Fuck Cars

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This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

uthredii@lemmy.ml

uthredii@beehaw.org

424

You’re a Cyclist Who Was Just Struck by a Car Driver. Here’s Why It Was Your Fault (www.mcsweeneys.net)

submitted 1 year ago by pbrisgreat@midwest.social to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

McSweeney's bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.

You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.

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[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don’t know where you live, but cycling in London on a daily basis for a commute, I don’t commonly see the kind of driver aggression you describe.

I absolutely do come across cyclists with no lights/reflectors, wearing dark clothes that aren’t visible until the last moment- and it is all to imaginable how they could be part of an accident with car - or pedestrian.

The most common threat is someone ‘dooring’ you as they get out of a parked car, or coming out of side turn without noticing you. Both threats are magnified my invisibility

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I lived in San Francisco until 2015. (I got pushed out due to gentrification, and ceased biking at all after the epidemic lockdown of 2020.) It's possible I just bicycled quieter routes. Here in California, those exiting vehicles into traffic know to open their doors slowly, lest they lose doors and limbs to high-speed motor traffic. I've never hit someone -- or near-missed, for that matter -- exiting a vehicle.

I have been run off the road from lingering in blind spots but my reflectors weren't a factor in those cases. San Franciscans are not great at consistent turn signaling.

I'm in Sacramento, now, and yes, the drivers are less aggressive here, but I haven't been cycling at all, yet, let alone cycling in traffic. I can't speak for London drivers, and would probably adjust my cycling habits accordingly if I were to move there. But in San Francisco, cyclists are infamously not well liked, either by motorists, law enforcement or city hall, though there are now more bike lanes, and The Wiggle is now a recognized route.

[–] Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Well,

SF cyclists are entitled douchebag tech bros. Just unlikeable as people. Cycling (or at least, being vocal about your cycling) seems to attract the worst kinds of people.
No one is targeting cyclists. That's not a thing. It's a persecution complex dreamed up because: see above.
SF Bay drivers are some of the worst in the country. No, you're not being targeted by the person running you off the road. They just do that. All the time. To everyone.