3d ago

Dodge Ram in the Netherlands

original post: https://feddit.org/post/10733288

Source: stux@mstdn.social

"This is why we don't need #US #cars in #Europe"

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238 comments

Someone in my city did this. Their car blocked the tram. The tram company ordered taxis for all passengers, and the car owner had to foot the bill.
- Did the offender actually pay the bill? Did the tram company have to sue to get the money? Do you have a news article?
  
  @rabber @shadowtofu
  Tram company makes money by moving people. When the tram line stops moving, they lose money by the minute. 1000 Euros per minute plus the standard fee for a parking ticket seems fair. That should make the driver pay attention in the future.
  
  I mean I'm all for fining them but there's no chance they're getting 1000 euro/min lol
  
  It's a network. It's not just the people in that tram. But all trams on that line and all people connecting through that line that are effected. And that specific track might actually run multiple lines as well. Depending on the country they might be applicable for an reimbursement fee. And lets not start about all the costs the passengers might incur.. So €1000/min seems fine for me for this shit head
  
  @mac Get found to be intentionally delaying a train in Japan and they bill you a huge amount of money. Not just for the train you delayed, it's also all the trains on the line behind it that also get delayed. 1000 Euros a minute seem reasonable considering the lost money for the tram company and the lost time of thousands of riders. Plus reduced reputation for the reliability and punctuality of the service causes incalculable loss to the train / tram company.
  
  I'm not going to defend this ridiculous vehicle and the extremely poor parking but there's just no way a court would award 1,000 euros a minute.
  It's an absurd number you just picked that seems commensurate with everyone's hatred for these cars.
  Intentionally delaying a train is not analogous to parking your car on a tramway. Intent is important. Also a train might contain several hundred passengers while a tram might have a few dozen at most.
  The reduced reputation as a result of this happenstance will be infinitesimals. No judge would award losses for reputation over this.
  
  You're really missing the whole point that these kinds of delays propagate through the whole network. All trams after this point have to stop or they start congesting the roads. So all lines that share the same track and switchovers might have to be stopped too if there aren't enough alternatives (which tram tracks usually don't have a lot). This can easily halt a huge part of the tram network depending where in the network this congestion is.
  And when the congestion is finally resolved it might still take a long time for everything to finally run smoothly again. You're also looking at worker overtime, depending on how long it took the car to get removed. They might not be allowed to drive further anymore because they are over their time limits, so now you have to shuffle around tram drivers too adding to more delays.
  
  No judge in the US? Or no judge in the EU?
  Bear in mind that Finland, for instance, has day fines, and a speeding ticket in 2023 netted a businessman a €121,000 fine. So expensive fines are not unknown in EU countries.
  
  @nulldot
  {Also a train might contain several hundred passengers while a tram might have a few dozen at most.}
  True but what about the next one and the one after that etc etc? This driver didn't just block the tram they blocked the line. Intent is proven by the obvious tracks that are being blocked by the car that the driver would have to have driven over to get to the parking space.
  
  Okay, how about a large fine based on wealth, 1 year community service, and a lifetime ban on owning a vehicle and driving?
  
  Public transportation is expensive here
  
  That'd be cool but I think people are interested to know if this actually happened
  
  Not the case I was thinking about, but here is a similar case:
  [translated] Parking in a stupid way can be expensive. In Frankfurt, the regional court has ruled that a car driver must pay for the use of 28 cabs.
  […]
  The cabs collected people waiting at the stops and drove them to other stops along the route. This went on for an hour before the car parked not far from a “Please keep enough distance from the track” sign was towed away and the route was free again. […]
  When the VGF then demanded 973.13 euros, 25 euros of this was a lump sum for their own expenses - and the rest was the cost of the rail replacement cabs. The court ruled out manipulation by the cab company after hearing witnesses, and the court was also unable to recognize any dilly-dallying during towing.
  The car driver did not have any legal grounds for not paying for the cabs, this only went to a court because they tried to accuse the cab company.
- They could just take the brightline approach for dealing with vehicles on the track.
  
  @conditionalsoup @shadowtofu
  Would that mean that since the tram has the right of way on the tracks it can simply push the offending driver's property off the tracks and any damage is legally the fault of the idiot driver?
  
  Brightline is Florida’s highspeed rail line between Orlando (Theme Parks) and Miami. It opened recently and has destroyed many cars and trucks that sit at stoplights on the train tracks.
  
  Me and the wife like to drive down from Tallahassee real early so we can spend the entire day riding the Brightline. They got a special car for those of us that buy the all-day passes. Its like tailgating at the ball game, people bring their coolers and sometimes a small grill. We always have a couple spotters watching for cars on the track ahead of us. If the cars linger on the track too long then we all start the war chant. It started out as BL! BL! BL! SMASH!, but now it has kind of morphed into BALLER! BALLER! BALLER! SMASH!
  It's like driving in a demolition derby but at like 125 mph and you don't have to spend any time or money getting a hoopty running.
  
  I want to believe this is real but it sounds too good to not be a meme. People ride trains as a hobby in Florida?? Pics (video) or it didn't happen.
  
  I admit at first we all felt like filthy communists, but the rush you get from the sound of the steel wheels sliding on steel rails followed by the sound of a train obliterating a Nissan at over 90 mph is god damn addictive. Occasionally, we'll catch a lifted pickup that has stalled on the tracks (ironically it's almost always a Dodge Ram) and man those dumbasses universally want to blame the train, so we all get to "Stand out ground" and riddle that truck with so many bullets that it doubles in weight. Hell, that's how I met my bff Harlan. He was working off his community service time for his 3rd DUI right there next to the track picking up litter. Next thing you know him, me, and the train engineer are seeing who can spin the rear tire of some upside down Dodge the fastest. Harlan is a damn good shot, but since he was serving community time he wasn't allowed to carry anything bigger than a 9mm, so he definitely lost that one.
  
  Just Florida things
  
  Not only that, but Brightline helpfully disassembles the offending vehicle so that any parts that are damaged in the move can easily be identified along the debris field.
- amazing
- I get why people are annoyed but I wish my truck had a sunroof.

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