this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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Fuck Cars

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That's like saying "I'm pro-life and anti-gun control".

Oh. Wait.

Edit: Guy confirmed that he is, indeed, pro-life and anti-gun control.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

Got a friend this way. He hates bikes on the road. And yells to get on the greenways etc. Cause slow his lifted f150, that he needs to commute and get groceries, down for 30 seconds. The bike then get on the greenway and then he bitches they go too fast there.

Also he weighs about 300 lbs and doesn’t work out in any way.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You all need to visit the Netherlands.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The cycling infrastructure in Switzerland is good, but the Netherlands are on a whole different level.

The video is ok, but contains incorrect information. Fines aren't scaled by income, they're fixed. Only for major infractions that go before a court of law is the penalty scaled.

Also, there is a shot from Bern saying "look people don't cycle when it's unsafe" but what is being shown is the roundabout of the motorway exit Ostring. No one cycles around that as there is no point. Cyclists would bypass that ugly sin from the 1970s.

It's also funny to hear Basel being called a small city, in Switzerland it's considered one of the biggest, like Genève, Zürich, Bern, Lausanne.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 children)

It’s also funny to hear Basel being called a small city

That’s kind of amusing to me as I was recently in an online debate about whether the state of New Hampshire could support passenger rail. It’s a rural state but the population centers you’d connect aren’t all the much smaller.

For posterity: yes it’s worthwhile. Normally (especially in the US) you’d think the population is too small, but

  • the track exists and is still in use
  • three biggest population centers in a straight line and fairly close
  • it’s the same track served by a Boston commuter line
  • the southern part of New Hampshire has a large population of people who work in Boston.

So MBTA could extend one of their lines, on existing track to capture thousands of additional car commuters literally ten miles to the border. And New Hampshire could get useful rail service by paying them to go an extra 70 miles. Zero infrastructure cost and NH doesn’t even have to figure out how to run a railroad

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"it's simple math" - read about that expression on Facebook, never actually had math themselves as they were home schooled in creationism and flat earth.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bike lanes suck. Separated bike paths are much better. Or just streets without cars at all, no need for a bike lane if there are no cars.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In this paradise, where are the Rollerbladers?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Rollerblade lane.

Separate but equal. /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Nah nah nah, rollerblade path. No need for a rollerblade lane of there are no bikes.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

4 wheels bad.

2 wheels good.

8 wheels, mmmm OK, over there please.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Vehicular cyclists are the fucking worst. I find that they fall into two groups:

  • "The John Forrester", generally oldhat nerds festooned with side mirrors and blinking lights and fluoro vests who are basically at the point of cosplaying as a car.
  • "The Dentist", young and middle-aged guys with money for whom cycling is purely a sport and nothing else, who annually dump $20K into prebuilt bikes and clothing like it's nothing.

Either way they're almost 100% athletic white men who for some reason never picked up on the fact that cycling in a car culture is a near-perfect analogy / example of what it's like to be a marginalized minority and a first-hand demonstration of privilege. Instead they're defenders of the status quo - By way of their own athletic, gender, or monetary privilege - All the way to their bloody meat crayon deaths. They're that one asshole who shows up to the community board meeting about a new bike lane that will make cycling accessible for children, the elderly, and any person in between who is more risk-averse or less athletic than they are in order to speak against it "As a cyclist". Because to them battling for your life in traffic, being on the bleeding edge of death, breathing in truck exhaust from the shoulder of a stroad is a gatekeeping measure. They're masochistic elites, they rake pride in the danger that they put themselves in so much that they'd deny accessibility to anyone else unwilling to accept that danger.

Gordon Ramsey is an example of someone in the dentist group. A few years ago he very nearly got meat crayoned by a car while cycling in the US. He didn't provide the details of the crash but it was obvious from his injuries that he'd been hit from the side by a car or truck and likely went over the hood. His public plea in revealing this wasn't that the US needs to make roads safer for cyclists, or more accessible to people who don't have a group of equally wealthy friends to peloton around a foreign country with, maybe separating cars from cyclists so that the two may never conflict. His one and only adamant request was that we all wear a helmet. Cycling is wasted on these myopic asshats.

Oh bother, I've gone and ranted again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Cause and effect. When you make cycling a challenge, the only cyclists will be the most radical/motivated. If we had the infrastructure to make cycling safe and easy, many more casual cyclists would exist. Europe proves that

“If you build it they will come”

As it is, building it doesn’t even work so well because we are so starved for opportunity that so many “bike paths” are overwhelmed by pedestrians that also never had options

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Either way they're almost 100% athletic white men

Someone has never been to Europe.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have though. Go on, I'm interested to hear about the demographic difference.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh, I was not referring to cyclists in general. I was referring specifically to cyclists who gatekeep access to cycling by restricting it's recognition to sport athletics only, or opposing cycling-specific infrastructure. Europe certainly does have a much higher percentage of daily cyclists than the US but that is not what I was talking about. Though since you have more women cyclists, I imagine some of them do inevitably behave in this way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Ah. Yes. Gatekeepers of any sport are cunts. Only excusable when safety is involved.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Hey, i fall into the dentist group! But i totally advocate for bike lanes, and i'm not white...

There are dozens of us at the local critical mass ride!!! I make it a point to show up in my ridiculous spandex gear to show people the dentists aren't all assholes. Also, good spandex is really comfy.

Why the hate?? Yeah i sunk a lot of money into my hobby, but thats what people do. People spend tens of thousands on camera gear, gaming rigs, etc. Why hate on others' expensive hobbies?

I'm actually not that rich, but living car free and biking every day has allowed me to allocate a lot of money towards my hobbies. Cars are a total money sink... 10yrs ago it was around $6k/year TCO. I'm sure it's more now...

You should put an additional qualifier on your dentist description.... Carries their $20k bike on top of their $80k SUV. Drives 2 hours out of the city just to ride around for an hour...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I didn't say that all dentist-types are vehicular cyclists, just that all vehicular cyclists seem to fall into those two groups. One-way taxonomy. If you advocate for accessible bike infrastructure, good!

I'm actually white and male, myself. Fit, though I'd stop short of claiming athletic. But for me, taking up cycling was an eye-opening first hand example of disperate privilege. Both in how cycling is treated compared to driving, and how level of access to cycling itself changes depending on who you are. While I was already primed to understand social justice, cycling is a small way for white bros to really emphatically experience it along one vector, even if temporarily. Some of us gatekeep it as a result, but like you or I some of us use that experience as motivation for advocacy.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I'm living proof that a helmet will do nothing to protect your pancreas; sure it coulda been worse, but as an 8yo kid I had a tough recovery because they wouldn't give pain medications until the last minute, but I guess that's just another rant for another place and time.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Im pro bike, but we should round up all the cyclists

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Damm cyclists... they ruined cycling!

[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I'm anti bike lane. Roads should be for bikes and pedestrians. Cars should get their own single separated lane on the occasional road.

Bike lanes are car infrastructure. They are not needed unless you consider the entire street to be for cars by default.

Also dave is an idiot. Maximum capacity would be a cycle and transit only street because those have the highest throughput per lane. Cars are incredibly space inefficient.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Relevant not just bikes about the streets in Tokyo that prioritise pedestrians: https://youtu.be/jlwQ2Y4By0U

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (15 children)

Slight disagreement there. Streets are for pedestrians and bikes and trams and the occasional car (in a dedicated car lane). Roads (as in large arterial roads in very limited areas, meant for fast travel between faraway zones when trains are inconvenient, or highways between cities) can be considered as intended for cars, and even those should have pretty good space dedicated to bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Hey I get it though, bike lanes are expensive new infrastructure. So pro-bike, anti bike lane just means all roads are now for bikes, cars not allowed. Ban cars and you don't need expensive new infrastructure! Sounds great!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Weird. I had a convo with one who said that protected bike lanes in crowded streets are dangerous as ambulances cannot get through the tight traffic.

And parallel to that was a fully car-restricted street. As an ambulance driver I would take that, as it is likely free.

So I think car-free roads are better, but it feels wrong being restricted to smaller roads when using the bike, especially if shops etc are all on bigger roads.

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