I'm on my city's bike commission. It's constantly bewildering to hear from other cyclists how many times they've been hit or nearly hit in a year. I always make a point to share it, since the city engineers join our meetings.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
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If you are not operating a large automobile, then are you really a person?
It is nice that there is actually social research on car-brain now (motornormativity). Evidence of how the ethical considerations are measurably skewed when you bring a car into the context of the question is now published social science.
link pls
https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/2023/02/motornomativity-how-social-norms-hide.html
Abstract
spoiler
Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity. To explore this claim, a national sample of 2157 UK adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (“People shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes”) or a parallel set of statements with key words changed to shift context ("People shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes"). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with "People shouldn't smoke... " but only 17% agreed with "People shouldn't drive... "). We discuss how these biases systematically distort medical and policy decisions and give recommendations for how public policy and health professionals might begin to recognise and address these unconscious biases in their work
what chapter and verse is it in?/?
awesome, thank you!
This isn't an America problem, as such, I don't think. In Germany, everywhere that doesn't have pretty good public transportation, i.e. everywhere outside of the 30 largest cities and 5 other ones or so, will learn to ride and use a bike a lot. A large swath will, at 15 where it becomes legal to ride a motorized scooter (Vespa, not Kickscooter but Electric) will do that, finances allowing, with priority to spend your money to get anywhere getting bigger the less viable a bicycle gets, i.e. if you live in a village 10km away from all the other children or so.
Then at 18, finances again permitting, shift to drivers license and car.
This is a cultural thing, sure, but it's carbrain. I mean individual transportation is great. I'd rather get rained on on my bicycle than wait 15 minutes extra trip time for the bus. I'll get dry, I'll not get the time back. The problem is the best individual transportation for nearly all options, because the world is built as such, is car. The Dutch cycle a lot because it's convenient, not because their brainpans are different or whatever.
You get the other carbrain, of course, which is taking your car to pick up a carton of milk, 500m away. That's because so many trips are better done by car that the idea of buying a bicycle just seems more of a hassle, not worth it. This is why you can't just incentivise people to not use the car, you have to actually punish them for using car if you wanna turn this shit around.
The other thing about this is that for children, being unable to operate cars in a car-centric world, chance of death is still preferrable to the imprisonment that comes with having no options for individual transportation.
It's like learning piano in Asian households. You're not expected to enjoy it or do it later in life, it's just a milestone to show how good you are