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Fuck Cars @lemmy.world
HumanPerson @sh.itjust.works
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Car Enthusiasts Against Car Dependency

So don't take this the wrong way, but I do like cars. I am also against car dependency. I just wanted to make this post here to start a discussion about the benefits of lower speed limits in cities and towns, investment in effective public transit and non car-centric infrastructure, and other "anti-car" policies for car people. My goal with this post is to list the benefits of these policies for car people as I see it, and to hear other opinions on this topic.

  1. Stroads suck. I am a car person and would rather bike on a well-designed street than drive on a stroad.
  2. Congestion - I like to drive. Most people I know would rather not and would take other forms of transit if there were viable alternatives. If people who just want to go from a to b had viable alternatives, roads would be free for the people who want or need to be in cars.
  3. Safety - I don't want to kill pedestrians. I don't want to wreck my car. I'm fine with driving fast on a country road where I can see for miles and know that there is nothing in front of me to hit. If I do crash, it was my fault, and it doesn't endanger others. However, cities should have lower speed limits to keep pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers safe.
  4. Traffic flow - Where I live, there is a 45 mph speed limit down one of the main roads, but I rarely reach 45 during peak usage times because of traffic. Lower speeds would make traffic flow more manageable and allow car traffic through at a higher average speed.

I feel like the name "Fuck Cars" presents a false dichotomy between well thought out urban design and cars. Good urban design opposes car dependency (which I am against) not cars themselves. With that, I would like to leave you with a few questions: What role should cars play in an ideal world? How would or do you talk to car enthusiasts about this stuff? Do you hate cars or car dependency?

Also because this is fuck cars, fuck some cars. Fuck cars with shitty modified exhausts in built up areas. Fuck cars that run catless exhausts. Fuck big ass trucks and SUVs that run over children to dodge environmental regulations. Especially fuck squatted trucks. Fuck the car manufacturers who lobby to create car dependency and manufacture the child-crushing SUVs.

47 comments

  • Yeah I agree. Driving is fun and I like cars, but needing a car to do everything is an exhausting way to live. Especially when everyone else needs a car to do everything and there's congestion everywhere.

  • This is a surprisingly common opinion. I don’t share it but as long as we’re pushing in the same direction, then I welcome you as an ally in the struggle.

    An interesting anecdote that supports your arguments is that the Netherlands is one of the best countries for cyclists and pedestrians yet also for drivers. It doesn’t have to be a trade-off. Well-designed transportation infrastructure can work for everyone to some extent.

  • 100% agree. I love driving, road trips, windy roads, and take pride in having a clean and well maintained car. But I despise the car-centrality of most western cities. Any chance I get, I park well outside a big city and take a train in. It’s almost always faster and far less stressful. Even though I can parallel park, yield to cyclists, not run over pedestrians, and safely follow the rules of the road, most other people can’t or won’t because of how normalized bad driving is. Even worse, most people don’t really want to be driving and do it simply because their job/home are not properly accessible, so they have no other choice.

  • Oh hey I feel kinda similarly, except I don't have a car and don't plan on having one bc that's an insane amount of spending for something I thankfully don't need at all.

    From that perspective: I think ideally most private car use would be rental cars. We aren't going to connect every rural place via public transport overnight, and if you need to transport more than people cars make perfect sense for the job anyway.

    People in rural areas might still realistically need cars for a long time to come, and I also dislike completely preventing people in cities from owning cars, partially because I totally get that driving cars can be fun and other hobbies have their own carbon footprint. But, as expensive as being a car enthusiast already is, it probably has to get more expensive as cars become purely a luxury. The costs to the individual should reflect the burden they put on society as a whole.

    Other than better city planning to simply reduce people even wanting to use cars, I think other good measures (than just increasing taxes) to achieve this could be parking space requirements like japan has. Beyond that I think we really just need a cultural shift away from "everyone has a car obviously" which I'm starting to verrryyy slowly see at least.

    Ideally in the long term utopian future I'd want highways to mostly be abandoned, with long distance freight being done by rail and only local distribution by road vehicles. The main use of highways would then be those choosing cars as their hobby and private transport of goods, e.g. for moving. Within cities road vehicle use would only be for transporting goods (and ofc emergency services). But even if we put everything we have towards that I don't think I'd live long enough to see it lol

  • I want freedom of movement, i.e., I should be able to choose which form of travel I want to use to reach the destination. Each mode should have their pros and cons. But i don't want society/environment/polices to favor a particular form of travel.

    • While we can more or less agree with this, the reality is different modes of transportation are more useful in different places.

      • You’re not going to get an option to take the subway from your farm to the local Walmart.
      • In a pre-car city, you get a lot more freedom and convenience walking out your front door with a train pass. Cars don’t scale well to cities and policies shouldn’t accommodate them very far.

      The problem we have in the US is not investing in anything but car and airlines, when there is a range of possibilities to best fit any situation. The problem is the last half century of building out cities and population growth only considering cars. Now we finally realize car-centric design doesn’t scale well, but we have all that post-WWII growth built around it. We have a lot of work to undo

      • You’re not going to get an option to take the subway from your farm to the local Walmart.

        Yes, i completely understand this scenario and I would certainly not say to build a subway all the way to my farm.

        The problem is the last half century of building out cities and population growth only considering cars.

        This is the exact issue that I want society to understand.

        Transportation should have a hierarchy.

        • Commonly used routes: Subway
        • Busy/dense population route with medium distance: Bus
        • Short distance to common transport pickup point or places of attraction: cycle/small vehicle, preferably electric/mechanical
        • Special vehicles for senior citizens/differently-abled: Haven't thought about this much but there should be something

        There should be parking areas near the city periphery/big transportation hub so that people coming from the suburbs can park their car and use the public transport. This reduces pollution and heat in the center of the city. If you show you used public transport, parking should be subsidized or free.

47 comments