this post was submitted on 19 Jan 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] 85 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Ironically, I'm a driving instructor, and pretty much the only time I really use my car is when I'm at work.

[–] [email protected] 84 points 11 months ago

Driver in the streets, public transportation and pedestrian advocate in the sheets

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

The enemy!!1!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wait, your car? You're instructing learners in your own car? How does this work, doesn't your car need pedals for the passenger seat?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yep. You can get them installed on basically all cars. The next car I'm looking at is a Lexus. By the looks of it I'll have to get my dual controls made bespoke for that which could easily cost upwards of £600.

I honestly much prefer doing it in my own car as opposed to having to hire.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Fun fact: Robert Moses, the man who almost single-handedly fucked New York City beyond repair by building bridges and parkways while actively working against public transportation options like trains, buses and subways beginning in the 1930s, never learned to drive himself.

Robert Moses really deserves to be the patron demon of this sub.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Most recent 99pi episode or power broker?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

The Power Broker. I've never heard of 99pi - for that matter, I'd never heard of Robert Moses before stumbling on the book.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I traded in my car a couple of weeks ago and the guy at the dealer was so shocked that I only drove 11k miles in 4 years. He was like, do you even buy groceries? Well, working from home and strategically living close to all the places I regularly need to go to makes me drive less. As for me getting a new car after just 4 years, that’s another story.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Farmers <-- (hand hold meme) --> city dwellers: "Being able to get eggs at any time of day"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Don't the farmers have to wait on the chickens to lay some tho?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Normal distribution with outliers meme:

  • rural: just go to the coop
  • city: just go to the CoOp
  • suburban: does the truck have gas? are you sober enough to drive? how bad is the traffic? it's so far to drive! where is a parking space?
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I have some chickens, I haven't had to wait on eggs. I have had to give some to the neighbors though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Wfh and strategic home location are privilege.

Disclaimer, I do this too.

But this is the "if your state/country is conservative/bad/repressive just move" of commuting.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Google had sent me an update of my usage for November and was all, "You drove 35 miles this month!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It usually tells me things like 150 km, and then I go though and it's another misclassified train trip

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I decided to only work at overseas startups so there's no chance of a "oopsie we retracted WFH". I'll be selling my car this year, I already have the electric bike to replace it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Any tips for overseas job hunting and how do timezone hours work?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I found my job on Reddit somehow, but there are plenty of overseas jobs on LinkedIn and the other major job exchanges. I work in a customer facing role so I look for jobs that need someone to handle customers in X timezones. For example, my company is based in Berlin but they wanted someone to manage the US customers.

NGL the timezone stuff is HARD at first. I am six hours behind almost all of my coworkers so I sometimes get completely excluded from discussions and meetings. I occasionally have to wake up early for things (4am product launch...) and there isn't the technical help available after noon my time, so I have had to develop my own troubleshooting and coding skills. And of course it can get lonely when there's no one else about.

But they fly me out to HQ every year and also offsites in Rome, Spain, and Portugal. So it's an alright tradeoff.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have now no other option but to drive because my country is phasing out one if not the most used public transportation vehicles here in the Philippines :(

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I was considering and was considering for another job, but in the end they went with another candidate. The major downside with it would be the 6+ months of car commuting until the trial employment ended and I was stable enough there to make a move. 6+ months of 35minutes in the car each way... Would have been an awesome job though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One thing I've learned from 25 years of work experience is to never get paid in promises. Sure, they maybe backed up the offer in writing, but six months is a long time for you to make good on a commitment for them to have a 'restructure' that somehow prevents them from making good on theirs.

I hope you found something else more awesome since then!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Not op but at least in Sweden we often get 6 months trial employment and after that they are honestly kind of stuck with us (cannot really fire us unless very specific things happen). So you can actually get some better conditions as they do want you to do the job and can not just replace you. If all fails you can also get help from the union.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised by the vibe in here, it's a lot more true to the stated purpose than its r*ddit namesake which seems to be just an aggressive, literal take on the name.

I enjoy driving and love tinkering with cars and bikes. I don't enjoy effectively being forced to use them for mundane commuting.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

As a car guy who lives in the middle of nowhere country side sometimes I bike to town just because I feel like biking 50 miles.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I must say although I enjoy cars and driving I do wish public transport was better like Europe or some Asian countries.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Cars are fun, car dependency is not

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I agree entirely with you here. All these nutjobs like *ndrew t*te who think we're coming for their hobby cars are missing the point. I couldn't care less if you like to drive cars or not. Heck, I would probably by myself lots of cool cars if I had tons of money. People don't commute by car because they like driving, they commute by car because it's the easiest mode of transport in their area. And a lot of cities would benefit immensely if that mode was instead changed to a combination of walking, biking, and tramming or similar.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The only job I've commuted to by car was, um, the summer job I had when I had my learner's permit when I was 18 or something.

I don't have a car, I've not driven a car with my full driver's permit, I think you need to renew it nowadays and I've not bothered with that for a couple of decades. We have buses here, why bother.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

is it weird that i like the concept of a motorcycle more than a car?

Like even though they're much more dangerous, i just don't really care.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (5 children)

You're not alone in not caring. Consider how many people will rail against motorcycles, but ignore worse activities. Horse riding is about 25x as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. How many folks do you see who are willing to tell a random person they see on a horse how dangerous the activity is? Yet I get random dipsticks who feel they're doing the lord's work when they come up to me on my bike and tell me what they think of the dangers of motorcycles.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not entirely sure that horse riding is more dangerous, I'm not that experienced with motorbikes, but I ride horses all the time, I reckon you might fall from a horse more often, but it's usually a fairly simple thing, not going too fast or anything. Unless you're talking about horse racing which is quite dangerous, but most riders do other, much safer thing on horseback.

That said, I live in rural Ireland where from what I understand, the roads are significantly more dangerous for motorbikes do that might be skewing my perspective.

Though random fools telling you that what you're doing is dangerous are, to me, overstepping. As long as you're not putting others in excess danger you should be left alone.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it's fair to say that horse's have a wider range of personalities or temperaments than motorbikes do. A bike won't throw you off if you're doing everything properly. A horse on the other hand can just not be arsed carrying you anymore or get spooked by something passing by.

All that said I don't think it would be easy to build a credible frame of comparison between the the two forms of transport. I wouldn't be surprised if either could be 'proven' to be more dangerous given the amount of thin air that the frame of reference would be resting on.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

they're much more dangerous in large part due to cars, i mean yea hitting a rock and flying off your bike at 70 mph isn't very safe, but motorcycling would be a lot less deadly without cars

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

My car is used only when other options aren't reasonable. I have to fill it up every two months. Hate driving, hate what it is doing to everything.

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

Me owing a car just to keep it 24/7 on street parking to keep that space used forever.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (5 children)

My plan is to use public transport, but man those Kei trucks/van are so cute! I'm probably gonna buy one later.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Commercial failure, but ridiculously adorable.

And the Mythic Rare electric version.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You can do both using transit when you can and using the kei truck for truck things like hauling or working.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yea, I ain't losing my car virginity unless there's a zombie apocalypse.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There’s so many fictional apocalypses where gas is somehow plentiful, don’t really get it. Long term, a good zombie apocalypse prepper would probably rely on solar panels and a bike.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

That was brilliant in the Expanse, when the Earth was orbital bormbarded one of the protagonists immediately goes for bikes.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

In case of zombie apocalypse, stay on a boat for a week. Ezpz.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Have it always nearby, ezpz

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

this pretty much sums up why I learned to drive

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