I was recently held up in absolute dead stop traffic. We were sitting on the tarmac with no movement for well over an hour, in the 80 degree sun, before I felt obliged to leave my car and go see if it was because of roadwork or an accident or what.
I joined a small crowd of onlookers after reaching the head, spectating a row of sit-in protesters. One driver had tried to get around but a few protesters moved tactically so that he couldn’t go any further without injuring somebody.
I didn’t wait around, although there were people phoning the police and some tempers beginning to flare. So I head back to my car. The dairy groceries that I picked up on the way back from work had begun to spoil.
I was late home by nearly three hours, so no time to unwind. Just enough to pack away some old leftovers before heading off to sleep and restart cycle all over, -1 hour or so of sleep.
Previously, I had no opinion whatsoever on whether cars=good or cars=bad. But after being held up in traffic, wasting money, wasting gas, losing sleep and perhaps a bit of my sanity I am now totally on board with the Fuck Cars movement. I couldn’t imagine a more convincing strategy to bring people over to your perspective. Excellent thinking. Good job.
The worst traffic I ever hit on my bike is when I have to go where cars are. I wonder what the common thread is…
Do you know for sure they were protesting cars, not emissions, not raising awareness for any other cause? It doesn’t matter, I’m just curious.
Your complaints about public transportation make no sense. “Public transportation is bad so don’t spend money on it.” Obviously, if we spent money on it, it would be a viable alternative. I spent some time in Austria this year, a country with excellent public transportation. I could step onto a bus (there was one at nearly every stop about every 10 minutes), be at my destination with no delay, hop off, all without ever needing to show my ticket or talk to anyone. Cars would have been vastly more inconvenient to get around the cities, finding parking takes time, and you almost never have the right of way over other vehicles/pedestrians (as you shouldn’t, you’re in the safe metal box and they’re vulnerable). With effective public transportation, I was able to get out into the Alps, go hiking, and come back into the city without needing to worry about any of the complexities of a car. I could hop on the tram, grab dinner downtown, and be back, without ever getting stuck in traffic. It was so much easier and more convenient than anything I’ve ever seen living in the US, and I fully don’t understand the argument against it. No one is stopping you from owning a car! I own a car, and I won’t stop. There are some things I need one for. This movement is about effective public transportation, and there is no reason to be against it except insecurity, and apparently a fragile ego. What’s next, antifascism protestors block your way to work and you start wearing a swastika? Being reactionary accomplishes nothing good for yourself. If you’re that easily manipulated, every false flag will work on you with no questions asked.
People will reflexively reject new and different possibilities when advocates are too radical or aggressive in their approach. That’s why it’s important that we try to win people over using reason and logic, rather than protests. The fact is, cars are an expensive and inefficient means of transporting people and things. That doesn’t mean cars don’t have their use cases. They certainly do, and that’s why I don’t think cars and small trucks will or should go away completely, but in an ideal (ie maximally cost effective and efficient) scenario, cars would represent a relatively small percentage of total conveyance methods.
This is a thinly veiled attempt at sarcasm I assume.
Lots of logical fallacies though.
Fuckcars is a movement about providing equal infrastructure prioritisation to public transit and soft transit (walking, biking) instead of near-solely focusing on cars.
We don’t know what that protest is and acting as if we as a community must be in support of said protest for the sole reason it blocks cars is nonsensical.
I really don’t think your post is in good faith, I can only assume this protest really bothered you and you’ve come here to blow off some steam? Anyways, this isn’t a very polite way to act, please keep this kind of attitude of lemmy.
Although when we have focused so much on automotive transit, it does make it as a weakness to protestors and saboteurs.
Right now that conversation (whatever the the issue motivating the issue) are still trying peaceful protest.
Imagine what happens if, instead of blocking the highway with their bodies, they just blow up the tarmac?
Then all those people in traffic are just fucked. That segment of highway is useless until days of emergency repair.
A more versitile transit system would be more resistant to such attacks, but that would mean supporting transit for people who are not rich. People who presently are second class citizens, who might be tired of not having the same representation in society. And who might want to disrupt traffic of the wealthy to let them k ow things suck for those without.
No war but class war.
Many of us also advocate to get rid of congestion and traffic jams by providing alternatives and making car infrastructure less congested and let it flow better. We advocate for better roads that actually move cars to streets instead of stroads that fail at being both a destination and a throughfare.
