5 ms·

Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss. For a majority of those living in t

by zanny 8y ago

Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss. For a majority of those living in the US the places they live and work have been so fundamentally designed around cars that no alternative form of transit is usable. Busses might run once a day, no sidewalks, no bike lanes amidst 5 layer highways. Even getting out of ones housing development via anything but a car can be challenging if its a fenced in community with winding lane and a half roads parked full of cars. I'd naturally much prefer more strict licensing and more frequent license revocation - if for no other reason than it would demonstrably save many lives - but only after we solve the car sprawl hellscape that is a majority of settled US territory.

dionidium 8y ago
> Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss. There's a villainous cycle at work here. Car supremacy produces cities in which you need a car, so that attempts to push back on car supremacy can be credibly opposed on the grounds that they hurt the poor and less advantaged, when of course the very opposite thing is true.
- setr 8y ago
  the opposite is true in the long run. In the finalized scenario, where public transport is cheap, functional, useful and maintainable, or modern cities have been totally rewritten to support pedestrian first, it makes more sense than cars. But between removing cars today, and the day public transport actually reaches such a state, is long and far, and you fuck the car-less over for the entire duration. You can't suddenly make getting a license harder without also changing a hundred other things too, if you have any intent to preserve any other lifestyle than one that does not require a car, or is not at risk of losing their license. Such a claim is indeed a self-centered one, if you aren't also arguing for the other things as well, simultaneously. To suggest it without the even referring to the rest alongside it is to create the image of horror, to anyone who isn't already aligned with your premise. And if you weren't intending that statement for people who didn't already agree with you, then the most you could have accomplished was virtue signaling, and I don't know why you would want to do such a horrible thing
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    To be fair, the OP didn't suggest taking away cars from poor people, just from people who can't be bothered to learn to drive responsibly.
    - setr 8y ago
      If you take cars away from every group equally, then the poor are the least capable of finding an alternative (because they usually cost). In fact, if you take anything from the entire population in equal measure, its bound to affect the poor the most (because they’re the least capable of finding alternatives to the status quo). So in any such argument, they’d naturally become the front of the topic. If anyone is going to get fucked by a broad policy, it’s the poor.
      - rootusrootus 8y ago
        Then why have any standards at all, if any expectations are discrimination?
        setr 8y ago
        What? Who said anything about discrimination? You're going to build blanket standards and rules without acknowledging its effects on the population, and the proportion of the effects on different groups within that population? Without accounting for the migration process to the new standard? Without trying to minimize damage across the groups? Addendum: There is a world that exists, and there is an ideal image of the world. We aren't going to suddenly transfer to the ideal version, but we're perfectly capable of pretending we can in law. Congress is perfectly capable of arbitrarily requiring that all cars today meet 50mpg, and declaring it law. But we do not want to do that, because it would stupid, and shut down industries and cities across the nation. Regardless of whether this is what our ideal looks like, it's not a suggestion that takes us anywhere near it. When someone goes around advocating for it to people who do not already agree with it, the first question is whats wrong with it? And the first answer inevitably features the poor, because they're the most affected. And the next question is, by how much? And again, the best example is the poor, because they bear the brunt of the negatives. Everyone else will also eat shit, but they get the most of it, and so they show it off the most, making for the clearest example of what damages a blanket policy might incur.
mulmen 8y ago
80% of Americans live in cities. It’s entirely possible to reduce our reliance on individual car ownership.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Where “city” means “not rural.” The vast majority of those are in seas of sparsely packed single family homes separated from the nearest businesses by miles of busy roads, not walkable/urban/transit connected cores. Consider the Bay Area, population 7 million, with closer to 1 million of those in SF and Oakland. Then consider that the Sunset and Richmond, also basically suburbs, make up a huge chunk of SF’s land.

by zanny 8y ago

dionidium 8y ago

> Easy to say from the position of thinking you can't lose your license or have the financial means to deal with such a loss. There's a villainous cycle at work here. Car supremacy produces cities in which you need a car, so that attempts to push back on car supremacy can be credibly opposed on the grounds that they hurt the poor and less advantaged, when of course the very opposite thing is true.

setr 8y ago
the opposite is true in the long run. In the finalized scenario, where public transport is cheap, functional, useful and maintainable, or modern cities have been totally rewritten to support pedestrian first, it makes more sense than cars. But between removing cars today, and the day public transport actually reaches such a state, is long and far, and you fuck the car-less over for the entire duration. You can't suddenly make getting a license harder without also changing a hundred other things too, if you have any intent to preserve any other lifestyle than one that does not require a car, or is not at risk of losing their license. Such a claim is indeed a self-centered one, if you aren't also arguing for the other things as well, simultaneously. To suggest it without the even referring to the rest alongside it is to create the image of horror, to anyone who isn't already aligned with your premise. And if you weren't intending that statement for people who didn't already agree with you, then the most you could have accomplished was virtue signaling, and I don't know why you would want to do such a horrible thing
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  To be fair, the OP didn't suggest taking away cars from poor people, just from people who can't be bothered to learn to drive responsibly.
  - setr 8y ago
    If you take cars away from every group equally, then the poor are the least capable of finding an alternative (because they usually cost). In fact, if you take anything from the entire population in equal measure, its bound to affect the poor the most (because they’re the least capable of finding alternatives to the status quo). So in any such argument, they’d naturally become the front of the topic. If anyone is going to get fucked by a broad policy, it’s the poor.
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      Then why have any standards at all, if any expectations are discrimination?
      - setr 8y ago
        What? Who said anything about discrimination? You're going to build blanket standards and rules without acknowledging its effects on the population, and the proportion of the effects on different groups within that population? Without accounting for the migration process to the new standard? Without trying to minimize damage across the groups? Addendum: There is a world that exists, and there is an ideal image of the world. We aren't going to suddenly transfer to the ideal version, but we're perfectly capable of pretending we can in law. Congress is perfectly capable of arbitrarily requiring that all cars today meet 50mpg, and declaring it law. But we do not want to do that, because it would stupid, and shut down industries and cities across the nation. Regardless of whether this is what our ideal looks like, it's not a suggestion that takes us anywhere near it. When someone goes around advocating for it to people who do not already agree with it, the first question is whats wrong with it? And the first answer inevitably features the poor, because they're the most affected. And the next question is, by how much? And again, the best example is the poor, because they bear the brunt of the negatives. Everyone else will also eat shit, but they get the most of it, and so they show it off the most, making for the clearest example of what damages a blanket policy might incur.

mulmen 8y ago

80% of Americans live in cities. It’s entirely possible to reduce our reliance on individual car ownership.

closeparen 8y ago
Where “city” means “not rural.” The vast majority of those are in seas of sparsely packed single family homes separated from the nearest businesses by miles of busy roads, not walkable/urban/transit connected cores. Consider the Bay Area, population 7 million, with closer to 1 million of those in SF and Oakland. Then consider that the Sunset and Richmond, also basically suburbs, make up a huge chunk of SF’s land.