How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Car - BSNYC in Outside Mag

[Clean39T]

https://www.outsideonline.com/225389...g-and-hate-car

Preaching to the choir, but also quite coherent and logical...

[Burnette]

I'm an auto enthusiast and I'm a cyclist too. Following the article as a logical person the author's message is easily seen as shallow with no wisdom, for what he really hates is just human nature. You have to separate the environment (public roads) and the tools (autos and bicycles) and get to the cause. It's people.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by Burnette

I'm an auto enthusiast and I'm a cyclist too. Following the article as a logical person the author's message is easily seen as shallow with no wisdom, for what he really hates is just human nature. You have to separate the environment (public roads) and the tools (autos and bicycles) and get to the cause. It's people.

"Hell is other people."--Somebody famous said that.

I think BSNYC is right about the success of the "cars first, everything else is an imposition on my right to drive" mentality.

I remember being routinely cut off by moms in SUVs trying to pick up their kids at the school in B'lynn I used to ride by on my way to Prospect Park. Bad (entitled) driving--and I think also vehicles with bad sight lines for their drivers.

I also think there is a real loss in situational awareness on the part of a lot of drivers--everything from merging, giving right of way, moving out to leave room for pedestrians or cyclists etc. Some of it is the sense of entitlement (maybe that is a NY thing); some of it is the fact that a lot of drivers simply have no idea about the shared responsibility of using a public roadway.

[Burnette]

Originally Posted by paredown

"Hell is other people."--Somebody famous said that.

I think BSNYC is right about the success of the "cars first, everything else is an imposition on my right to drive" mentality.

I remember being routinely cut off by moms in SUVs trying to pick up their kids at the school in B'lynn I used to ride by on my way to Prospect Park. Bad (entitled) driving--and I think also vehicles with bad sight lines for their drivers.

I also think there is a real loss in situational awareness on the part of a lot of drivers--everything from merging, giving right of way, moving out to leave room for pedestrians or cyclists etc. Some of it is the sense of entitlement (maybe that is a NY thing); some of it is the fact that a lot of drivers simply have no idea about the shared responsibility of using a public roadway.

I thought the article to be a bunch of over the top nonsense. With talk of propaganda, brainwashing, jaywalking, it's just rubbish to read this mess.

But I think it's this writer's shtick to put out this kind of stuff. Junk food writing.

[FlashUNC]

Within the last month here, we've had threads about:

-- Multiple threads about forum members getting hit who define it as "staying lucky for only so long"
-- The increase in bicycling fatalities
-- Stories about others who have gotten hit with the obligatory thoughts and prayers platitudes
-- A driver who intentionally drove into riders on a fondo ride


Yeah, they're trying to kill us. He ain't wrong.

[Burnette]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Within the last month here, we've had threads about:

-- Multiple threads about forum members getting hit who define it as "staying lucky for only so long"
-- The increase in bicycling fatalities
-- Stories about others who have gotten hit with the obligatory thoughts and prayers platitudes
-- A driver who intentionally drove into riders on a fondo ride


Yeah, they're trying to kill us. He ain't wrong.

He's not right either. Read that mess. You take a valid subject and string some hyperbole and over the top assertions and you get trash writing like this.

[dgauthier]

Cars are so 20th century. They are lumbering, noisy, mechanical, inefficient things that spew toxic waste. They are made of literally tens of thousands of parts, the result of a century of polishing Henry Ford's turd.

Their time has passed.

With hundreds of milliions of them on the road, a full fledged pilot's license should be required to drive one. We can't wrest the steering wheel out of the cell phone addled driver's hands and pass it to a computer quickly enough.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Burnette

He's not right either. Read that mess. You take a valid subject and string some hyperbole and over the top assertions and you get trash writing like this.

You're just saying its wrong without saying why its wrong.

Is he wrong that its the absurd that the operators of 3,000 pound vehicles have no increased responsibility on the road over those who ride, to be generous, 30 pound bikes at low double digit speeds?

Is he wrong that our entire infrastructure has oriented itself around the passenger car, and literally every other mode of human transit is viewed as an impediment to the car?

Is he wrong that the large mass of the populace views anyone not in a car as not another human being needing at least a modicum of respect and patience, or just another roadblock in their trip at the moment?

All seems fairly straightforward to me. Again, he ain't wrong.

[marciero]

I used to read his blog, which I found snarky, silly and sophomoric- in other words funny and entertaining. He can also be scathing in his chronicling of all the craziness in NYC between cars and bike/peds. I think I first learned of the genesis of the concept of "jaywalking" there.

[Burnette]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

You're just saying its wrong without saying why its wrong.

Is he wrong that its the absurd that the operators of 3,000 pound vehicles have no increased responsibility on the road over those who ride, to be generous, 30 pound bikes at low double digit speeds?

Is he wrong that our entire infrastructure has oriented itself around the passenger car, and literally every other mode of human transit is viewed as an impediment to the car?

Is he wrong that the large mass of the populace views anyone not in a car as not another human being needing at least a modicum of respect and patience, or just another roadblock in their trip at the moment?

All seems fairly straightforward to me. Again, he ain't wrong.

Whoa there, slow down a bit and realize that I'm talking about the article in the Op and how it is junk writing. Your personal feelings about cars outside the article aren't my issue, the article is my focus here. Bike Snob has to generate hits and does so with over the top rubbish. Again, he is wrong with this crap, crap that he must do to generate traffic:

"I’m brainwashed.
We all are. The auto industry started brainwashing us nearly a hundred years ago when they invented the concept of the "jaywalker," the hapless rube sauntering into the middle of the street and engineering his own demise. Armed with this piece of propaganda, they not only defeated legislation that would have slowed cars in cities but also successfully criminalized the act of walking".

You would have to spoon out all of my brain for that to be taken as real. And it's not, it's hyperbole and rubbish, it's what he does to get clicks. Obviously it works.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Burnette

Whoa there, slow down a bit and realize that I'm talking about the article in the Op and how it is junk writing. Your personal feelings about cars outside the article aren't my issue, the article is my focus here. Bike Snob has to generate hits and does so with over the top rubbish. Again, he is wrong with this crap, crap that he must do to generate traffic:

"I’m brainwashed.
We all are. The auto industry started brainwashing us nearly a hundred years ago when they invented the concept of the "jaywalker," the hapless rube sauntering into the middle of the street and engineering his own demise. Armed with this piece of propaganda, they not only defeated legislation that would have slowed cars in cities but also successfully criminalized the act of walking".

You would have to spoon out all of my brain for that to be taken as real. And it's not, it's hyperbole and rubbish, it's what he does to get clicks. Obviously it works.

Those are all his points in the article.

And, uh, he's not wrong about the jaywalking thing, that's accurate:

http://muse.jhu.edu/article/215409

[Burnette]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

Those are all his points in the article.

And, uh, he's not wrong about the jaywalking thing, that's accurate:

http://muse.jhu.edu/article/215409

Those points are part of the joke.

Blogs have to be over the top to get traffic, we shouldn't base anything arguments off of it, it's entertainment. Again, it's is shtick

They have done this same thing with sports, where the hosts argue crazy angles because the conflict gets eyes on the screen. The sad part about it is when people watching this take it to heart and try to base arguments off of their nonsense.

[William]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

And, uh, he's not wrong about the jaywalking thing, that's accurate:

http://muse.jhu.edu/article/215409

Adam lays it all out here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxop...x8yxC&index=30





William

[Burnette]

Originally Posted by William

Adam lays it all out here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxop...x8yxC&index=30





William

I should write a blog detailing how doughnuts and TV have done so much to curtail walking and riding a bike!

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Burnette

Those points are part of the joke.

Blogs have to be over the top to get traffic, we shouldn't base anything arguments off of it, it's entertainment. Again, it's is shtick

They have done this same thing with sports, where the hosts argue crazy angles because the conflict gets eyes on the screen. The sad part about it is when people watching this take it to heart and try to base arguments off of their nonsense.

I'm sorry you didn't know where jaywalking came from.