The 5 year long Labour HQ gas leak continues as Starmer decides that posting fancams of Labour destroying people's bikes in a crusher for literally no reason will win them votes
I see we're doing "I should be allowed to do donuts in front of the tenements at 2am and also practice my drums at 4am in my apartment with paper thin walls because I am a member of the proletariat unlike my bourgeois neighbours" discourse again.
We live in a society and the people around you are also proles. Making a space for everyone doesn't just mean making space for you, it means you also must take consideration for others.
I am allowed to say this because I have had night work. No someone owning a car doesn't make it okay for you to rev up your harley at shit in the morning. We live in a society where public transport isn't feasible for a lot of people sadly and that means they need to transport themselves on a motorized vehicle, this is not comparable to doing donuts at shit in the morning. Yes this does mean that your upstairs neighbours shouldn't let their kids jump around at 7 in the morning as well. No this doesn't mean you're allowed to blast drum and bass on a monday at 2am. You are not the sole prole, we all have to go to work. We live in a society that is constructed for the freaks that wake up early and that is bad, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to play your damn music so loud at odd hours on weekdays. Yes you are allowed to host a loud party every now and then, so is your neighbours, no you are not allowed to turn your home into an underground nightclub. You can be as noisy as people around you, as long as people around you are considerate. People around you being shitheads doesn't mean you should be one, because it's not everyone around you that's a shithead and so by being a shithead you're just another shithead surrounding considerate people that don't like the sound of you banging pots and pans together while fighting with your partner at 3am.
In conclusion: We live in a society
If you use the dirtbike to commute then it's fine. If you are riding the dirtbike in dirt for fun it's fine.
But comparing a dirtbike that you ride for fun in an urban environment for some reason, to a mode of transportation that's necessary for you to feed yourself, is silly (hint: I also think it's silly to drive a car for fun, especially in an urban environment). Dirt bikes also make a lot more noise than a car. Cars are bad and carcentric infrastructure is bad, but that doesn't suddenly mean you're allowed to be an asshat.
As a cyclist the dirt bikes are fucking terrifying and they are almost never used for commuting. Just for doing wheelies and showboating.
Obviously cars are my enemy too but I think there’s a fundamental disconnect on this website sometimes where understanding the issue requires actually living in areas where the problem exists.
Edit: another thing that springs to mind is that I feel a certain irony that someone could laugh at something like that old 2016 libertarian debate where Gary Johnson was booed for suggesting that someone should get a license to drive to demonstrate competency while simultaneously mocking anyone for being afraid of these license plate free things zooming past my 18 mph e-bike at 50 mph. (25 mph speed limit btw)
Like nah dude that’s dangerous you should absolutely have that taken away from you and you should be reeducated before you kill someone
I remember when electric scooter rentals popped up and suddenly you had drunken idiots going way too fast the wrong way on cycleways endangering everyone. When I brought this up on hexbear I was deemed a prude. I think there's a lot of people that are very doctrinal in their thoughts, without really understanding the doctrine. "CARS BAD THEREFORE EVERYTHING NOT CAR GOOD IF YOU DONT LIKE NOTCAR YOURE BAD" isn't really a good way of going about things.
If any lurkers are interested I'd recommend reading up on "Theories of Practice" or "Practice theory".
As a pedestrian, they're terrifying. While not the majority, when there's a group of them, there's usually a couple that drive on the sidewalks. They also basically never acknowledge right of way on crosswalks.
Sure, but you typing necessary in a sarcastic way doesn't really adress the fact that the car is a necessary mode of transportation for a lot of people.
If you really really need that carlike range, which most people, even in amerikkka, don't, get a motorcycle. Otherwise, get a bike or one of the dozens of different kinds of electric contraptions which don't involve bringing thousands of pounds of metal everywhere you go. Defending the use of cars should be treated here exactly the same as defending carnism.
Defending the use of cars should be treated here exactly the same as defending carnism.
I'm not defending anything, I'm explaining why people use cars. It's important to understand the "whys" of an issue in order to deal with it. People do not use cars because they are bad or evil or hate other commuters. They use the car because it is the most convenient mode of transportation. Going "DESTROY ALL CARS" does nothing to address the underlying issues that make people use cars. It's also a poor trick to turn the discussion from "don't do donuts on a dirtbike in a place where a bunch of people are living, you are annoying" to a discussion of "you have fundamentally misunderstood basic urban planning principles."
If you wish to discuss urban planning instead of common decency, educate yourself on urban planning. Good urban planning is not "You should be allowed to ride a dirtbike everywhere at all times, and any impedement to this is bad."
If you really really need that carlike range, which most people, even in amerikkka, don't, get a motorcycle.
People have a need to transport themselves. This need is not fulfilled by a motorcycle if you also need to do things such as: Transport children, transport groceries, transport furniture or other large items, travel without being subjected to the elements.
A motorcycle is a good mode of transportation for some, but not all. However a motorcycle has a lot of the same underlying issues that a car has. When people are against car-centric infrastructure, they are not arguing that the infrastructure should still exist, but just be for motorcycles, they are arguing against a society that structures itself around individual motorized vehicles as the common mode of transport.
3 months a year the roads here are deadly icy most days. So to go 20 miles to my workplace down the icy motorway (no bike path) should I crash and die on a motorbike or get crushed on a bicycle?
Not to mention that the cheapest used motorbike I can buy here is about 3x the cost of the cheapest used car, I quite literally couldn't afford one.
A motorcycle striking a pedestrian at 50mph is practically just as deadly as a car doing the same thing.
Cars are not inherently dangerous modes of transport. Poor road design e.g. stroads, lack of separate bike lanes, and super wide lanes without traffic calming measures, are all more important factors than the actual vehicle being used for transport.
A bus would easily kill a pedestrian, but per passenger (assuming moderate occupancy) is far more efficient and better for the environment compared with each person riding a motorcycle. This doesn’t even consider why someone might ride a bus, for example disability, which prevents them from riding a motorcycle or a bicycle.
Many many European cities have very low risk of injury or death to cars because the cities are designed much better. Cars are second class citizens in urban centers. This is what you should be fighting for, not focusing arbitrarily on a particular vehicle which is a symptom of a deeper issue.