Fuck Cars

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bzz , in [image] Happy Friday!

Is this critical mass?

dragThruGardenPlz OP ,
@dragThruGardenPlz@midwest.social avatar

It is

bzz ,

Sick what city? We just participated in Dallas

dragThruGardenPlz OP ,
@dragThruGardenPlz@midwest.social avatar

Nice! This was Chicago

nutbutter ,

What is critical mass?

M500 , in [image] Happy Friday!

What’s going on here?

7eter ,

Critical mass in Chicago

M500 ,

Oh, I was confused. I thought critical mass meant like enough people. Are riding bikes regularly to influence traffic policy.

Wish that would happen where I live.

dragThruGardenPlz OP ,
@dragThruGardenPlz@midwest.social avatar

You’d be surprised how many small cities have a CM or similar. If there isn’t one yet, start one! Organize and get active

7eter ,

Indeed! 🚲💪

Oh by the way, do you have any laws for CM in US?

I just know that in Germany groups of 16+ cyclists are allowed to stay together - even while crossing a red light. Bigger CM may even be registered demonstrations with police protection sometimes.

dragThruGardenPlz OP ,
@dragThruGardenPlz@midwest.social avatar

lol. I know nothing.
😂 Part of the local US law here is, because it not an “organized” event and just seems to happen, it is not subject to extra scrutiny or something. But again have no real idea

basxto , in [article] Japan is inventing trains
@basxto@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Reading a few articles about this, it seems a big concern is area. They wanna squeeze them in every free space they have between and around roads. Conveyor belts can probably do a lot sharper curves etc. than railways. If they do special small rails, they’ll also need special trains for that.

From the articles it’s also not clear if it’s from one point to another point or from multiple to multiple. They talk about deliveries, which would rather be multi to multi, but it’s not explicitly mentioned anywhere.

jumperalex , in [article] Japan is inventing trains

Hmmmm I'm still skeptical mind you, but hear me out ...

What if there's benefits to be had by the traction motors being stationary, the electrical connections being fixed instead of moving contacts (read: not 3rd rail or overhead catenary), and the simplicity of containers not being all connected for easy removal from the conveyor without disrupting the movement of other containers?

Mind you I can't imagine how this system can operate at reasonable speeds vs cargo trains that apparently hit 100km/h in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_Freight_Trains_(Japan) ) but surely my imagination isn't good enough.

Lost_My_Mind ,

I don't think speed is the thing we need to concentrate on anymore. You could have this country spanning convayer belt essentially, and power it all with solar. Thereby reducing pollution by a HUGE amount within Japan.

And hopefully other European countries will follow. Then we'd have to deal with the beast that is North America. Large sprawling land, both in Canada, and America. Especially America would be difficult. Canada probably has an entire unused northern half. Whereas America doesn't really have much unused open space in the eastern half. And it's just sooooooo big.

I have zero faith this will ever come to America. Too much politics. Too much zoning issues. Too much distance.

But it should work great in Japan and Europe.

jumperalex ,

I won't agree or disagree with the speed comment, you could very well be correct.

As for powering by solar in Japan (and any other currently electrified system), I would guess that's easily done right now by changing how their power is generated; and that doesn't require a change in the system, just the generation. In japan around 66% of their rail is already electrified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification_in_Japan look at the summary box showing total miles and electrified miles). So I'm still skeptical that a conveyor system is the answer vs adding more electrified rail in that same strip of land and powering it with solar generation. But again, maybe there's something to be gained with such a different engineering solution per my OP.

And while you're spot on for the US (less than 1% from my google search) a conveyor won't solve it sadly unless there's something about that which makes it cheaper to deploy then adding a catenary system to our current railways.

invertedspear ,

A train sends 100 cargo boxes from town A to B in an hour. It takes 4 hours to put all the boxes in, and 5 hours to pull the boxes off the train and stack them in the yard

Conveyer sends 1 box every 6 minutes for 10 hours.

Same throughput, but one is easier to schedule workers around at both ends. I’ve never worked in a train yard or anything, don’t know how accurate my time frames are or anything, just trying to imagine what’s better about this.

jumperalex ,

Hmmm certainly something to think about. Like I said, skeptical but also asking about what I hadn't thought of [cheers]

intensely_human , in Why is Riding a Bicycle in the City Turning Into a Culture War

Because the cities are being actively altered in a way that transfers space and other resources from cars, to bikes.

Zero sum game, resources being reallocated, obviously the people whose resources are being taken away are going to view that as a war.

Diplomjodler3 ,

Won't anybody think of the poor cars? But seriously, resources are better utilised by bicycles to the benefit of all. There are no losers here other than the oil companies and car manufacturers.

phoenixz , in [article] Japan is inventing trains

pictured using generative tools

So now it's not just "bad CGI idea", it's "bad CGI idea generated by AI".

Next up: people investing billions in said cool looking bad CGI project only to find out none of it works and after wasting half a decade, they'll come to the conclusion that they'll need to invent a large transportation system with metal wheels that will run on a specialized track where you can add or remove carts as needed.

It's so bad that we don't have any of this yet!

Seriously, fuck Elon Musk for getting these scams popularized

jackoneill , in America has lost its f*****g mind.

I’m 6’8” and I drive a Honda accord. I’m fat too. No excuse man

SamVergeudetZeit OP ,

Good boy.

loxo ,

Maybe in Germany "good boy" can be said in earnest, but know that "good boy" in the US is typically condescending when referring to an adult.

SkybreakerEngineer , in Replace parking spots with plants? Absolutely

Almost like how most of those streets were originally designed, before cars were invented

Kuinox ,

Car with horse existed when theses road were designed.
It's even a paved road, I find it a bit sad they tore down the pavement.
There is even a photo somewhere on internet where you can see a dead horse with kids playing next to it as car pass by.

Exemple of a photo 100year ago in Paris:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2c443ddf-45e4-4b0c-a57d-2a86acf4b06c.jpeg

Pedestrian can walk on pavement.

I'd like to remind that cars were banned in center of Rome, because there was too much cars.
And I'm talking about the Rome of 2000 years ago.

vaquedoso ,

They might have not suffered the noise of cars as much as today, but accordig to that photo they did constantly suffer the noise of lowercase a everywhere

Kuinox ,

A horse carriage is very loud on pavement.
Also lots of horseshit everywhere.

wabafee ,
@wabafee@lemmy.world avatar

If this norm would be brought today we would have c/fuckhorse.

7eter , in [image] Happy Friday!

I'm a simple cyclist.
I see critical mass, I press like.

drkt , in Austria to ‘Super-Speeders’: We’re Taking Your Car
@drkt@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Denmark takes your car on the first offense. You're not getting it back. Doesn't matter if it's not your car. Doesn't matter if you're not a citizen.

Kecessa , (edited )

You're not getting it back ever? In my province in Canada it's up to a month but if that happens your license is suspended anyway...

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

I just looked it up. You're not getting it back ever, they sell it at auction.

You have to be drunk or going double the speed limit for this to happen though.

Kecessa , (edited )

Daaaamn... Reminds me of California (I think) where they would crush modified cars

Edit: cars used in street racing: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19339955

Pilon23 ,

They took a Norwegian guy's Lamborghini. He tried to sue as he claimed it breached his human rights. Didn't pan out for him in the end

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

I'm sure he cries himself to sleep on his cash stuffed mattress. lol

phoenixz ,

Also if the car isn't yours? Well, that makes people be careful with what friends they let drove their cars then I guess

twig ,

That's really interesting.

I see people doubling the limit in school/construction zones or reduced speed residential areas all the time. This would be a massive detterent.

AA5B , in [article] Japan is inventing trains

A 500km tunnel would be only $23B, and they call that wildly expensive?

Let me introduce you to a 1.5k tunnel for $22B

themusicman ,

Here's one which is actually being built: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Rail_Link

$5.5 billion (NZD) for 3.5 km

phx , in You can fit two cars there

Aside from the lift, there may be use cases for the truck where it requires moving multiple people and smaller heavy loads (or pulling a trailer). However, the sad reality is that the heaviest load it'll likely be moving on a regular basis is the fat ass of the solo passenger in their way to/from fast food and groceries

KillingTimeItself ,

you know it's funny, they made crewcab long beds in the 80s and 90s. They were just long and looked a little goofy, had normal proportions otherwise, these have been vertically stretched and widened to compensate for the absolutely bizarre form factor that they ship in. i genuinely have no idea what they're doing with the front suspension to require the hood to be that high off of the ground. A fucking hummer has more ground clearance with a lower hood.

There is almost no reason for a truck like this to exist, especially when you consider it's interior is "luxury"

Saledovil ,

I live in Germany, and I spotted one of these trucks recently. It looked huge compared to every other vehicle on the road, and one of those was a delivery van. And it was too big for its parking spot. It also had a confederate flag in the back window.

okamiueru ,

It'd be some tasty schadenfreude to put parking fine after parking fine. Or even just straight up impound it. It would surprise me if there isn't some German law or regulation that forbids such cars, same with the Cybertruck.

Want your stupid preference that is a detriment to everyone around you? Sorry, we don't do that here.

VeganCheesecake ,
@VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Someone in the dorm I lived in had a Ford Ranger. Even though it's one of Ford's smaller pickups, it looked very oversized compared to everything else in the parking garage.

myrrh ,

...the original compact ford ranger was a great little truck!..the midsized replacement forsook its charm, though...

...i'm not even sure who makes compact trucks in australia anymore, but they're not sold stateside...

31337 ,

I live in Germany, ... It also had a confederate flag in the back window.

WTF, I didn't even know that was a thing outside the U.S. Do they claim "it's our heritage not hate?"

KillingTimeItself ,

i think the confederate flag, or a very similar flag often confused for the confederate flag is often related to UK history? Still doesn't explain why it's in germany, but it makes more sense, at least.

Saledovil ,

I didn't get to talk to the owner.

KillingTimeItself ,

yeah that sounds about right, it's basically the extent of most of these things.

feedum_sneedson ,

It's like baggy jeans.

KillingTimeItself ,

yeah pretty much. And much like jeans, they just suck.

31337 ,

Some of it has to do with CAFE standards using vehicle footprint to determine the target MPG. Some of it is because of better safety standards. Some of it is just because that's what a certain portion of the market wants, and the profit margins on the large vehicles are higher, so they spend more money marketing them (creating more demand).

KillingTimeItself ,

Some of it has to do with CAFE standards using vehicle footprint to determine the target MPG.

gotta love when the funny regulations do the opposite of what you expect them to do.

31337 ,

Yeah, a lot of the regulations are written by the industries they're supposed to regulate.

KillingTimeItself ,

if you actually look into what the insurance industries do for crash safety testing it's actually kind of fucked up.

Because they basically started with full frontal impacts at n speed, that was met, so a decade later they were like "half frontal impacts are a thing now" and turns out most cars performed pretty bad on that, so they fixed that, and like a decade later again, they were fine, and then they were like "oh no, now quarter impact frontal is bad now" and then that's what they've recently fixed.

So most of car safety seems to be for pretty specific, though i suppose "more likely" impacts.

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

sounds like a great case for a permit

uis ,
@uis@lemm.ee avatar

(or pulling a trailer).

You don't need truck for this

Madison420 ,

And these huge trucks don't actually have that high of a load rating or that large of a bed. Your average kei truck hauls heavier loads.

31337 ,

That's not true. Kei trucks have comparably low load and towing capacity. They have the same bed dimensions of the most common pickup truck bed size. Most people with trucks don't hail around stone or heavy machinery though.

Madison420 ,

What a vehicle carries on average is unrelated to its actual capacity. Regardless my point is you see a kei truck you'll almost certainly see the bed packed full, you see a Sierra 2500 chances are it's need is totally empty aside from oftentimes boots and beer cans.

olafurp , in You can fit two cars there

I think people should need a licence to drive anything that has a tall nose. The chance of fatality is really high for those cars and people need to be taught that.

Demdaru ,

Iiiiiidiot tax! $99,99 for 2 hour course where people tell you "You see that hood? Yeah, you hit someone with it, that person is GONE".

olafurp ,

I just want to put a small barrier between people and buying a car that's may more dangerous than any reasonably sized alternative. If people want storage space they should buy a station wagon. If they want to transport for work they should buy a Caddy type. If they want to go outdoors offroading then they should get a licence on how to drive offroad and how to prevent front-over accidents etc.

SUVs and bigger cars are becoming the default choice and I think that's a bad thing.

Demdaru ,

Honestly, they know that. But fashion is fashion, and people's desire is rarely logical. So that barrier...I don't think it will work any better than actual idiot tax. The only offputting thing would be price.

olafurp ,

There's already an idiot tax, a crossover costs 50% more than regular. Price is not an issue for people that buy these but a license, course and having the license easier to revoke for speeding in pedestrian zone might work.

myrrh ,

...problem is that manufacturers are discontinuing cars to focus upon SUVs + trucks...

olafurp ,

It's starting to impact the used car market where I live. Not as many options as before when half are cross/suv.

zbyte64 ,

I would love a station wagon, but not many of those around where I live 🙃

AngryCommieKender ,

https://www.caranddriver.com/rankings/best-station-wagons

Apparently these things are what they are calling station wagons these days.

Emerald ,

Lmao what? These are practically SUV's

CoopaLoopa ,

Fr, I would call every single one of those a "crossover" before I called them station wagons.

That Volvo v60 is the closest thing to a modern station wagon. If it doesn't have 3 big side windows from front to back, it shouldn't be called a station wagon.

myrrh ,

...that mercedes wagon is legitimate...

olafurp ,

Fucking hell the size inflation is too real. Toyota Auris and Hyundai i30 are good ones for anybody looking.

AngryCommieKender ,

The Volvo isn't too bad, but yeah it's weird how big they got on the outside, while at the same time seemingly having less storage inside.

aesthelete ,

If people want storage space they should buy a station wagon. If they want to transport for work they should buy a Caddy type. If they want to go outdoors offroading then they should get a licence on how to drive offroad and how to prevent front-over accidents etc.

Most people buying one of these expended exactly zero seconds of thought on what they need from an automobile.

If someone even managed to get any law in place like what you're suggesting (which they won't because it goes against the interests of business), the right wing idiot backlash would be furious and cacophonous and the net result would be Florida marking a day on the calendar as state wide "Ford-fuck-you-mobile" day.

Maggoty ,

The thing is if we actually make an off-road vehicle then something in the form factor of a uni-mog is vastly superior.

KillingTimeItself ,

mogs are cool, i don't know much about them because they seem to be primarily european, but i will probably own one someday out of curiosity, i only hear good things about them.

Personally i'm a fan of industry trucks though, tatra, oshkosh, unimog, the usual suspects. Ford can eat shit.

myrrh ,

...registration fees should be proportional to GVWR and speed limits (and fines) should be based upon kinetic energy...

freebee ,

Mandatory weekly attendance for every week you wanna continue to drive around that thing in a city.

KillingTimeItself ,

better yet, mandatory lifelike dummy crash experience. Send em into a ballistics gel dummy loaded with blood and organs, see how they feel about it.

creditCrazy ,
@creditCrazy@lemmy.world avatar

I agree you already need a license to drive a semi trucks I believe but just as someone who dailys a little itty bitty BMW z3 and works at a Toyota dealership and has driven 60s international harvesters anything bigger than a jeep wrangler takes time getting used to being tall and bulky hell I've seen people driving in the middle of the road because they got acclimated to driving a corrola and just hopped into a f150 as a man who has flipped my ATV making trails off roading no matter what your in you need to be instructed on the ins and outs of off roading I'm so onboard for making a sort of truck driving license

bitwolf ,

Yep these big rigs should require a CDL, enough with the light trick exemption

Jarix ,

If it doesnt have airbrakes, and you remove enough seats, you are legally allowed to drive a school bus with a normal liscence.

We need a LOT of attention to liscensing for different types of vehicles beyond just these trucks

acockworkorange ,

Many countries do demand a commercial vehicle license for such trucks.

toaster , in What if we gave it back to nature?
@toaster@slrpnk.net avatar

The bottom picture makes me happy. ☀️

ThisIsMyLemmyLogin , in You can fit two cars there
@ThisIsMyLemmyLogin@lemmy.world avatar

The people who drive these things here in the UK are mental. I got smashed by one once overtaking me on a slip road because I wasn't going fast enough for him. I followed him all the way to his golf club and confronted him about it. His tank was barely scratched while my driver side door was totally fucked.

Malfeasant ,

Not fair to call it a tank. A tank driver can see a child in front.

Regrettable_incident ,
@Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah even the SUV would be uncomfortably wide on some UK roads, end yet they're getting really common. They're almost all driven by people who don't need a large vehicle.

FatLegTed ,
@FatLegTed@piefed.social avatar

I've seen a small woman driving a Hummer in Ware (Hertfordshire UK) of all places, can just about see out of the windows (that's another thing that pisses me off, don't people know you can raise the seat to let you see out of the windows?), can't park in normal bays as it's too big (and she can't see) and it has a plate something like V8 HMR. FFS.

/rant

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