Yeah cool bro just swing around slowly and back into the park tail first while a huge line of people are waiting to get past.

  • Gorb [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    This belongs in goodposting. Driving sucks so hard its such a miserable activity and everyone just seems to accept it for some reason

  • Hexamerous [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    When Americans talk about driving I envision it’s like the ending to Jesus Camp. Its this all American, morbidly obese, clearly brainwashed evangelical lady just driving her shitty car while right-wing talk radio is blaring in the background. Outside the window, you just see endless treat’n’slop signage and MacMansion Cul-de-sac labyrinths. Then she goes through the carwash, like she’s washing away all the sin and filth. She goes “I love America, I love the American lifestyle.” like she’s trying to convince herself that any of this is worth it.

    Just absolute fucking hell on earth.

    • that’s pretty close. a high proportion of our built environment was designed and developed under the assumption that one would be moving 40+ mph through it. much of it includes garish/high contrast signage and symbols meant to elicit a brain response (“gas”, “food”, “turn here”, “stop”) and to facilitate, to some degree, entering and exiting of these wide avenues as you hurtle through space in your machine.

      the only comparison i can think of to something people who haven’t experienced it, is an analogy. think of a pleasant, easy to use website. that’s a transportation system in a normal country. now think of the worst website you have ever been to, riddled with popups and autoplaying videos, and you have no pop-up / ad blocker software. that’s 90% of roads in urbanized areas in the US. and if you’re walking down the little narrow sidewalk (if there even is one), cars constantly speeding past you a few feet away with no protection or buffer, the aesthetic experience is horrifying and deeply alienating and just plain dangerous. in much of the US, the only people doing it are too fuckin’ broke to have their own car, because it is so dangerous and unpleasant.

      the car-brain thing is deeply self-reinforcing, because for an american to lose their car means being forced into that, especially since the only communities with planning for walkability tend to price out most americans, in terms of cost of living. the idea that if we collectively stopped driving we could reclaim our civic spaces for mass transit, pedestrianism and bicycling never enters the mind. our imaginations of a alternative have been foreclosed on.

  • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    Fuck driving. Sometimes I want to go somewhere but I don’t want to drive. And I can’t do that because there’s no public transportation and anything even a little bit interesting is like 30 miles away. Fuck you give me trains.

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    I am fully convinced that car dependency was a sadistic tool designed to torment poor people. For all the elitist snobbery about how public transit is “for poor people” that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m poor and I’m forced to live in a very remote small town because walkable cities are a privilege for the rich. Have you seen rent prices in places like NY or DC? San Francisco is one of the most walkable cities in the US but has offensively high land values.

    Oh, and it’s bad enough I have car payments on a depreciating “asset”: I am required by law to buy useless ass insurance that will do nothing for me, be at the mercy of oil companies who are currently price gouging just because the president has the wrong color tie, the annual oil change and inspection and repairs that even the most reliable cars need. Oh, and if you’re particularly unlucky: you could get a ticket that’s becoming more and more likely thanks to the ever growing surveillance state and if you’re even less fortunate than that, could get into a crash and be financially ruined.

    TL;DR: To spare you all a BMF-tier rant. Car bad, train good. Even porky understands this and wants to keep train all to himself.

    • FumpyAer [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      The only car insurance you’re forced to have is liability insurance in every state I’m aware of. And that’s important in a place with no healthcare. I’d say that in our current system, that’s a good thing.

      Obviously it’s better to get rid of the orphan crushing machines themselves, but liability insurance is the literal least a car driver can do.

  • MeowZedong
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    13 days ago

    I love how my city has nice wide sidewalks and (what I can barely call in some instances) bike lanes. I also love how they give up any pretense of caring about anyone but car drivers by allowing cars to park on all of these spaces whenever there is an event with insufficient parking (maybe take the free fucking buses).

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    Driving is FREEDOM, the FREEDOM to have a rolling metal deathbox that can kill people around you at any time the moment you are distracted. It is the FREEDOM to be boxed in by other rolling metal deathboxes, and the FREEDOM to absorb the ever-escalating sounds of road rage because the rolling metal deathbox isn’t on an empty road embracing idealized FREEDOM like it did in the rolling metal deathbox commercial that said I was special and a visionary for buying that rolling metal deathbox. grillman

  • nothx [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    Driving got better when I moved out of urban areas. I used to live on one of the most populated areas of my state, but recently moved out to the mountains and it’s made driving enjoyable. I know that’s not a solution for everyone tho.