think of any sane person that would spend money on advertising on an EV charger

[–] ebolapie@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Shell has/had charging points that are attached to like 8 foot tall digital billboards. At one point they were playing tiktok lifehack content on them, presumably because nobody wanted to buy space.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 8 points 18 hours ago

It could end up similar to the gas pump where whatever payment system is there will play ads before you pay for the electricity. You can even pay extra to skip the ads.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes and no...

Yes, you can just walk away, but your car is there for longer.

If its like the chargers at my local food shop, they are plastered with bigger and louder ads, but as before, go do other things.

If its a super-chaeger on the highway, your sorta stuck there.

EV chargers are a significantly more connected station.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

At worst you sit in the car and play whatever on the car screen or your phone for the 20 minutes to 80%

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

How is advertisement theft?

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

It's someone else selling your time/attention/quiet peace without your consent so I guess you could sort of see that as theft. In the same way that kidnapping is theft of your freedom, but then almost everything is theft if you word it right.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 9 points 15 hours ago

This is correct, it is a linguistic stretch, but it gets my feelings across and is short and quipy.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 40 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I've been car free all my life and not pumping gas into a multi ton vehicle that burns it to move everywhere I go is one of the nice parts.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Another car free lifer here!

[–] GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

To unlock your pedals, please watch this 30 second ad.

(AD)

Uh oh! It looks like your ad display battery is low and the pedals cannot be unlocked! Please charge the ad display to use your bike.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This is one of the reasons why e-bikes are not a favorite of mine. Some are obviously fairly simple and not IoT/cloud connected/AI/buzzword, but others, like VanMoof, needed an app to unlock the bike. So it would indeed be easy to display an ad before being able to unlock some e-bikes. They can be like modern cars and spy on their users too. Gotta be very careful when shopping and buying one of these.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 11 hours ago

Mine doesn't need an app and can be used without any such one.

[–] GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Definitely good to consider. Any sort of connectivity on an ebike seems weird to me - I would want to charge it and choose a speed/throttle, not internet features.

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I truly wish I was in a situation where I could do the same.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

It's not always easy. I had to move. My new city/region has barely adequate public transit and my country has abysmal train services. So my bike is the main way to move around. It's really nice for short distances. Even longer ones in summer. I love it. I have panniers, trailers, and pull my inflatable kayak to the lakes and rivers around.

However intercity travel here is horrible without a car. We have a pretty decent network of dedicated bike paths spreading like a web from my city and going into the countryside, but I don't always want to cycle 300 km to and fro to visit my parents. Plus, it's winter right now, so I rely a lot more on public transit, and sometimes it really makes me wish I would have a car instead of having to deal with underfunded transit and bike networks.

I watch the people standing up in the crowded bus, that has to leave people behind at some stops because it's full, and I think to myself that society really really wants people to own a car; that transit users tolerate a lot of shit. And unfortunately, using public transit is also being subjected to an insane amount of ads.

That's why I love my bike so much. But it would also be hypocrite of myself not to acknowledge that I sometimes stop at gas stations while bike touring, because I also need some fuel, like a sandwich and some electrolytes. There's going to be ads inside and the cashier might even offer a lottery ticket. No way to escape them.

Still, if you wish to be car free, I hope you can attain that goal. Because even with that said, it's satisfying to move myself and my stuff without a car, or not having to constantly pay for gas. In a world where cars are systematic, at least where I live, it feels like an accomplishment to do things without one.

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 3 points 13 hours ago

Yeah, I have an e-bike I rarely use. At one point I had a job close by and I could bike along some walking trails and through a neighborhood on the street to get there, but when I left and got a new job the place is on the other side of the city. I could use it to make grocery trips, but I drive by the store on the way to and from work. Makes more sense to combine trips. Or I’m shopping on the weekends with my wife, who is disabled.

Public transit here… exists, but it takes an inordinately long amount of time to get from point A to B. The rail service is a single line and has the same problem, also doesn’t run all day and there’s only maybe two trains.

[–] Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Make sure you don't accidentally drip any nail polish remover/acetone on the bright screen, it woud instantly make it cloudy and blurry.

[–] piecat@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Isn't gasoline a pretty good solvent?

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago

How did that not get swing smashed into the ground day one?! You even have perfect plausible deniability. "Oops, I accidentally dropped it with extreme prejudice".

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

This seems like a fire hazard

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 8 points 14 hours ago

Holy shit, I thought the US was bad.

Id smash that screen.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 13 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Someone should design a 3d printable cover that can be attached to cover the screen, and then go around covering them all.

Paint or stickers might count as vandalism if you're caught, but a removable cover is probably safe

Edit: sorry, the microplastics crept into my brain when I wrote this. Fuck 3d printing, just use a piece of cardboard and tape lmao

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Nothing a bit of spray paint won’t cover.

Edited - with all the cameras at gas stations maybe a sticker is a better idea.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 9 points 18 hours ago

Or even just a “fuck you” sticker.

[–] Griffus@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 hours ago

You guys still use fossil cars down there? But why?

[–] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 10 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Wait; I have to watch this ad before my toilet paper is dispensed and I can wipe my ass…🙄

[–] human@slrpnk.net 5 points 17 hours ago

Literal enshittification.

[–] Otiz@sopuli.xyz 9 points 19 hours ago

Not even surprised anymore

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Wow that is pathetic. I thought it was practically the lowest they could stoop when they added ads to pause screens on streaming TV services. I was wrong.

[–] uberdroog@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Customer case Smarter Nozzle | DEKRA Customer cases https://share.google/R8LLx9JhtE4p6A4PF

[–] raldone01@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

🤢🤮

Reading that article made me feel sick. I would hate myself if that was one of my achievements in the world.

Thanks for linking though.

[–] Saapas@piefed.zip 5 points 18 hours ago (9 children)

What's with the plastic glove thing?

[–] Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I mean, it's an object that's touched by thousands of people a day and might drip gasoline.

Not many people use it from what I've seen, but it's nice to have as an option.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago (3 children)
[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Beacon@fedia.io 2 points 15 hours ago

Yes! Most people give a raised eyebrow when i tell them that i like the smell of gasoline

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] Wild_Mastic@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

Smarter Nozzle

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 18 hours ago

id like to hit whoever came up with that idea with een baguette

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 4 points 18 hours ago

I imagine they will go from the payment screen to the pump here, soon. I turn my back, either way.

load more comments
view more: next ›