this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Fuck Cars

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

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (41 children)

what are these people expecting everyone's reaction to be when they buy these cartoonish giant clownshoes trucks?

because i see those things and think "oh look, another sensitive douchenozzle"

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 days ago (8 children)

Back when I was young, I had a job building, and installing, custom stereos for cars. The place I worked at also did a lot of modifications, one of the most popular things we did was lift trucks, add huge wheels, move exhaust to end above the backs of the cabs, etc. People who had trucks like that, just like the people with the stereos you could hear 5 miles away, absolutely did concern themselves with the way they were perceived, having that tricked out truck. They also rarely used them for work, or took them off road. They liked to cruise them down the night life areas, and show off. They would talk about how excited they were to do this. This was the same with people who tricked their cars out like something from TFATF movies. They never raced, they just showed off.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A lot of that is for the same reason people dress nice or have nice accessories like watches and handbags: Conspicuous consumption makes it look like you have money to at least some people.

And anywhere there are vehicles there's going to be a vehicle culture, from low riders to pickups to rice tractors

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

correct, and fast fashion, precious metals, and gems, etc for this are bad. it is a lot harder to deal with the fast fashion thing, because it took over the industry needed for clothing. but yeah, I feel the same about doing things like buying jewelry without concern for where it came from, as jewelry is something that can be easily boycotted. The big difference is, someone wearing a ring with a big old blood diamond on it will never inject its way into my life, and what I am doing, like getting stuck in traffic with some big coal-rolling d-bag, or someone whose muffler is replaced, or their stereo is as loud as a stadium concert, and so on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think the best solution to this is to just make cars not cool anymore, and EVs are doing a great job at that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (10 children)

I mean, you can make cars cool without making them obnoxious, inefficient, intrusive, poorly fit for local infrastructure, etc.

Unless you think things that cause greater issues for other people are the only ways in which cars can be cool. Then I don't know what to tell you, at that point it is a personal problem.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 6 days ago (1 children)

shower rooms at work

Damn, I've spent years commuting by bike and never once had a shower room at work. At one place I had to join the nearby Y and deal with naked, old, fat southern men lounging around on couches in the locker room every morning making jokes about imprisoning black men for life.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This sounds familiar af... Pensacola?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Close enough - Shreveport, Louisiana. This Y was where all the judges and prosecutors (and the defense attorneys as well, of course) from the courthouse hung out. I kinda wish I hadn't told this story because now I can't those locker room images out of my head. So much overfed, droopy white flesh covered in gray hair.

My favorite thing about this Y was that they still had a bunch of those motorized fat-shaker belts from the 1930s or whenever on the top floor - and this wasn't even quite 20 years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 6 days ago (12 children)

what kind of work places have communal shower rooms where you can laugh at each other?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 6 days ago

Office blocks that have gyms.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 days ago

The office where I work in central London, UK has bike parking for 300 and only eight vehicle parking spaces. We also have a fitness suite. There's two (male and female) locker rooms with showers, towels provided, a drying room.

At least one of the green building standards doesn't give you the top rating unless you have provision for active travel, institutional investors won't buy your shiny new building unless it's rated "Excellent" or "Platinum", tenants are looking for added extras which encourage their staff to come to the office rather than WFH.

And Westminster Council charges business rates (property tax) on parking spaces.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 days ago

Manufacturing plants? Usually if there's a changing room there's showers

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Used to work at a tire factory and we got paid $1.50 a shift on shower time. I absolutely needed it with how filthy i would get each shift

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago

Many white collar offices have gyms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

My last two offices had showers. No communal room, but the thing I remember most about the last one is the hot water being pumped from the furnaces of hell itself. It took so long go get there, and was so hot once it did I can't think of any other explanation.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The building I worked at in the Chicago loop had showers for bike commuters. Might be a big city thing.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

As someone mentioned, gyms. I biked to work at one of my previous places, and if I wanted to shower, I'd head to the on campus gym. That gym had stalls, so theoretically ou could talk in the shower, though I never did.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

Could be shower stalls. My job has showers, we have a gym on-site.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 6 days ago

Sounds like she failed successfully!

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Fuck oversized trucks. That lady deserved to have you - and everyone else - laugh in her stupid face.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (3 children)

You wouldn't laugh at a fat guy going to the gym.

The lady is cycling to work each morning. The initial impetus might have been bad, but she's doing a lot better than most people. Once she gets into the habit of cycling, she's a lot less likely to stop than if she's laughed at for it. It might also help her realise the truck isn't worth the hassle.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Youre getting downvoted because you are correct.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I haven't seen it that way, but you're right actually. Good for her that she saw reason and is now using a bike.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Which he spells thusly, with two D's

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

For a double dose of this pimping

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 days ago

Can't believe that workplace abuses their workers like this, making people think she's poor! /s

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Some time ago I was standing chatting next to my vehicle in a parking lot. This was in college. About 50-60ft away was one of the lot entrances. Not too steep, though one of those that will catch a lower car if it doesn't come in carefully. Anyway, in comes screaming a Lamborghini. The very expensive sound the bottom of that car made still makes me wish I was recording. Could've turned it into my morning alarm.

I like to think me bursting out laughing still haunts the driver to this day.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Ya know, this is a good argument for all cars to be cartoonishly oversized. That way they can only be used when absolutely needed.

Or of course the car lobby will just push to make all the infrastructure fit around the giant gas guzzlers.

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