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Yes. Oil-based cars and trucks kill people in cities and exacerbate many illnesses like asthma. When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowe

Yes. Oil-based cars and trucks kill people in cities and exacerbate many illnesses like asthma. When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed.

sandworm101 6y ago
>> When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed. The engine tech may go away. The vehicles wont. CO2 doesn't cause asthma. Most particulates, at least from non-diesel vehicles, comes from things other than the enigne. Brake pads, tires, even the road surface itself. They all wear down, turning into dust, and get inhaled into our lungs. Electrification won't change that. One interesting line of research is carbon fiber fires, and increasing problem as many high-end EVs are using CF to reduce weight. One CF vehicle, on fire after an accident, will release a massive amount of very fine particulates that could drift on the wind for many miles.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  I'm increasingly convinced that allowing widespread use of automobiles on public roads will be regarded as one of the biggest societal-engineering blunders of all time. Between the health effects (of the cars and roads themselves, plus the secondary effects on physical activity) and the adjustments to city layouts plus extra costs eating most or all of the time-savings anyway, it's hard to see a clear upside. Granted much of that would have been difficult to discern when early decisions on the topic were being made, but that doesn't make it any less an error in its effects.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Look at what city slums were like before widespread motorized transporation. The ability to live in a different area than the coal plant where you worked was a massive improvement to health. Even today, with COVID, the ability to live in suburbs vs high-density inner city biuldings is a benifit. Then there are the knock-on social mobility benifits such as being able to switch jobs without having to move your family. Or, at a lower level, not having to rent your house/appartment/shack from your employer. Many people see cars as evil today, but realize that today is not yesturday.
    - iknowstuff 6y ago
      I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits of cycling, no pollution, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        The region I live in has about the same land area as the Netherlands, and less than 2% of the population. Of course we don't really have traffic problems, but I wonder how we are supposed to build similar amounts of infrastructure? Should we stop living here and move somewhere with more people?
        wolco 6y ago
        Move closer together, pool resources and allow nature to exist in the now empty space.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >it's hard to see a clear upside Vastly enhanced point-to-point mobility seems like a pretty clear upside to me. Absent cars, public transportation would doubtless be better. But people would have far less flexibility in where they lived, where they went for recreation, and in many other things.
    - spanhandler 6y ago
      The trouble is that, 1) cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles, so one must count against them the time it takes to pay for them (and if one is very exactly accounting, one might also place some portion of time spent on dedicated, otherwise-unproductive aerobic exercise against cars' account), and 2) once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads, enormous highway interchanges, and gigantic parking lots. The car's value, even absent its effects on health and the environment, seems unavoidably to dwindle to very little if too many of them are in use. Sparing use? Buses, perhaps, emergency vehicles, and possibly delivery trucks? Probably a solid, significant improvement. Individual automobile use on public streets in and around urban areas, and all the adjustments necessary for that to happen or consequent of car-influenced growth patterns? Way, way murkier than one might initially expect, but now very expensive and difficult to reverse regardless, so we're stuck spending a lot more to travel farther and save, if we buy cheap cars and have a high paying job, a little time.
      - CapricornNoble 6y ago
        >>>cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles Walking and bicycles provide no protection from the elements. Depending on where you live and your occupation, the ability to travel in climate-controlled conditions and arrive with your work clothes unsoiled can be a massive utility benefit. >>once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads I'd argue that the land area dedicated to roads is a small portion of what forces businesses apart, and that low-density construction and inherently smaller buildings is the major contributing factor. There's only so many shops you can fit into 3-story buildings with narrow footpath-like streets between them. Hanoi is a good example of that. 48QWJ8705424314 (MGRS, paste into Google Maps)
  - seangrogg 6y ago
    I feel like vehicles personal vehicles will be considered a societal-engineering blunder when we have personal teleportation available as an alternative.
    - spanhandler 6y ago
      The widespread existence of them has made everything grow farther apart, due to their needing lots and lots of space and people not wanting to be close to where they're traveling, and they're quite expensive, and for most people it takes time to make money. Their value as a time-saving device in a world that has adjusted for their presence is less overwhelmingly-positive than one might think.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Compare that against the alternative - horses. Horses were a huge sanitary problem - manure and dead horses. Horses also simply killed a lot of people, as they are big and strong and not always controllable.
    - sitkack 6y ago
      I talked to a 60 year old cowboy about the dangers of horses and asked him how many times he was stepped on. Twice. From 7yo to his early sixties. Given that horses are active participants in traffic and they will go out of their way to not step on you, they would seem to be orders of magnitude safer compared to cars.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        How many times had he gotten hit by a car in the same timeframe?
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        I've been stepped on by a horse and my total time dealing with horses is probably less than an hour. Besides, I'd expect a professional cowboy to know how to protect himself from horses, just like a professional driver is going to have fewer car accidents.
        ithkuil 6y ago
        We're all "professional pedestrians" too (on some countries at least even trained as such from early age). You probably weren't prepared appropriately for your encounter with horses.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        From what I understand there were an awful lot of injuries from horses.
        6y ago
  - tomp 6y ago
    > the adjustments to city layouts This might be a controversial opinion but I think that's a big plus. Look at old European cities with tiny streets that were mostly designed in times before carriages & cars; vs modern American cities (e.g. upper Manhattan) with large streets, a lot of driving and walking space, etc. Sure, the European model might be more romantic but the US one is definitely more functional (density isn't an issue either; London is much less dense than Manhattan).
    - stainforth 6y ago
      Yes let's build our reality around our vehicles and not ourselves. Ridiculous. Talk about the alienation that capitalism has created.
      - ican1 6y ago
        I see this line trotted out frequently but this criticism never made much sense to me. The vehicles exist to benefit us. They are either directly transporting us or transporting goods to be used by us. They don’t exist for an independent reason. So if the streets are designed for vehicles it’s ultimately to benefit humans.
    - iknowstuff 6y ago
      I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
    - 8note 6y ago
      What's cheaper with these wide roads? By how much?
    - grey-area 6y ago
      It's certainly more functional for drivers to have large streets with room for lots of cars, but should our cities be designed around cars or humans?
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Absolutely agreed. Tons of knee jerks against this, but I'm almost positive future society will conclude this, unless it's too screwed up itself to spend much effort judging the past.
- Const-me 6y ago
  > Electrification won't change that True for tires and road, but EVs wear brake pads much slower, due to regenerative breaking.
  - mantas 6y ago
    Not only EVs do regenerative braking. And then there’s old good engine braking in manual IC cars.
    - cik2e 6y ago
      Almost every automatic nowadays gives you a couple of gears to play with. I always downshift on curves or when braking to a stop. I also drive a hybrid and downshifting guarantees regenerative braking whereas with the pedal it’s easy to over do it and engage the pads.
    - grey-area 6y ago
      That's not regenerative, it wastes more fuel and produces more pollution.
      - mantas 6y ago
        How engine braking wastes fuel?
        grey-area 6y ago
        Because you're still running the engine and it doesn't store and reuse the energy from braking.
        mantas 6y ago
        Some IC cars do charge car battery while braking. And IC engine, when engine braking, uses virtually no fuel. Meanwhile being in neutral does use fuel.
- grey-area 6y ago
  Exposure to pollution caused by cars and other vehicles is strongly correlated with asthma.[0] I'm glad you mention CO2, which does cause global warming, we might want to try to fix that too before it is too late? Carbon Fibre is expensive and irrelevant, and fires from it even more so, unless you want to minimise the impact of oil based cars on health in cities. Most popular EVs don't use it. Traffic is a major source of particulates (20-30%) [1] so reducing it would help a lot, in particular diesel cars and trucks, though yes some things like rubber from tyres would only be helped by traffic reduction, simply switching to EVs would help a lot. Moving to walking, bikes and public transport for most journeys in cities is the sustainable answer I suspect we'll end up at, and from that future our reliance on individual polluting cars will seem insane. It would require a rethink of some city planning of course, but many people happily live without cars in Europe at the moment. 0. https://airqualitynews.com/2020/02/07/air-pollution-responsible-for-half-of-childhood-asthma-cases-in-barcelona/ https://airqualitynews.com/2020/02/07/air-pollution-responsi... 1. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/what-are-main-sources-urban-air-pollution https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/what-are-main-sources-urban...
CapricornNoble 6y ago
>>>When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed. Because they're FUN. https://youtu.be/-mqXXqB7SBQ https://youtu.be/-mqXXqB7SBQ Just like eating red meat. It has consequences for you health, but bacon-wrapped filet mignon, in moderation, is worth the consequences.
- grey-area 6y ago
  I'm happy for you to make that sacrifice to your health, I'm not happy for you to impose the health consequences on your poorer neighbours (as happens driving a car in a city).
refurb 6y ago
People are going to wonder why cars and trucks were allowed? A core part of our transportation network that delivers nearly every product we purchase and moves people around so they can work and have a social life. People are going to wonder that?
- grey-area 6y ago
  Cars do very few deliveries, and hard as it might be to imagine in a US city designed around cars, they're simply unnecessary in a dense city, in fact they negatively impact everyone else. Diesel trucks do not belong in cities IMO. Yes, people are going to wonder why it was ok to kill others with pollution by driving through cities with combustion engines.

Yes. Oil-based cars and trucks kill people in cities and exacerbate many illnesses like asthma. When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed.

sandworm101 6y ago

>> When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed. The engine tech may go away. The vehicles wont. CO2 doesn't cause asthma. Most particulates, at least from non-diesel vehicles, comes from things other than the enigne. Brake pads, tires, even the road surface itself. They all wear down, turning into dust, and get inhaled into our lungs. Electrification won't change that. One interesting line of research is carbon fiber fires, and increasing problem as many high-end EVs are using CF to reduce weight. One CF vehicle, on fire after an accident, will release a massive amount of very fine particulates that could drift on the wind for many miles.

spanhandler 6y ago
I'm increasingly convinced that allowing widespread use of automobiles on public roads will be regarded as one of the biggest societal-engineering blunders of all time. Between the health effects (of the cars and roads themselves, plus the secondary effects on physical activity) and the adjustments to city layouts plus extra costs eating most or all of the time-savings anyway, it's hard to see a clear upside. Granted much of that would have been difficult to discern when early decisions on the topic were being made, but that doesn't make it any less an error in its effects.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  Look at what city slums were like before widespread motorized transporation. The ability to live in a different area than the coal plant where you worked was a massive improvement to health. Even today, with COVID, the ability to live in suburbs vs high-density inner city biuldings is a benifit. Then there are the knock-on social mobility benifits such as being able to switch jobs without having to move your family. Or, at a lower level, not having to rent your house/appartment/shack from your employer. Many people see cars as evil today, but realize that today is not yesturday.
  - iknowstuff 6y ago
    I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits of cycling, no pollution, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      The region I live in has about the same land area as the Netherlands, and less than 2% of the population. Of course we don't really have traffic problems, but I wonder how we are supposed to build similar amounts of infrastructure? Should we stop living here and move somewhere with more people?
      - wolco 6y ago
        Move closer together, pool resources and allow nature to exist in the now empty space.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >it's hard to see a clear upside Vastly enhanced point-to-point mobility seems like a pretty clear upside to me. Absent cars, public transportation would doubtless be better. But people would have far less flexibility in where they lived, where they went for recreation, and in many other things.
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    The trouble is that, 1) cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles, so one must count against them the time it takes to pay for them (and if one is very exactly accounting, one might also place some portion of time spent on dedicated, otherwise-unproductive aerobic exercise against cars' account), and 2) once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads, enormous highway interchanges, and gigantic parking lots. The car's value, even absent its effects on health and the environment, seems unavoidably to dwindle to very little if too many of them are in use. Sparing use? Buses, perhaps, emergency vehicles, and possibly delivery trucks? Probably a solid, significant improvement. Individual automobile use on public streets in and around urban areas, and all the adjustments necessary for that to happen or consequent of car-influenced growth patterns? Way, way murkier than one might initially expect, but now very expensive and difficult to reverse regardless, so we're stuck spending a lot more to travel farther and save, if we buy cheap cars and have a high paying job, a little time.
    - CapricornNoble 6y ago
      >>>cars are much more expensive, when you tally it all up, than walking and bicycles Walking and bicycles provide no protection from the elements. Depending on where you live and your occupation, the ability to travel in climate-controlled conditions and arrive with your work clothes unsoiled can be a massive utility benefit. >>once a city's adjusted its girth to account for cars, the points most often factoring into ones point-to-point mobility are much farther apart than they'd have been without adjustments made due to widespread use of cars. Notably this doesn't include only people choosing to move farther apart, but everything being pushed apart by large setbacks from unpleasant roads I'd argue that the land area dedicated to roads is a small portion of what forces businesses apart, and that low-density construction and inherently smaller buildings is the major contributing factor. There's only so many shops you can fit into 3-story buildings with narrow footpath-like streets between them. Hanoi is a good example of that. 48QWJ8705424314 (MGRS, paste into Google Maps)
- seangrogg 6y ago
  I feel like vehicles personal vehicles will be considered a societal-engineering blunder when we have personal teleportation available as an alternative.
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    The widespread existence of them has made everything grow farther apart, due to their needing lots and lots of space and people not wanting to be close to where they're traveling, and they're quite expensive, and for most people it takes time to make money. Their value as a time-saving device in a world that has adjusted for their presence is less overwhelmingly-positive than one might think.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Compare that against the alternative - horses. Horses were a huge sanitary problem - manure and dead horses. Horses also simply killed a lot of people, as they are big and strong and not always controllable.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    I talked to a 60 year old cowboy about the dangers of horses and asked him how many times he was stepped on. Twice. From 7yo to his early sixties. Given that horses are active participants in traffic and they will go out of their way to not step on you, they would seem to be orders of magnitude safer compared to cars.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      How many times had he gotten hit by a car in the same timeframe?
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      I've been stepped on by a horse and my total time dealing with horses is probably less than an hour. Besides, I'd expect a professional cowboy to know how to protect himself from horses, just like a professional driver is going to have fewer car accidents.
      - ithkuil 6y ago
        We're all "professional pedestrians" too (on some countries at least even trained as such from early age). You probably weren't prepared appropriately for your encounter with horses.
        WalterBright 6y ago
        From what I understand there were an awful lot of injuries from horses.
        6y ago
- tomp 6y ago
  > the adjustments to city layouts This might be a controversial opinion but I think that's a big plus. Look at old European cities with tiny streets that were mostly designed in times before carriages & cars; vs modern American cities (e.g. upper Manhattan) with large streets, a lot of driving and walking space, etc. Sure, the European model might be more romantic but the US one is definitely more functional (density isn't an issue either; London is much less dense than Manhattan).
  - stainforth 6y ago
    Yes let's build our reality around our vehicles and not ourselves. Ridiculous. Talk about the alienation that capitalism has created.
    - ican1 6y ago
      I see this line trotted out frequently but this criticism never made much sense to me. The vehicles exist to benefit us. They are either directly transporting us or transporting goods to be used by us. They don’t exist for an independent reason. So if the streets are designed for vehicles it’s ultimately to benefit humans.
  - iknowstuff 6y ago
    I highly recommend researching the Dutch street design. By explicitly avoiding freeways and encouraging biking, they save so much time (no traffic) and money (think long term health benefits, cheaper infrastructure, lower reliance on fossil fuels, fewer accidents, more visits to local businesses) it's insane the rest of the world isn't copying them ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4
  - 8note 6y ago
    What's cheaper with these wide roads? By how much?
  - grey-area 6y ago
    It's certainly more functional for drivers to have large streets with room for lots of cars, but should our cities be designed around cars or humans?
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Absolutely agreed. Tons of knee jerks against this, but I'm almost positive future society will conclude this, unless it's too screwed up itself to spend much effort judging the past.
Const-me 6y ago
> Electrification won't change that True for tires and road, but EVs wear brake pads much slower, due to regenerative breaking.
- mantas 6y ago
  Not only EVs do regenerative braking. And then there’s old good engine braking in manual IC cars.
  - cik2e 6y ago
    Almost every automatic nowadays gives you a couple of gears to play with. I always downshift on curves or when braking to a stop. I also drive a hybrid and downshifting guarantees regenerative braking whereas with the pedal it’s easy to over do it and engage the pads.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    That's not regenerative, it wastes more fuel and produces more pollution.
    - mantas 6y ago
      How engine braking wastes fuel?
      - grey-area 6y ago
        Because you're still running the engine and it doesn't store and reuse the energy from braking.
        mantas 6y ago
        Some IC cars do charge car battery while braking. And IC engine, when engine braking, uses virtually no fuel. Meanwhile being in neutral does use fuel.
grey-area 6y ago
Exposure to pollution caused by cars and other vehicles is strongly correlated with asthma.[0] I'm glad you mention CO2, which does cause global warming, we might want to try to fix that too before it is too late? Carbon Fibre is expensive and irrelevant, and fires from it even more so, unless you want to minimise the impact of oil based cars on health in cities. Most popular EVs don't use it. Traffic is a major source of particulates (20-30%) [1] so reducing it would help a lot, in particular diesel cars and trucks, though yes some things like rubber from tyres would only be helped by traffic reduction, simply switching to EVs would help a lot. Moving to walking, bikes and public transport for most journeys in cities is the sustainable answer I suspect we'll end up at, and from that future our reliance on individual polluting cars will seem insane. It would require a rethink of some city planning of course, but many people happily live without cars in Europe at the moment. 0. https://airqualitynews.com/2020/02/07/air-pollution-responsible-for-half-of-childhood-asthma-cases-in-barcelona/ https://airqualitynews.com/2020/02/07/air-pollution-responsi... 1. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/what-are-main-sources-urban-air-pollution https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/what-are-main-sources-urban...

CapricornNoble 6y ago

>>>When they are gone people will wonder why they were ever allowed. Because they're FUN. https://youtu.be/-mqXXqB7SBQ https://youtu.be/-mqXXqB7SBQ Just like eating red meat. It has consequences for you health, but bacon-wrapped filet mignon, in moderation, is worth the consequences.

grey-area 6y ago
I'm happy for you to make that sacrifice to your health, I'm not happy for you to impose the health consequences on your poorer neighbours (as happens driving a car in a city).

refurb 6y ago

People are going to wonder why cars and trucks were allowed? A core part of our transportation network that delivers nearly every product we purchase and moves people around so they can work and have a social life. People are going to wonder that?

grey-area 6y ago
Cars do very few deliveries, and hard as it might be to imagine in a US city designed around cars, they're simply unnecessary in a dense city, in fact they negatively impact everyone else. Diesel trucks do not belong in cities IMO. Yes, people are going to wonder why it was ok to kill others with pollution by driving through cities with combustion engines.