Alright, that's it- fuck cars, and the stupidity of the human race for using them

The BBQ Pit
1

The other thread in this forum speaks of a teen driver who killed a bicyclist because he was distracted while text-messaging a friend when driving.

As pointed out in the thread, and as we all know, the training that Americans go through to get licenses isn’t nearly enough. We need, as has been said countless times, a system like Germany’s-

  • The individual can’t drive until 18- supposedly, this may become law in the US, but I doubt it
  • Even then, it require many more hours of behind the wheel than here
  • And a much harder test, IIRC?

Some of you in a recent thread about new technology that will be able to drive our cars for us- or at least, for the time being, apply our brakes for us more quickly and prevent us from speeding- were complaining about these things! If you’re a speeding or otherwise bad-driving adult, you probably have yourself partially to blame when your son or daughter ends up hitting a pedestrian ^^^, or wrapping themselves around a telephone pole- you’re the one who showed them that it’s okay to swerve around people in the left lane while going 90 MPH.

For those who are offended by what I just said, take heart- no, a teenager’s actions and/or death are not their fault entirely- and in some cases, certainly not at all. But you can see how shitty-driving parents hand down a meme of “it’s okay to drive shitty because everyone does it and be sure to flick the slow poke in the left lane off when you do” to the next generation.

I feel that humans never should have driven cars in the first place- I know, with just a basic understanding of the origins of the automobile, how it became standard and such- or at least, I have general ideas which you can correct me on, please. It had numerous inventors, but Ford made the assembly line, making cheap production possible, allowing the average American to own and drive one; he also gave his workers vacations so they could become part of this car culture. Good for you, asshole :wally:- with the creation of the interstate in the 50’s under Ike (for use by the government originally, to be used to transport the army), the rest is history.

None of our ancestors ever stopped to think, I suppose, that perhaps the rising death count could signal that the automobile should not be used by the average American, but instead only operated by trained officials. :smack: A curse upon the stupidity of these people for handing down the car meme to future generations, so blinded by the joy of the independence of these cars and the convenience that it never occured to them that the death toll was a holocaust of our culture.

Nowadays, 41,000 Americans die a year in car accidents; that’s 115 a day. Over 2 milllion, so I’ve found, are ‘seriously injured’, if not handicapped, by accidents. Not only this, but the American public is frighteningly ignorant, as we know all too well, of traffic laws (due to the poor training) and also ignorant of these fatal statistics- no one seems to give a crap, to be honest. I asked a few GQs about traffic fatalities last month, and got no replies to one of them, which tells me this: not even a Doper has researched the topic of traffic fatality statistics that deeply. I guess these deaths are like what Twain said of the weather; everyone talks about it, but no one does anything to change it.

Well the time has come to fucking change it. We need to push for harder requirements for drivers licenses like Germany has, and for the age to be raised to 18, if not higher. And proportional ticketing or whatever, ie the rich paying more for tickets, is good too. Yep, I’ve heard all the arguments against it, and I don’t care if it’s fucking Communist or not- let’s do it.

In my perfect America, public buses would run constantly all over the place, paid for by the government, meaning that you could take one from your street corner to say, the mall every five minutes or something, etc.- much more convenient and close than the public system now, because that would be the only cars there were. The government workers would be the only ones who drive at all, delivering mail also and such, and they would be closely supervised to make sure they didn’t use any substances. Traffic police would penalize them, and after three strikes, they’re fired. Speed limits would be 10 MPH less than they are now everywhere. Ah, a man can dream, can’t he? :slight_smile:

2

I don’t drive, and I use public transport, so I could nod enthusiastically and say “Yay! You go, man!” But – it’d never work. The road lobby have politicians here by the balls. I’m sure it’s similar over your way.

3

That’s certainly the case here too. Our latest absurdity is an agreement between the NSW government and the (private) owners of a new cross-city tunnel to close off / narrow existing public roads in order to force cars through the very expensively tolled tunnel. It’s actually been rather pleasing to see that the general public has baulked at this. Patronage of the new tunnel has been very poor. Nobody will shed a tear if the whole thing goes belly-up.

4

I think a big part of it is that the US (and state) gov’ts treat all drivers as idiots. Speed limits don’t make sense in the US, meaning they are set too low on purpose, to give idiots more leaway to make mistakes. We have turn arrows at many intersections casueing us to stop and wait for big bro to let us through, because we are too stupid to turn when it’s safe, and those spawn of the evil one, the 4 way stop signs.

But contrary to popular belief, most US drivers are not idiotis, they are able to handle more, but there is no more ‘driving’ to be had, so our attention turns to getting other things done, communicatins, eating, drinking, etc.

I would be all for a stricter test, but with that I need to see roads become a lot more driver friendly. We can start by barring all from interstates, when you pass the new test you will be allowed on them, then slowly convert more roads to the stricter license standard.

5

I notice that your so-called “solution” to your imagined “problem” involves an enormous government involvement and consequently would be a huge public expense. #1, who is going to pay for it and #2, what makes you convinced that this is the one thing that government will finally be able to do effectively when government can’t do anything else well at all? I’m not saying that more training wouldn’t be a good thing, but the rest of your argument is garbage.

6

I guess the money that Americans wouldn’t spend on

  • cars
  • car tax
  • car insurance
  • car accessories
  • car repairs
  • gas for their cars

would all go towards taxes to pay for the government’s cars. The government would hire drivers to drive these buses. The buses would drive all over the place.

So, you’ll point out that public drivers are crappy nowadays, but like I said- very strict training for these drivers, and strict penalties and lower speed limits. When you point out that the government “can’t do anything else well at all,” you’re being too glib- they managed to pull off public transportation, mail delivery, etc., and while these things certainly have many sucky aspects, they still function. This could too, hypothetically. That’s all this is- a hypothetical. Of course, it’s impossible, because Americans would never hand that much power over to the government in fear of a tyranny (and because we just love driving), but that’s why it’s just my ‘dream.’

7

Ever been out in the country? No, no. Not that exburb crap with a couple trees and a Target down the street. The fucking country. Two miles between every house. Pitch dark except for electric lights in the houses. That country. Your plan would not go over well with those people, that it wouldn’t.

Some day you’ll look back on this thread and realize how sophomoric and cultural-centeric it is. Hopefully someday soon.

8

Buses can’t go everywhere, and some people will have to wait hours for the right bus combnination to get home. Or are you planning to move everyone’s jobs to more convenient locations?

And how about the children? You’re going cross-country on a trip, and the kids get antsy. Do you try to convince the driver to stop for you, at the inconvenience of everyone else?

You just added another person to the daily mix, and it’s bad enough in the present public transport system. “You can’t go there from here” will be the motto. If you have business off the bus routes, you’re screwed.

(I’m also going to point out that delivery of goods would become many times more expensive, if you can’t get anything bigger than what you can carry by yourself.

This will also guarantee that the accidents that will still happen will always be to multi-passenger vehicles, with the added death toll.

9

You misspelled “to pay for politicians’ pet projects, which may or may not have anything to do with transportation”.

As well they shouldn’t.

10

This may be far from a popular opinion, but…

regarding your points about traffic injuries/fatalities… shit happens. I’m sure someone can pull up a statistic about number of driving miles per person in this country per accident, and it’d be huge. People are driving multi-ton metal/plastic boxes at high speeds, and there are always going to be accidents.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that that’s an excuse for bad driving, and I also agree that car culture is out of hand, but I also think that driving is an inherrently dangerous task, which most people accept on a daily basis.

Also, I second what Wolfian said about universal public transit being an urban pipe dream.

11

I did pull them up, actually.

Traffic fatalies per mile driven, the United States is about average for an industralized country, maybe a touch higher, but the difference can probably be accounted for by the fact that Americans are less likely to wear their seat belts than drivers and passengers in most other industrialized nations. I am very, very skeptical of the notion that Germans are somehow smarter about the act of driving than Americans.

12

Requesting cite for your opinion that the government can’t do anything well at all.

13

Yes, we’re all children that cannot be trusted with dangerous machinery. We cannot be trusted to make our own decisions.

In other words, your dream is a load of bullshit.

14

You know what else is lame? Modern medicine and potable water. Fuck that shit.

While we’re at it, I’m getting pretty sick of this electricity crap.

15

Well, there are those attempts to switch us over to the metric system that haven’t gone so well.

16

All I have in this life is a finite amount of time. I’m not eager to spend huge chunks of it navigating a public-transit system when my car allows me to reach any destination within 50 kilometers in well under an hour.

So, basically, fuck the OP’s casual notion of taking away a good-sized chunk of my existence.

17

And without cars, how could I drive my SUV slow in the fast lane while talking on my cell phone?

18

But the problem is that this is too much shit- over the course of a 70 year lifetime in the US, your odds of death or complete handicapping in a car accident may be about one in thirty- or at least, I admit, based on what a friend and I calculated. It’s very, very unfair that some drunk asshole- many of whom we know as friends and relatives- can come careening into you and kill/handicap you. And don’t counter that with a ‘life’s not fair-’ if a serial killer was going around killing 7,000 Americans a year and couldn’t be stopped, you wouldn’t say the same thing.

And let’s get back to my main point, instead of pointing out the impossibility of the hypothetical dream- which I already realized- driver’s training needs to be more difficult. Much, much more difficult. Let’s work to change this.

19

You’d rather a drunk driver, or an inexperienced teen, or a road-rager, take away a good-sized chunk of your skull matter.

20

I second Wolfian’s sentiments and I posit that he, too, must live on the ass end of nowhere, much like me.

I don’t actually live ‘in’ Havre so much as four-five miles outside of it, on a piece of land connected to a major secondary road by a small gravel road that gets plowed rarely if at all. I live on a ridge well above town, which means I can see the street and building lights at night just below the horizon. There are all of three houses within walking distance of mine (on the same gravel road and not twenty miles further out into the boonies) and that’s it. There is a very thin scattering of houses along the paved secondary road but other than that it’s all empty land until you reach town.

Now, you tell me how often this Magical Mystery Bus is going to come out to my house and take me into town. Tell me how often it’s going to come out when it’s -60F with the windchill and blowing snow. Havre isn’t a big town (somewhat less than 10,000 people and slowly shrinking) but it’s the biggest town for over a hundred miles in any direction. How is Havre even going to fund such a bus? Don’t tell me that the State of Montana is going to disburse monies properly; I know the idiots in charge too well.

There is a final confounding factor for you to ponder: One of the residents of my little three-house neighborhood is frequently called into the hospital to handle emergency medical cases. This call may come at three AM, and he has fifteen minutes to make it to where he has been summoned. If he does not make it in time, it is highly likely someone will die. Don’t even pretend the Shitty Bus Service will be able to handle that level of guaranteed response time 24 hours a day every single day he is on-call.

My situation is hardly unique for Montana. While I do not ranch, many of my fellow Montanans do, and ranchers often live in regions that make mine seem cosmopolitan and well-connected. The bus plan would fail here much the same way a solid lead life raft would fail in the North Atlantic.