I’ve got to admit that when I first heard of the anti-cars community, I was a little skeptical. “Whats wrong with cars?” I thought. But the more I lurked, and the more I watched youtube channels like Not just bikes, the more I understood just how shitty the world is around us. Fuck Cars.
just going outside lmao
That’s it 😂
I’ve watched Thailand dump the nation’s wealth into building kilometers and kilometers of roads, mostly around Bangkok, to move more and more cars at a slower and slower pace. Moving cars instead of people. That money could have been spent in hundreds of different and better ways.
oh my that sounds horrible
All my life I accepted that cars where everywhere. When I started cycling in a city and thus had to live through near crash after near crash because the cars didn’t want to accept me as a traffic participant, I started questioning the whole thing. I saw how they dominated the road, that is supposed to be for bikes and all other kinds of traffic as well. It opened my eyes to how they don’t just dominate the road, but the pedestrian spaces as well, how the vast road space doesn’t even move that many people and goods etc. It’s just a giant waste of space in cities. I have lived in very rural areas as well, and people have to realize that having to take the car everywhere is a big draw back. Having to concentrate in a car for 2 hours per day just isn’t great.
Driving can be fun. But honestly, mostly it isn’t, I would most of the time prefer a train or bike ride.
Any tips for cycling on roads with cars? It’d benefit me for getting around faster, but I’ve only done it once, and it was terrifying.
Don’t die. No, honestly I don’t have any tips :/
Maybe get proper light for your bike and turn it on if vision outside isn’t optimal. Don’t ride in the gutter, have space to feel comfortable, cars are going to overtake close anyways.
Initially:
- Traveling for a minimum of 90 minutes daily for education/work in an area with adequate public transport, and not having many other places to drive to. I would rather sit down and relax or work, and not drain myself on stroads.
- Not enjoying the risk of driving a car.
- Not seeing value in the initial and ongoing costs of cars
I was still skeptical of /r/FuckCars when I first saw the name, but the first few posts I saw were nothing but facts. Same thing again with the anti-lawn groups: it’s so normalized that until you are prompted to think about it, it’s just something most people never stop to think about.
Adulthood:
- wow now that I realize it this is just recklessly dangerous and overnormalized
- society shouldn’t actively promote unhealthy expensive wasteful modes of living
wow now that I realize it this is just recklessly dangerous and overnormalized
That but it’s also fucking expensive. Like diamonds for a wedding ring it’s something that society tells you you need to do but it’s utterly stupid if you calculate risk, cost and gain.
Cars become more of a problem if you’re riding a bike. You compete for space (while risking your life) & ride in a cloud of exhaust fumes (gets worse by needing to breathe more).
You can’t do sports in a healthy way when cars are nearby. Also, people have suffocated by inhaling large amounts of fumes in confined spaces without enough ventilation.
- Climate change
- Being inside a car in traffic.
- Being outside a car in traffic and breathing the fumes.
There are lots of economic reasons to be anti-car but I think those are the ones that started it for me.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Moved to a place with very few cars
Couldn’t figure out what felt SO different, but once I noticed there was no going back
I don’t look forwards to moving back to the West
I’ve never owned a car and always relied on bike and transit. Even in Portland, which is relatively good for a North American city, this has been hard. The city is too spread out and transit is sparse for anything but a few sweet spots. I am just tired of 95% of the city being inaccessible except by car.
living in the burbs and having to deal with all the financial and health costs/risks that come with having a car
also having to use a car to be able to get to any meaningful destination
Same here. I spent my middle and high school years riding my bike 20+ min. just to get to the library, school, recreation center, grocery store, etc., all of which were somehow in different directions from my home, meaning no grouping tasks together.
Dealing with the DMV
- sour grapes from being a teenager whose family couldn’t afford one (I later learned this is far from the norm and I was acting so spoiled)
- learning to drive and realizing I’m bad at it, other people are bad at it, this creates a terrifying amount of danger, and thus I hate it
- becoming a leftist and learning about all the historical fuckery that went into car-ify-ing the US and other places
- experiencing viable public transit and bike infrastructure when I lived in NYC during college
- becoming climate-conscious
I’ve never desired a car to get around. Cars just never interested me in that way. I’ve always just loved biking everywhere. I find driving tiring, stressful, annoying. I find biking fun, relaxing and energising.
After I got my first proper job I got a car because I was led to believe I’d need one for work. Never once did I ever have to use one for work and although I used my car for other reasons I just prefered to bike places as that’s what I’d always done.
In the few years before covid I was only using my car a few times a year, mostly to take it in for repairs and so I toyed with the idea of going carless. Eventually I sold my car as I realised I only ever used it to take it in for a WoF, or to the workshop for the inevitable repairs and very little else.
Then I got hit by a car while biking. After surgery and rehabilitation I was back biking but it wasn’t the same. I sought out all the dedicated cycle lanes, changed my route to work and was cycling more than ever but in a very different way. I no longer mixed with cars if I could help it. And I get annoyed at how much infrastructure is dedicated to cars and how little is to bikes. Endless roads, highways, on ramps, off ramps, side of road parking, parking buildings, acres and acres of car parks, driveways, garaging, drive throughs, on and on and on it goes?!
One day it just clicked (snapped?). EVERY road has not one but TWO dedicated lanes at the side of the street, reserved for cars to just be dumped, usually free of charge, for however long you need to leave it there. But we hardly ever get any dedicated lanes for cyclists! It drives me nuts!? Every. Single. Road. has not one but TWO entire lanes dedicated to leaving cars but god forbid we put in ONE cycle lane! People lose their minds when a protected cycle lane goes in! They protest, they say their business will be ruined, they threaten cyclists, tear up bollards and go on and on about how hard it is to find a park these days because ONE street out of 100 dared to put in a single dedicated bike lane!
So there it is. Some of the factors involved. Others include things like saving money, saving the environment, keeping fit etc but mostly it’s the incredible amount of infrastructure that drives me wild! Something like 40% of the inner city is taken up by stuff related to cars. Space that could be dedicated to trees, housing, parks, culture and entertainment or even businesses but no, we need MOaR car infrastructure!
Removed by mod
