Average US Car-Brained Citizen Starter Pack

I was talking to a coworker about how I thought public transit was superior to individual cars, and so we should put a lot more investment into it, and his response was, "You'll have to pry my car keys out of my cold dead hands."

Like, dude, I wasn't even talking about that.

Anyways, my point is that a big thing missing from this is how people often build their identities around their stupid fucking cars.

For so many, everything is black and white. They don’t understand that when we want better public transport we aren’t saying to get rid of the roads. We’re just saying that if people have more options maybe those roads won’t constantly be under construction, traffic won’t be as bad, and maybe the roads won’t have to be as big so we can build more cool stuff instead.
- That's kinda what makes them carbrains. If they had an ideology around it that would imply some amount of thinking.
  Even if I was pro-car for myself, I would love to see more public transit funding. It would take cars off the road and make my time driving nicer.
his response was, "You'll have to pry my car keys out of my cold dead hands."
You, a minute later:
- I would like to clarify that I did not actually murder him in response to that comment.
- Try beating the traffic now you fucking stupid bastard
People build their identities around their cars because society is making sure that you feel confined without a car.
- When my grandmother got too old to drive, she became confined because of cars. There was no public transit in walking distance. There was nothing in walking distance except houses.
  She just sat at home by herself and waited for the end. Hoping someone would come to visit her. It was insulting and inhumane.
- Yeah! That and the fact that our society has erased several or most of our ways to communally build identity and shifted us to build identity based on consumption items
There’s such a stupid mentality around “Everyone must
<X>
”.
Lacrosse exists. I don’t care for it. I’m not going to dictate no one else play it. I imagine if the government mandated everyone play Lacrosse it would become hard to find the equipment for it because it would be in such high demand.
And yet, whether it’s meat, cars, guns, as soon as we suggest “I know this stuff has a place but we should use it a little less” they process it as an effort to completely ban the item in question.
- i think the key is when the thing in question is normalized and something most people do, then saying "we should do this less" means de-normalizing it and not having most people do it, which means they'll personally experience change in some way.
  like if driving isn't the way to get around you'd eventually get rid of the oversized everpresent highways, which makes their personal travels require more thought and attention, and that's unacceptable and thus they just completely fucking make shit up to defend their lifestyle.
I'd like to use public transit but due to my work it's just not an option
- My best commute was once when I lived within walking distance of my work. The only downside was that they one time figured I could make it into the office when nobody else could due to snow.
  My second best commute was via a bus.
  By far my worst commute was one time when I moved in with a friend who liked cars and lived far away. With zero traffic, the commute was 45 minutes, but there was always traffic.

Anti-pedestrian infrastructure

Where I currently live there's literally no sidewalks to the nearest bus stop.
- Fuuuuuck... I don't know how things work there, but in this part of ~~these~~Texas, you can call the city and they'll do a survey to find out if a sidewalk could be installed. If that doesn't work, you can write to your city council.
  I hope this gets remedied for you.
  Edit: Corrected insanely stupid typo. Don't drowsy browsy the internet, kids.

To be fair, even when I’m walking, I get road rage. People can’t fucking drive and it’s my job to make them understand how inadequate they are as not just commuters, but as human beings.

The car picture is incorrect, it should be a Truck and SUV

As someone who occasionally drives a bmw, I agree.
When I have to drive somewhere, because there's no inter-city passenger rail where I live, I want to do it as comfortably as possible, and bmw is one good option for this(unfortunately I can't afford a Rolls and/or a chauffeur 😞)

Don't worry, US will soon be too poor for their own cars. They will all be riding 48 person elon "taxis" to get to their jobs.

Bold of you to assume Elon's taxis will make it anywhere.
- riding the elon taxi straight into the gates of heaven

Just wait until we can't afford gas any more .... everyone will start bicycling, running, walking and using public transit and asking for trains like it was the logical thing to do all along.

More likely they will beg the government to heavily subsidize gasoline or they will beg the government for a heavily subsidized EV.
- Then wait a little longer until we get to the point where gas is so expensive that even subsidized fuel is no longer affordable.
I hate how this has obviously been coming for decades and yet they still refuse to listen. Even if someone doesn't believe in climate change, oil is non renewable. That's just how fossil fuels work
- Fossil fuel is renewable .... we just have to wait millions of years for it renew itself
- and biofuels can be significantly cheaper, a sane actual conservative who genuinely prefers combustion engines should be championing biodiesel cars.

The bmw should be one of the ugly ass suv ones not the more normal sports car. Those are even a bit fun to drive and US carbrains dont like to have fun.

That's hilarious, I legit picture people who unironically say "car-brain" like that:

Love the comm though, we need better infrastructure

what's that even ? at the bottom, the left "car "?

Looks like a car version of capybara. Carpybara
- No, carpybara is the capybara equivalent of a mermaid. The word you're looking for is "capybus."
ChatGPTs interpretation of this communities worst nightmare.

Man I really like the idea of this sub but these memes are just deranged ramblings half the time

why are you here?
- We can have better social media.

Dude, granny with the bat while still sitting in the car, she gonna fuck up someone's mailbox for sure.

Driving is fun, but it also shouldn't be the default mode of transportation. Society and infrastructure should not be designed around the expectation/requirement of driving a personal vehicle to get there.

slowly driving through the countryside, or racing on a course, are fun
driving the same route day in and day out at high speeds should be left to bus and light rail drivers
- I also find cruising on the highway with other safe drivers enjoyable, but maybe that just makes me car brained :D
  Cars feel fine anywhere but a city. There they induce so much danger anger and waste.
- Yes, driving a car is fun. I didn't say commuting was fun.

Spot on! In Europe, I parked the car and walked around. In the damn USA, I park the car, do my shopping and then drive 500 m to next store. WTF is wrong with me!!!

It's not you, it's the way the USA have decided to build their country
i think european malls/commercial areas are way less likely to be that horseshoe shape, it's almost always some rectangular-ish shape with shared corridors and parking around it, whereas the horseshoe kind where you have to cross the parking lot to get to the shops on the other side seems pretty normal in the US.

The only issue i have with this is the distance in the bottom left. Tell me you don't live in a suburb or rural community without telling me.

In suburbs people might have neighbors at that distance and a car brain would drive to their neighbors house

Nebulously supporting something you don't fully understand isn't the same as actively doing it yourself. And those people who could be reached will absolutely triple down immediately when approached like this.
username checks out.