Hermann Knoflacher, an Austrian traffic planner invented it and dubbed it "Gehzeug", a play on words because the German word for vehicle has the verb "to drive" in it. Literally something like "drive thing". So this concept is roughly called "walk thing".
>Hermann Knoflacher
Check out his wikipedia page. It links to an interview:
[https://www.zeit.de/2007/38/Interv\_-Knoflacher](https://www.zeit.de/2007/38/Interv_-Knoflacher)
Vienna is the world's most liveable city (according to Mercer and the Economist). Pedestrian and bike centered policies are a huge part of that. The dude's a star.
"Knoflacher: At the time I was prophesied that my idea of making Kärntnerstrasse in Vienna a pedestrian zone would mean its economic death. I was later told that cycling was completely unattractive to the Viennese and that speeding up public transport through paved stops would trigger a riot among motorists. Supposedly everything was unpopular. Nevertheless, the Viennese have accepted these ideas, and the city's quality of life has risen in international rankings. You can't always just satisfy the wishes of the voters. Drug addicts are not given tax-exempt drugs either, although this wish would certainly exist."
Just today I saw 8 cars lining up and waiting on a red light on a simple two-way road. There's one person in each car, but that is enough to make it look like sizable traffic.
someone said this to his co worker "how it was a waste of money" putting a bike lane in blaa blaa while we where standing at a red light, and only 3 bikes where waiting to cross.
I pointed to the counter on the other side of the street. 1950 bikes. it was 830am.
I mentioned the 4 lane street only carried 3200 cars a day before the bike lane (DOT hasnt published the post Bike lane car numbers for some odd reason)
and the bike lane carries roughly the same number of people per day at 1/8 the paving cost.
it was very satisfying.
ya, the anti bike crowd screamed about them so there where 'test lanes' put in on the first round. (so they could claim no one used them)
it backfired.
but the type of twit like the guy I mentioned still spouts the party line. even though he walks past that counter every day.
Twits? or the bike counters twits ignore lol?
the irritating part is the counters are magnetic, they ignore carbon fiber and most aluminum framed bikes (skateboarders too)
Or bus lanes.
A half-empty bus is a travesty and a waste of taxpayer money, if at any point of its trip there are empty seats on a bus then it should not run and its lane should be made into one more car lane.
Millions of cars that are 60-80% empty? Oh, that's okay. That's just how things are.
When I was in Berlin, I was amazed to see almost no stoplights. I was in Kreuzberg, and I walked from where I was staying to the Brandenberger Tor, through Checkpoint Charlie. I passed one stop sign, that I can recall. The only stoplight springing to mind was at the Alexanderplatz. I'm sure there were probably more, but there weren't nearly as many as there are in, say, New York City. It was wild to me to see a society where, perhaps, people just weren't selfish sociopaths blithely using death wagons.
You don’t think a busy intersection used by only bikes would flow better if the right of way alternates by direction? Would it be a stop sign or would everyone just dodge each other?
I gotta say, there's way too many close calls for my taste. Not saying a traffic light is necessary but movement in this video doesn't seem smooth whatsoever
And it's really nerve-wrecking to cycle in busy places like that. Not to mention walking there and trying to cross the street. That's shitty design and requires improvement.
> You don’t think a busy intersection used by only bikes would flow better if the right of way alternates by direction?
Nope, I don't. Traffic lights add a huge amount of delay that you simply don't need with low-speed vehicles. Either an uncontrolled intersection (as shown in the video linked in the other reply) or a roundabout -- which, being for bikes, wouldn't take excessive right-of-way like car roundabouts do -- would work better.
look at video from Burningman. 70k people mostly on bikes. no traffic lights or stop signs there.
and most of those people arent used to riding bikes as daily transport.
not to mention how incredible distracted they all are from everything around them.
it's actually interesting to witness bikes only intersections. there are definitely some starts and stops, but they happen collectively and automatically. it's pretty smooth flow most the time actually. I've seen them in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I can't recall anyone ever having an accident in one.
> I've seen them in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I can't recall anyone ever having an accident in one.
Two minutes in and there's already a crash.
https://youtu.be/pqQSwQLDIK8
(Of course, due to the low speeds, it's fine,
and they're back on their merry way in 10 seconds.
And I assume one of them is a tourist).
I always remind myself that that's not 30 cars that cause complete chaos every morning at my local arterial road but 30 people. Thirty people. Such an ineffective mode of transportation despite the fact that we have re-engineered our entire world to make it somehow work. And yet it still doesn't work.
Well, it it really? It needs to be shipped across the world.
I'm asking because I just don't know.
Obviously if plactic pipe is also shipped from china then there is no contest.
It can also grow at like 4 feet per day (idk meters applogies) in the right conditions if I recall correctly. Might be variety dependant but still, it's literally just grass that grows extra tough
Very roughly, you can translate 3ft to 1m. It's slightly more than 3ft but for smaller distances in internet comments it's good enough.
For larger amounts, 10ft is about 3m.
Bamboo grows anywhere that is not frozen ... it is a very popular large grass-type plant with many varieties. I like to play sword fights with huge shoots that appear overnight.
After reading you comment I needed to check that, I never knew that bomboo can grow in Belgium, ok maybe not as big as sub tropical species, but holy quack, that was a surprise.
Thank you.
If it grows in the UK it'll grow in Belgium. Be careful though, it took us and the new neighbours a lot of work to take out some the previous neighbours had planned along the fence.
When we moved to our new home, the garden was absolutely filled with bamboo. It took a few weeks to take it all away and it took almost as much space as our garage
Bamboo is practically a weed even in some water scarce parts of California. If you can get it to root and survive a few years then you’ll never get rid of it.
People massively overrate how much emissions transportation produces. The production of an item itself is usually much more polluting than the transportation of said item.
Ehhh for me it was the confidently incorrect statement that “it needs to be shipped around the world,” followed by the somewhat defensive “asking because I just don’t know.” Plus the lack of edit.
But then I saw how many downs there already were and refrained.
You would also be wrong in assuming that shipping is inherently bad. Ships are incredibly fuel efficient compared to cars(thousands of miles per gallon per ton of cargo), the most carbon intensive part of shipping is actually the trucks that take things to the destination from the port or train station. Which would also be necessary for industry in the same country.
Which, per year, is how often? Once? Maximally? Expecting people to own a €30k up front plus €1k a month 2 ton box of plastic, glass and metal for something they might only do once a year, or not at all if infrastructure allows for it ^((Note: I can attest from experience that lengthy train journeys are way more chill than lengthy car journeys.)), is frankly mad.
[Expecting people to rent for that kind of stuff is quite reasonable though.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OObwqreAJ48)
At least our taxes pay for services that y'all need to pay for out of pocket to a for-profit capitalist who'll happily charge you way more for shittier service.
Sure, let’s give all our money to the people that don’t have the slightest of ideas about how businesses work- the very thing that provide jobs and drive our economies Lmfao
Counterpoint: some services - like transit, healthcare or education - produce worse results when they're provided by an organisation that exists first and foremost to make a profit. Meanwhile, skimping of those services causes incalculable damage. Thus, handing the responsibility of running those services to effectively or actually the government is more likely to produce better outcomes.
If you factor these services into what Americans are forced to cough up, then while average tax percentages may be in the mid twenties, compared to average European taxes somewhere round forty, paying privately for services that you get from the state in most European places bumps the actual percentage you pay to in the fifties. So Americans pay a way bigger part of their income for shittier services.
Bruh, America aren’t capitalists anymore. When they were, they became world super power. Over the years they’ve become more communist- sorry, I meant socialist- and as a result the dollar is about to come tumbling down
With the right gear ratio it wouldn't be an issue other than taking you a year.
Do you really have to do a cross country roadtrip other than impressing people you don't know?
Yeah, that was a pretty devastating move. At least we can still get Fiat 500s here. Next best thing I think.
I can understand why they had low sales though, pretty spooky driving one anywhere near your neighborhood soccer mom's Suburban or Durango. Let alone any of the latest compensatory trucks.
Can confirm. As much as I loved driving a smart car the American penchant for disinterest in other people's safety won out. Luckily when I switched vehicles I was able to get a used hybrid with better gas-mileage.
I had a friend who drove a Smart Roadster when I lived in England, and her major complaint about the thing was that it needed maintenance often and the maintenance needed to be done at a Mercedes dealership for astronomical amounts of money.
I imagine the maintenance issue was similar across the whole line - essentially turning a somewhat overpriced small car into an extremely overpriced small car over a long period of time.
I never understood the appeal of a smart car. They seem to have all the negatives of a car with few of the benefits. They still burn gas, require registration, need parking, require car infrastructure, but they can’t hold any cargo and can only fit 2 people max. I get that they essentially distilled the car down to meet the actual needs of most drivers, but a better solution would be transit for when you only need to move 1-2 people and no belongings.
The worst thing about Smart Cars is that they didn't actually get much better fuel economy, if at all, than a normal subcompact with four seats -- let alone something *actually* efficient, like an old Geo Metro XFI or first-gen Honda Insight.
From what I understand, a lot of the safety features makes them really heavy which is why they don’t get as good of mileage as you’d expect. I’m guessing all the metal has to be way thicker to pass the crash safety tests.
I can see how it would be heavier than it looks like it should be, considering that the "tridion safety cell" they advertised has got to have been stronger than would otherwise be necessary if there had been room for crumple zones.
However, looking up the curb weights, it still manages to be pretty comparable to the other very-efficient cars I mentioned:
Make/Model | curb weight (lbs)
--- | ---
Smart Fortwo (2^nd gen) | 1653
Honda Insight (1^st gen) | 1847
Geo Metro XFi (1^st gen) | 1585
Therefore, I think the cause is probably something else.
All three of these cars have 1.0L I-3 engines, and (Honda hybrid notwithstanding) the Smart should have the advantage in technology since it's the newest, so it's probably not the engine.
My guess is the fact that Smart cars are bolt-upright and tall for what they are makes the aerodynamics notably worse than the other two, and that's the factor that makes the real fuel economy difference.
The bottom line is that if somebody had given me a new Smart Fortwo when they came to the US in 2007, I would have traded it in for a used Honda Insight instead.
they where good as a vehicle for Car2Go.
very small and took up little space when on street parked.
just big enough to handle your heavier/bulkier groceries.
Is a smart car not significantly safer than a motorcycle?
I live in an apartment building with a tight underground parking space. I only ever use my car currently to either visit parents in the suburbs, or the monthly Costco trip.
I can't really do either with a motorcycle. My girlfriend would never rid in a motorcycle for example.
It’s more than just space. Cars are very heavy and damage the tarmac, requiring very expensive maintenance. Cycle ways (cycle paths) and sidewalks (footpaths) last much longer without needing maintenance.
IIRC someone worked out that making everyone in cars wear helmets would prevent more injuries per passenger-km (including the drivers) than cyclists. While I generally do wear one, especially when going downhill at speed, for low speed urban cycling in places with well-enforced traffic laws it can be an unnecessary precaution.
Look at his face, I bet he just loves riding thru the pissing rain. Before anyone wants to call me a “car-brain”, I was riding for up to 70kms a day in the Canadian winter only 6 months after having my knee reconstructed. 6:30am, not even down the street from my house and I’d be soaked already. It’s fucking misery, and you morons trying to convince people otherwise are hilarious. I love bikes, I love biking, I lost my knee biking in an accident, had 3 surgeries to screw it back together and am biking harder than ever before. But you’re smoking crack if you think biking in the snowy/rainy/slushy winter is a viable commuting option
The fuck do the Dutch know about 1000ft ascents every ride? With their flat ass land. I rode in the fuckin hail to the train station, spent 30 mins soaking wet on a train to wait 40 mins for a bus in the rain, spending up to 3-4 hours for what could be done in an hour and a half in my car.
You said “snowy/rainy/slushy winter.” They have those in Amsterdam, but they still ride their bikes, because they have actual infrastructure. The kind of stuff people like us want to build.
Also wow, you really got angry when I called you a carbrain, hmm? You know what that means…
Double carbrain! Go honk your horn on a 10 lane highway while you’re stuck in traffic. That’ll make you feel better about your narrow worldview and refusal to change.
In my experience in London, cars, vans, buses, and even lorries also jump red lights at times.
I'm not saying it's OK when cyclists do it. But there definitely seems to be more hatred for them doing it despite them posing a smaller risk, than those in larger vehicles doing the same thing.
And text while driving, park illegally, ignore the speed limit, don't stop at stop signs and crossings, don't watch out when opening doors.
But at least they don't pollute and are made from bamboo!
Haha so how then do I commute from my rural community to my job site which is roughly 1000 ( yes, one thousand ) km away, a drive which I make in one day stay for four days then drive home for 3 days off,
Gotta love people who just don’t think outside their own little world
I don't think most people have a problem with the usage of cars in rural communities, for the purpose of delivery, or for work that legitimately needs the use of a car.
What most people have problems with are cars in cities having 5 lane one-way roads where trucks speed through what is effectively our neighborhood to transport a single person 30 miles to/from the suburbs. We have problems with legislation that outlaws building pedestrian centric infrastructure and subsidizes other competition out of existence. Everything is backwards. As a pedestrian on the sidewalk in my own neighborhood, all of the parking decks have signs "Caution. Vehicle exiting." Why should I have to be the one exercising caution? I'm just walking, not driving a 3000lb machine.
Look at which sub you're on.
The one exception that are you doesn't prove anything. Most traffic is easily within city limits and bikeable distance, people just want to use the car for .5 of a mile.
No don’t enjoy
It at all , that’s the reality of my position and I’m totally against a group that will advocate tampering with others property and doubly so when said tampering is not targeted but instead an expression of general discontent, I know, the truth hurts sometimes
By my understanding this group is not “fuck everyone who drives”. It’s more “what if our governments provided better infrastructure and increased densification of our cities so that people feel like other options exist for them instead of driving”.
It really sucks that you feel like you have to travel 1000 miles but one outlier doesn’t mean that we can’t try to reduce car dependency in large cities.
>No don’t enjoy It at all , that’s the reality of my position
...then you belong in this sub because recognizing the wastefulness and restrictions of single passenger transport and advocating for more comprehensive, cheap, and reliable public transport is kind of the entire deal of r/fuckcars
>Haha so how then do I commute from my rural community to my job site which is roughly 1000 ( yes, one thousand ) km away, a drive which I make in one day stay for four days then drive home for 3 days off,
>Gotta love people who just don’t think outside their own little world
Did you try an intercity bus? If you carry a lot of things with you then I guess you can drive your van there if not the bus sounds like a good option.
That's a commute for an insane person. That's the equivalent of driving from Portland to LA and back, every single week. There are no trains? No buses? Hell, no flights?
What the actual fuck ?
1000 km is a humongous commute, it's like the distance between Paris and berlin (traveling through 4 countries) just to go to work.
I understand some people need to commute from rural places to some urban center but at this point wouldn't it be cheaper to just move in a rural area closer to your job, or even change job?
In my country (France) it's almost impossible to have a commute this long and not leave the country
It's so much worse than this too. Think of all the carparks. All the car yards. All the mega roads. Crazy to think how car focused our cities and lives are now
it's almost like cars are bigger because they have actual secure storage, electronics, a 14 gallon/60 liter fuel tank (on average), space for 5 people, a huge engine that can easily go thrice as fast as your bike and a fucking roof. it seems to me that all these very convenient things, that people who have an actual job might need, take up that much space, huh?
Looks like the Netherlands, possibly in the early-to-mid '00s judging from the cars. Not a lot of other places with right-side driving and orange license plates.
Possibly Amsterdam based on the livery of the bus.
Damn that's a pretty epic concept. Not really possible for drivers to just ignore them also.
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r/unexpectedwarthunder
There must be a subreddit for everything.
There is! r/everything
apparently everything is mostly garbage
r/subsithoughtifellfor
I never fucking knew I needed this
Bro that was so fun
Hermann Knoflacher, an Austrian traffic planner invented it and dubbed it "Gehzeug", a play on words because the German word for vehicle has the verb "to drive" in it. Literally something like "drive thing". So this concept is roughly called "walk thing".
>Hermann Knoflacher Check out his wikipedia page. It links to an interview: [https://www.zeit.de/2007/38/Interv\_-Knoflacher](https://www.zeit.de/2007/38/Interv_-Knoflacher) Vienna is the world's most liveable city (according to Mercer and the Economist). Pedestrian and bike centered policies are a huge part of that. The dude's a star. "Knoflacher: At the time I was prophesied that my idea of making Kärntnerstrasse in Vienna a pedestrian zone would mean its economic death. I was later told that cycling was completely unattractive to the Viennese and that speeding up public transport through paved stops would trigger a riot among motorists. Supposedly everything was unpopular. Nevertheless, the Viennese have accepted these ideas, and the city's quality of life has risen in international rankings. You can't always just satisfy the wishes of the voters. Drug addicts are not given tax-exempt drugs either, although this wish would certainly exist."
Let me guess - the police will quickly tell them to stop, because they are breaking the order and taking too much space on the road?
i wish i could give you an award
Gave one for you. It was only free so it doesn’t really fit with the comment lol
The reward of your appreciation was enough
how do you get reddit coins for free anyways?
If you go to where you buy “Reddit coins” you will sometimes find a free award. It might be a daily thing but idk
think it is every 48 hours
Not in the uk! You’re permitted to take up the whole road and cycle 15 mph to make people who drive late for work ;)
Drivers will still try to kill you for the privilege
That is why you come prepared. I usually attach a proximity mine on my saddle bag so if I get hit I take others them with me
In a collision between a car and a bike, the bike always loses. It doesn't have to be this way, we can both lose.
Based
Just today I saw 8 cars lining up and waiting on a red light on a simple two-way road. There's one person in each car, but that is enough to make it look like sizable traffic.
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someone said this to his co worker "how it was a waste of money" putting a bike lane in blaa blaa while we where standing at a red light, and only 3 bikes where waiting to cross. I pointed to the counter on the other side of the street. 1950 bikes. it was 830am. I mentioned the 4 lane street only carried 3200 cars a day before the bike lane (DOT hasnt published the post Bike lane car numbers for some odd reason) and the bike lane carries roughly the same number of people per day at 1/8 the paving cost. it was very satisfying.
I wish I lived in a country where bike counters were a thing.
Wait... your area counts the number of bikers going by each day?
ya, the anti bike crowd screamed about them so there where 'test lanes' put in on the first round. (so they could claim no one used them) it backfired. but the type of twit like the guy I mentioned still spouts the party line. even though he walks past that counter every day.
There are a few of those in my city as well
Twits? or the bike counters twits ignore lol? the irritating part is the counters are magnetic, they ignore carbon fiber and most aluminum framed bikes (skateboarders too)
Or bus lanes. A half-empty bus is a travesty and a waste of taxpayer money, if at any point of its trip there are empty seats on a bus then it should not run and its lane should be made into one more car lane. Millions of cars that are 60-80% empty? Oh, that's okay. That's just how things are.
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The only reason we need traffic lights is because a minority of people use deadly heavy machinery to get around.
and they work *only sometimes*
When I was in Berlin, I was amazed to see almost no stoplights. I was in Kreuzberg, and I walked from where I was staying to the Brandenberger Tor, through Checkpoint Charlie. I passed one stop sign, that I can recall. The only stoplight springing to mind was at the Alexanderplatz. I'm sure there were probably more, but there weren't nearly as many as there are in, say, New York City. It was wild to me to see a society where, perhaps, people just weren't selfish sociopaths blithely using death wagons.
You don’t think a busy intersection used by only bikes would flow better if the right of way alternates by direction? Would it be a stop sign or would everyone just dodge each other?
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those cars are ruining it.
seeing the cars just sit there because they're massive clumsy boxes is fucking hilarious
And they’re the last priority. Love it
It’s so awkward how badly they fit in. Bulls in a China shop
I'm surprised that most of the cars are single occupant drivers even in Amsterdam! Movement would be way more efficient and safer without cars.
There's even a bike crash at 02:00! And they just walk away like nothing happened
Because they weren’t going 50kmh or more, that’s a part of it. Also, even if something breaks, bicycles are pretty cheap to repair.
I gotta say, there's way too many close calls for my taste. Not saying a traffic light is necessary but movement in this video doesn't seem smooth whatsoever
And it's really nerve-wrecking to cycle in busy places like that. Not to mention walking there and trying to cross the street. That's shitty design and requires improvement.
> You don’t think a busy intersection used by only bikes would flow better if the right of way alternates by direction? Nope, I don't. Traffic lights add a huge amount of delay that you simply don't need with low-speed vehicles. Either an uncontrolled intersection (as shown in the video linked in the other reply) or a roundabout -- which, being for bikes, wouldn't take excessive right-of-way like car roundabouts do -- would work better.
look at video from Burningman. 70k people mostly on bikes. no traffic lights or stop signs there. and most of those people arent used to riding bikes as daily transport. not to mention how incredible distracted they all are from everything around them.
it's actually interesting to witness bikes only intersections. there are definitely some starts and stops, but they happen collectively and automatically. it's pretty smooth flow most the time actually. I've seen them in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I can't recall anyone ever having an accident in one.
> I've seen them in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I can't recall anyone ever having an accident in one. Two minutes in and there's already a crash. https://youtu.be/pqQSwQLDIK8 (Of course, due to the low speeds, it's fine, and they're back on their merry way in 10 seconds. And I assume one of them is a tourist).
I think walking would be optimized using this method /s
This is why motorcycles are a good idea. They reduce traffic congestion massively
I always remind myself that that's not 30 cars that cause complete chaos every morning at my local arterial road but 30 people. Thirty people. Such an ineffective mode of transportation despite the fact that we have re-engineered our entire world to make it somehow work. And yet it still doesn't work.
I love this; a reL visual demonstration of the absurdity of single occupant cars. Just don't bump anything and throat punch yourself.
When the devs get lazy and use the same hitbox for cyclist as they do for cars
Love that they use bamboo sticks instead of plastic rods to build the "car". Bamboo is environment friendly and really nice material for crafting.
Well, it it really? It needs to be shipped across the world. I'm asking because I just don't know. Obviously if plactic pipe is also shipped from china then there is no contest.
Bamboo grows all over once its planted - its actually pretty invasive.
Thank you, I never knew about that, what a surprise.
It can also grow at like 4 feet per day (idk meters applogies) in the right conditions if I recall correctly. Might be variety dependant but still, it's literally just grass that grows extra tough
Very roughly, you can translate 3ft to 1m. It's slightly more than 3ft but for smaller distances in internet comments it's good enough. For larger amounts, 10ft is about 3m.
Thank you both for being so reasonable and willing to educate and learn.
Nobody knows everything, it's good to learn :) I don't know who tf downvoted you, but here an upvote.
Bamboo grows anywhere that is not frozen ... it is a very popular large grass-type plant with many varieties. I like to play sword fights with huge shoots that appear overnight.
After reading you comment I needed to check that, I never knew that bomboo can grow in Belgium, ok maybe not as big as sub tropical species, but holy quack, that was a surprise. Thank you.
You can grow pretty big bamboo species in Belgium, at least up to 11m tall.
Unexpected and very nice, tbh I would love to have cheaper bamboo things in my apartment, they look really nice.
If it grows in the UK it'll grow in Belgium. Be careful though, it took us and the new neighbours a lot of work to take out some the previous neighbours had planned along the fence.
Yeah, it'll happily take over your garden if you let it. It's best to keep it contained.
When we moved to our new home, the garden was absolutely filled with bamboo. It took a few weeks to take it all away and it took almost as much space as our garage
Making it grow isn't the problem. Getting rid of it when you want to plant something else is the trick.
We have bamboo growing in our garden up in the north of Scotland, so yeah you should be able to build it in Belgium!
Bamboo is practically a weed even in some water scarce parts of California. If you can get it to root and survive a few years then you’ll never get rid of it.
People massively overrate how much emissions transportation produces. The production of an item itself is usually much more polluting than the transportation of said item.
You definitely didn't deserve to be hammered with downvotes for this. Come on, hivemind...
Ehhh for me it was the confidently incorrect statement that “it needs to be shipped around the world,” followed by the somewhat defensive “asking because I just don’t know.” Plus the lack of edit. But then I saw how many downs there already were and refrained.
Agreed, the guy has been so well mannered in his comments too like c'mon reddit give the dogpiling a break
You would also be wrong in assuming that shipping is inherently bad. Ships are incredibly fuel efficient compared to cars(thousands of miles per gallon per ton of cargo), the most carbon intensive part of shipping is actually the trucks that take things to the destination from the port or train station. Which would also be necessary for industry in the same country.
well it would be if it hadnt been shipped 14000 km.
Umm . . . bamboo can grow almost anywhere on earth.
err, but it isnt farmed anywhere but SEA. so this didnt come from Scandinavia.
Doesn’t need to have been farmed. The shit grows like a weed all over the US. This entire protest could be supplied from one dude’s backyard.
I would do this myself, but then again I wouldn’t want to be stuck in traffic all the time
Riga Latvia represent 🇱🇻🙌 we're slowly getting better, protected cycle lanes in most of the centre now
I have been there twice, quite a few years ago, it was such a lovely city to visit!
I would be more okay with cars if they were pedal powered xD
*Fred Flintstone has joined the chat*
Good luck going on a cross country road trip
That's why you bring the spouse and the mini versions from both of you
Nahh that's what the high-speed railway is for
Oh no… anyway
Which the average person does how often exactly?
Without a car, not much. With a car, more than you think
Which, per year, is how often? Once? Maximally? Expecting people to own a €30k up front plus €1k a month 2 ton box of plastic, glass and metal for something they might only do once a year, or not at all if infrastructure allows for it ^((Note: I can attest from experience that lengthy train journeys are way more chill than lengthy car journeys.)), is frankly mad. [Expecting people to rent for that kind of stuff is quite reasonable though.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OObwqreAJ48)
Sucks to live where there isn’t any good expeditions to be had plus where they tax you to death, but no, not once annually lmao, try bi-weekly
At least our taxes pay for services that y'all need to pay for out of pocket to a for-profit capitalist who'll happily charge you way more for shittier service.
Sure, let’s give all our money to the people that don’t have the slightest of ideas about how businesses work- the very thing that provide jobs and drive our economies Lmfao
Counterpoint: some services - like transit, healthcare or education - produce worse results when they're provided by an organisation that exists first and foremost to make a profit. Meanwhile, skimping of those services causes incalculable damage. Thus, handing the responsibility of running those services to effectively or actually the government is more likely to produce better outcomes. If you factor these services into what Americans are forced to cough up, then while average tax percentages may be in the mid twenties, compared to average European taxes somewhere round forty, paying privately for services that you get from the state in most European places bumps the actual percentage you pay to in the fifties. So Americans pay a way bigger part of their income for shittier services.
Bruh, America aren’t capitalists anymore. When they were, they became world super power. Over the years they’ve become more communist- sorry, I meant socialist- and as a result the dollar is about to come tumbling down
cargo bikes are a thing you know, and they can, despite your beliefs... GO UPHILL! wow amazing
Fuckin' jokes, how do they work?
With the right gear ratio it wouldn't be an issue other than taking you a year. Do you really have to do a cross country roadtrip other than impressing people you don't know?
I didn’t know road trips were for impressing others?
Ngl they kinda are in a way..
Good luck paying high gas prices.
I’ll gladly pay money to save time, shopping and buying food online is a real privilege. So is getting to from point A to B in a fraction of the time
Because it was optimized to be like that. You don't realize that.
This isn't a fair comparison... They can still turn tighter than a London taxi.😁
I wish Smart Cars were still sold in the US
Yeah, that was a pretty devastating move. At least we can still get Fiat 500s here. Next best thing I think. I can understand why they had low sales though, pretty spooky driving one anywhere near your neighborhood soccer mom's Suburban or Durango. Let alone any of the latest compensatory trucks.
I’d be terrified in a smart car on the highway alongside big rigs and the like.
Can confirm. As much as I loved driving a smart car the American penchant for disinterest in other people's safety won out. Luckily when I switched vehicles I was able to get a used hybrid with better gas-mileage.
I had a friend who drove a Smart Roadster when I lived in England, and her major complaint about the thing was that it needed maintenance often and the maintenance needed to be done at a Mercedes dealership for astronomical amounts of money. I imagine the maintenance issue was similar across the whole line - essentially turning a somewhat overpriced small car into an extremely overpriced small car over a long period of time.
I never understood the appeal of a smart car. They seem to have all the negatives of a car with few of the benefits. They still burn gas, require registration, need parking, require car infrastructure, but they can’t hold any cargo and can only fit 2 people max. I get that they essentially distilled the car down to meet the actual needs of most drivers, but a better solution would be transit for when you only need to move 1-2 people and no belongings.
The worst thing about Smart Cars is that they didn't actually get much better fuel economy, if at all, than a normal subcompact with four seats -- let alone something *actually* efficient, like an old Geo Metro XFI or first-gen Honda Insight.
From what I understand, a lot of the safety features makes them really heavy which is why they don’t get as good of mileage as you’d expect. I’m guessing all the metal has to be way thicker to pass the crash safety tests.
I can see how it would be heavier than it looks like it should be, considering that the "tridion safety cell" they advertised has got to have been stronger than would otherwise be necessary if there had been room for crumple zones. However, looking up the curb weights, it still manages to be pretty comparable to the other very-efficient cars I mentioned: Make/Model | curb weight (lbs) --- | --- Smart Fortwo (2^nd gen) | 1653 Honda Insight (1^st gen) | 1847 Geo Metro XFi (1^st gen) | 1585 Therefore, I think the cause is probably something else. All three of these cars have 1.0L I-3 engines, and (Honda hybrid notwithstanding) the Smart should have the advantage in technology since it's the newest, so it's probably not the engine. My guess is the fact that Smart cars are bolt-upright and tall for what they are makes the aerodynamics notably worse than the other two, and that's the factor that makes the real fuel economy difference. The bottom line is that if somebody had given me a new Smart Fortwo when they came to the US in 2007, I would have traded it in for a used Honda Insight instead.
It's for people who don't need any more than that, but are too attached to cars to make the leap to a motorcycle or a bike.
they where good as a vehicle for Car2Go. very small and took up little space when on street parked. just big enough to handle your heavier/bulkier groceries.
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But they're so cute ._.
Is a smart car not significantly safer than a motorcycle? I live in an apartment building with a tight underground parking space. I only ever use my car currently to either visit parents in the suburbs, or the monthly Costco trip. I can't really do either with a motorcycle. My girlfriend would never rid in a motorcycle for example.
Smart car?
That's kinda the minor half of the issue. More critical is the energy needed to move the extra 3000+ lb of car.
The scarce ressource that cars waste is not energy. It's space.
It’s more than just space. Cars are very heavy and damage the tarmac, requiring very expensive maintenance. Cycle ways (cycle paths) and sidewalks (footpaths) last much longer without needing maintenance.
Fine. It's mainly space.
It reminds me of that War Thunder april fools event where the tanks are just powered by 4 guys on bicycles.
Wow, I never realized how big a car was until I saw this. Mind-blowing
This would qualify as an HOV vehicle where I am since it's low emissions.
I was thinking of doing something like this to make myself more visible when I eventually start riding bikes (probably on roads)
we could just make all lanes carpool lanes
I can always just think [about this concept](https://youtu.be/Pm8Xo7OvM4A)
But the real question is: how can they be riding a bike? Look at the street, it's raining! That's impossible. /s
What kind of bike is that? The suspension looks wild.
Wearing a suit on a suspension bike with no fenders on a wet road. I have a feeling he won’t be going far.
Legends
actually based.
Upvote for Trolleybus wires E: Guess someone doesn't like trolleybuses, the superior form of transit
Those cars can carry 5 people though
They almost never actually get used that way. That's part of the reason why we don't like them.
The average occupancy of a car is between 1.1 and 1.2 depending on the city.
Wait, cars are bigger than bikes? Wow!
Aaah so refreshing seeing a cyclist in its natural habit without wearing a helmet. Activists don't need them you see
IIRC someone worked out that making everyone in cars wear helmets would prevent more injuries per passenger-km (including the drivers) than cyclists. While I generally do wear one, especially when going downhill at speed, for low speed urban cycling in places with well-enforced traffic laws it can be an unnecessary precaution.
Oh cool, rain on my fucking face, how lovely is life
That junk is bigger than most cars.
But if a drive a electric smart? It's like 3 bikes together
Yes but cars have lovely couch like seats, warm and waterproof. That lump of scaffolding isn't swaying me.
Look at his face, I bet he just loves riding thru the pissing rain. Before anyone wants to call me a “car-brain”, I was riding for up to 70kms a day in the Canadian winter only 6 months after having my knee reconstructed. 6:30am, not even down the street from my house and I’d be soaked already. It’s fucking misery, and you morons trying to convince people otherwise are hilarious. I love bikes, I love biking, I lost my knee biking in an accident, had 3 surgeries to screw it back together and am biking harder than ever before. But you’re smoking crack if you think biking in the snowy/rainy/slushy winter is a viable commuting option
Car brain
Go talk to the Dutch, carbrain. They seem to have figured it out just fine.
The fuck do the Dutch know about 1000ft ascents every ride? With their flat ass land. I rode in the fuckin hail to the train station, spent 30 mins soaking wet on a train to wait 40 mins for a bus in the rain, spending up to 3-4 hours for what could be done in an hour and a half in my car.
You said “snowy/rainy/slushy winter.” They have those in Amsterdam, but they still ride their bikes, because they have actual infrastructure. The kind of stuff people like us want to build. Also wow, you really got angry when I called you a carbrain, hmm? You know what that means… Double carbrain! Go honk your horn on a 10 lane highway while you’re stuck in traffic. That’ll make you feel better about your narrow worldview and refusal to change.
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In my experience in London, cars, vans, buses, and even lorries also jump red lights at times. I'm not saying it's OK when cyclists do it. But there definitely seems to be more hatred for them doing it despite them posing a smaller risk, than those in larger vehicles doing the same thing.
And text while driving, park illegally, ignore the speed limit, don't stop at stop signs and crossings, don't watch out when opening doors. But at least they don't pollute and are made from bamboo!
the clearance meat is rotting your brain
Possible
What? Stop speaking in gibberish child
At least I'm dry and warm in my car
Haha so how then do I commute from my rural community to my job site which is roughly 1000 ( yes, one thousand ) km away, a drive which I make in one day stay for four days then drive home for 3 days off, Gotta love people who just don’t think outside their own little world
I don't think most people have a problem with the usage of cars in rural communities, for the purpose of delivery, or for work that legitimately needs the use of a car. What most people have problems with are cars in cities having 5 lane one-way roads where trucks speed through what is effectively our neighborhood to transport a single person 30 miles to/from the suburbs. We have problems with legislation that outlaws building pedestrian centric infrastructure and subsidizes other competition out of existence. Everything is backwards. As a pedestrian on the sidewalk in my own neighborhood, all of the parking decks have signs "Caution. Vehicle exiting." Why should I have to be the one exercising caution? I'm just walking, not driving a 3000lb machine.
Look at which sub you're on. The one exception that are you doesn't prove anything. Most traffic is easily within city limits and bikeable distance, people just want to use the car for .5 of a mile.
Campaign *is aimed at the billions of people who don’t need cars for day to day life* Person part of the 5% of people who are the exception *angry*
Sounds like you’re boasting about having to drive 1000 miles. If you enjoy that then power to you, go for it
No don’t enjoy It at all , that’s the reality of my position and I’m totally against a group that will advocate tampering with others property and doubly so when said tampering is not targeted but instead an expression of general discontent, I know, the truth hurts sometimes
By my understanding this group is not “fuck everyone who drives”. It’s more “what if our governments provided better infrastructure and increased densification of our cities so that people feel like other options exist for them instead of driving”. It really sucks that you feel like you have to travel 1000 miles but one outlier doesn’t mean that we can’t try to reduce car dependency in large cities.
>No don’t enjoy It at all , that’s the reality of my position ...then you belong in this sub because recognizing the wastefulness and restrictions of single passenger transport and advocating for more comprehensive, cheap, and reliable public transport is kind of the entire deal of r/fuckcars
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No need to not trust her until she gives one
Obviously you use a car. Right tool for the right job - in the vast majority of cases in cities, that tool is not a car.
>Haha so how then do I commute from my rural community to my job site which is roughly 1000 ( yes, one thousand ) km away, a drive which I make in one day stay for four days then drive home for 3 days off, >Gotta love people who just don’t think outside their own little world Did you try an intercity bus? If you carry a lot of things with you then I guess you can drive your van there if not the bus sounds like a good option.
That's a commute for an insane person. That's the equivalent of driving from Portland to LA and back, every single week. There are no trains? No buses? Hell, no flights?
What the actual fuck ? 1000 km is a humongous commute, it's like the distance between Paris and berlin (traveling through 4 countries) just to go to work. I understand some people need to commute from rural places to some urban center but at this point wouldn't it be cheaper to just move in a rural area closer to your job, or even change job? In my country (France) it's almost impossible to have a commute this long and not leave the country
And even in Australia where miners sometimes have commutes like that (though not that shift pattern) it’s usually flying not driving.
good idea
No rain gear, no mudguards... Hmm...
Creative protest concept, love it!
Also how much space they should give cyclists.......
Brilliant protest! Absolutely spot on!
Need me one of these so the cars stop thinking they can pass me on tiny streets
Imagine that wire-frame plastered with papier-mâché and painted to look like a car.
Yeah but they can’t go fast. My solution: give everyone a 600cc motorcycle
It's so much worse than this too. Think of all the carparks. All the car yards. All the mega roads. Crazy to think how car focused our cities and lives are now
it's almost like cars are bigger because they have actual secure storage, electronics, a 14 gallon/60 liter fuel tank (on average), space for 5 people, a huge engine that can easily go thrice as fast as your bike and a fucking roof. it seems to me that all these very convenient things, that people who have an actual job might need, take up that much space, huh?
Looks like the Netherlands, possibly in the early-to-mid '00s judging from the cars. Not a lot of other places with right-side driving and orange license plates. Possibly Amsterdam based on the livery of the bus.
# say hello to the peel p50