>> Fuck your cars... Fuck your "road rage" ...
>
> (speaking of pent-up hostility)
It's not pent up, I release it regularly.
>
> It's funny, almost all my friends who are fierce pro-bike (and do
> things like participate in Critical Mass) are among the least safe
> vehicle drivers on the road. They often completely blow stop signs,
> perform unsafe manuvers while waiting for cross-traffic to clear so
> they can blow lights, randomly don't wear helmets ("Hey, where's your
> helmet today?" "Oh, I forgot it"), yell at cars (car drivers aren't
> the only ones who yell, and they seem proud of their "keying"
> ability).
>
> I'm not saying that it isn't tough to be on a bike (or that car
> drivers are angels), I'm just saying that the holier-than-thou
> attitude that comes from people on bikes is laughable: I've listened
> to a group of bike-centric people bitch and moan about car drivers
> and then ride away on the wrong side of the street.
>
I don't care for Critical Mass and I tell them that regularly. I tell them they're morons every time one of them invites me.
Just because I can be "aggro", doesn't mean I'm looking for an altercation.
I obey ALL traffic laws just like I did when I drove tractor-trailer.
I'm acutely aware that... truck drivers call them 4wheelers, are nuts. Not figuratively... literally. When I was training bobtail drivers for a local company, we used to park for lunch by some intersection (West Cliff & Pelton, by the water was nice), we'd munch
a sandwich and I'd try to get the trainee to play a game called: "Watch the intersection... for lunchtime entertainment".
Here's how the game works: If you see a car that actually makes a *complete* stop at the stop sign and looks both ways(head moves), you get 20 points... +20. If you see a driver that doesn't do both, it's 0... if they "blow it off", minus one more point, and if they don't even look around the intersection as they go thru, -1 more.
Try it sometime for an hour. Let me know if you win.
It's not bikes against cars... It's the individual that has to "go fast" against everyone else, and they're quite liable to ride a bike just like the drive a car when they do get on one. Cars just exacerbate the problem across the whole infrastructure of society.
For many people driving is the only place that they ever get to act aggressive, and just like a pussy bully, they take it out on someone smaller.
Cars get bikes... Bikes behave aggressively toward peds.
Biker and skateboarder who get too close to me when I'm walking usually get elbowed for their wussy passive-aggressive efforts.
I'm consistent, too. ;>
Just like the cars... they may screech to a halt (1 of 50), but it's never a fight ...just a bunch of powerless snivelling, whining, and emotional breaking down because someone interfered with their "rush to survive".
Societal Psychosis.
>> Who actually believes that public transport will improve (in
>> the US) until driving a private motor vehicle is made as
>> uncomfortable, expensive, and inconvienient as possible?
>
> My question is: why do you have to chose? What an attitude that is.
> The fact is that in some places public transportation HAS improved,
> without any of the anti-car rhetoric ... in fact, I'd guess that car
> use has increased right along with it. Cars are here, get used to it.
>
Times already up... shortly, we need to choose whether we're part of the LARGER problem, or part of the solution. Times up for "ME" as we know it. Sooner than Me'd (sic) like.
>> I would agree that the "car culture" i.e. using private autos
>> as status symbols needs to be destroyed ...
>
> I don't know about Moscow, but in the US the 'status' issue is more
> about WHICH car you have, not that you have a car at all. And really,
> if people buy a car for status reasons (and not to drive it?), who
> cares? It helps GDP, I'm all for stupid over-consumption. The real
> question is how much do they drive it and what kinds of alternatives
> do we give people? I never understood why people get bent out of
> shape to hear that someone has 3 cars. Who cares? They can't drive
> all three at once, so presumably the total driving they do is what
> counts. Give someone 365 cars, and watch them use each one once per
> year and who cares? There was a time when my (two-person) household
> had 4 vehicles; the total miles driven that year by all four was
> under 5,000.
>
>> A better way is public policy e.g. the so-called planned congestion
>> policy which severely restricts automobile access to urban areas
>> by parking restrictions and tolls.
>
> It's only better if, while you do that, you provide alternatives and
> incentives (especially to lower income workers); just taking away the
> only available infrastructure is dumb. But really: parking meters and
> restrictions, along with toll booths, cause congestion, pollution, and
> road rage. They gotta go.