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The US is so car dependent that it's very politically fraught to make it harder to get a driver's license. Not allowing a person to drive in much of the US is a

The US is so car dependent that it's very politically fraught to make it harder to get a driver's license. Not allowing a person to drive in much of the US is a matter of equity; people that can't drive can't make it to their jobs, can't buy their groceries, etc. What that means of course is that the US usually just knowingly increases the risk of non-drivers because of its brittle dependence on cars, and thus disincentivizes people in most parts of the US from ever not-driving. Woe to you if you don't drive because the US isn't setup for transit equity.

spamizbad 5y ago
I dunno, some of this is also the fact the US people are huge babies about certain things, like being able to walk places. For example, there was a reddit thread from an American flabbergasted that people in the UK will actually go on 30-minute-long walks down to their local shops. Is a 30 minute walk really that absurd?
- bluGill 5y ago
  > Is a 30 minute walk really that absurd? Yes, because the number of stores in that 30 minutes is so low. Most of them are also setup for cars, including selling quantities that assume a car to get home.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  It's a set of interrelated issues. Much of the US is zoned/regulated to be friendly to drivers and not pedestrians. For an egregious example, most of Downtown LA (so not the suburbs) you can walk for 30 minutes and maybe only see 5 different stores. Because of this, American culture has stopped talking about walking. As such for a lot of Americans, walking for 30 minutes to get somewhere is absurd culturally, but driving 30 minutes to go to a store is much more acceptable. You can see the effect even more when it comes to recreational hobbies and sports. Americans don't really just walk or bike around. Walking and biking/cycling are usually specific activities, so most Americans buy special exercise clothing or exercise gear to go (by car) to specific spots friendly for walking and cycling to perform their recreational activities and come back. Walking is still a popular casual activity in urban areas but in a lot of suburban areas there aren't even the sidewalks in place to make it safe to walk around. Most Americans only really dress/prepare for the walk from their house to the car and from the car to the store/office/destination, then back if they're not specifically out to perform their recreational athletic hobbies.
- TeaDrunk 5y ago
  Depending on region, a 30 minute walk can be dangerous to one's health due to hot, humid temperatures or smoke inhalation. (Besides that, a 30 minute walk can be inconvenient- the stuff you're buying might not support being carried for 30 minutes. I tried to get a friend to consider giving up a car-based life and they asked me how they're going to move their stuff for LAN parties and gun hobby related activities.)
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  A 30min walk would get me to two convenience stores and a doughnut shop. It would take me about 1hr to walk (briskly) to the nearest grocery store. And I live in a city where the zoning can be described as "we'll rubber stamp literally anything that isn't hazmat processing we're desperate for money". And this is a ~150yo neighrborhood in a multi-hundred year old city in the northeast, not some socal dump that was built out long after the advent of cars.
- tdeck 5y ago
  People in the US have developed an aversion to walking because our built environment makes it terrible. For example, watch this video from about 4:25 on showing a typical urban pedestrian journey the US: https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54 https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54 (One thing the narrator mentions is shade: Keep in mind that Houston is a hot city, with temperatures often above 30c during the summer.) But that's not unusual at all. In fact, where I grew up in Pennsylvania many roads had literally no sidewalk. Let's say I want to walk into town where my parents live. I'd be going down this road (you can follow along on street view): https://maps.app.goo.gl/huqH4kcT3h667RZr7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/huqH4kcT3h667RZr7 That's a narrow road, but don't let it fool you. People there drive fast and they're in a hurry. They certainly do not expect to see someone trudging along the berm of the road. Or more likely in a muddy ditch beside the road, because Pennsylvania is wet and that's the safest way to not get hit by a car. If you walk along into North Wales, PA, pay attention to the pedestrian infrastructure. Where are there sidewalks? Are there crossing signals? How would you know when it's safe to cross? Now imagine doing this in the evening (note: there are no streetlights).
ryantgtg 5y ago
The lack of a license doesn’t necessarily prevent people from driving. Making it harder, or more severe punishments for poor driving, would not only result in fewer drivers on the road but also more “undocumented” drivers.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > The lack of a license doesn’t necessarily prevent people from driving. OK, but you need to first decide whether the state should require a license to drive in the first place. And if it requires a license, whether this license should be required to identify you or not. Because you are going to have a hard time with a licensing system in which the license cannot identify the holder. Maybe it shouldn't. That's a useful and honest discussion to have. What is not a useful or honest discussion is whether we should require it but not really enforce the requirement. If you require it, then you should enforce it, and you should not refuse to enforce it because you think that enforcing it does more harm than good. If it's really true than enforcement does more harm than good, then don't require it. But this idea that group X should meet some standard, but group Y can meet a lower standard, is lawless and discriminatory. It violates the principle of equal treatment before the law, and it destroys the willingness of society to abide by laws. It creates a population of lawbreakers that can be the victim of selective enforcement, e.g. to punish enemies, while it rewards friends by promising to not enforce the laws. This is basically institutionalized corruption in the sense of the old machines like Tammany Hall. It's when you get to a situation where government can destroy enemies by deciding to enforce laws against them, because there are so many laws whose enforcement is arbitrary. That goes for every aspect of controlling our borders and deciding who can come here. If you want to make an argument for open borders, go ahead. There is legit intellectual case to make for that. But don't say, well, for one group we should enforce things but for another group we shouldn't, because then law abiding people end up waiting for years (my parents waited for 10 years to be able to come to the U.S. legally) while others just overstay their tourist visa (my mother's relatives did that). That's discriminatory and lawless, and sets you up for a system in which those who obey the law are recognized as suckers and forced to subsidize those who do not.
  - ryantgtg 5y ago

spamizbad 5y ago

I dunno, some of this is also the fact the US people are huge babies about certain things, like being able to walk places. For example, there was a reddit thread from an American flabbergasted that people in the UK will actually go on 30-minute-long walks down to their local shops. Is a 30 minute walk really that absurd?

bluGill 5y ago
> Is a 30 minute walk really that absurd? Yes, because the number of stores in that 30 minutes is so low. Most of them are also setup for cars, including selling quantities that assume a car to get home.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
It's a set of interrelated issues. Much of the US is zoned/regulated to be friendly to drivers and not pedestrians. For an egregious example, most of Downtown LA (so not the suburbs) you can walk for 30 minutes and maybe only see 5 different stores. Because of this, American culture has stopped talking about walking. As such for a lot of Americans, walking for 30 minutes to get somewhere is absurd culturally, but driving 30 minutes to go to a store is much more acceptable. You can see the effect even more when it comes to recreational hobbies and sports. Americans don't really just walk or bike around. Walking and biking/cycling are usually specific activities, so most Americans buy special exercise clothing or exercise gear to go (by car) to specific spots friendly for walking and cycling to perform their recreational activities and come back. Walking is still a popular casual activity in urban areas but in a lot of suburban areas there aren't even the sidewalks in place to make it safe to walk around. Most Americans only really dress/prepare for the walk from their house to the car and from the car to the store/office/destination, then back if they're not specifically out to perform their recreational athletic hobbies.
TeaDrunk 5y ago
Depending on region, a 30 minute walk can be dangerous to one's health due to hot, humid temperatures or smoke inhalation. (Besides that, a 30 minute walk can be inconvenient- the stuff you're buying might not support being carried for 30 minutes. I tried to get a friend to consider giving up a car-based life and they asked me how they're going to move their stuff for LAN parties and gun hobby related activities.)
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
A 30min walk would get me to two convenience stores and a doughnut shop. It would take me about 1hr to walk (briskly) to the nearest grocery store. And I live in a city where the zoning can be described as "we'll rubber stamp literally anything that isn't hazmat processing we're desperate for money". And this is a ~150yo neighrborhood in a multi-hundred year old city in the northeast, not some socal dump that was built out long after the advent of cars.
tdeck 5y ago
People in the US have developed an aversion to walking because our built environment makes it terrible. For example, watch this video from about 4:25 on showing a typical urban pedestrian journey the US: https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54 https://youtu.be/uxykI30fS54 (One thing the narrator mentions is shade: Keep in mind that Houston is a hot city, with temperatures often above 30c during the summer.) But that's not unusual at all. In fact, where I grew up in Pennsylvania many roads had literally no sidewalk. Let's say I want to walk into town where my parents live. I'd be going down this road (you can follow along on street view): https://maps.app.goo.gl/huqH4kcT3h667RZr7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/huqH4kcT3h667RZr7 That's a narrow road, but don't let it fool you. People there drive fast and they're in a hurry. They certainly do not expect to see someone trudging along the berm of the road. Or more likely in a muddy ditch beside the road, because Pennsylvania is wet and that's the safest way to not get hit by a car. If you walk along into North Wales, PA, pay attention to the pedestrian infrastructure. Where are there sidewalks? Are there crossing signals? How would you know when it's safe to cross? Now imagine doing this in the evening (note: there are no streetlights).

ryantgtg 5y ago

The lack of a license doesn’t necessarily prevent people from driving. Making it harder, or more severe punishments for poor driving, would not only result in fewer drivers on the road but also more “undocumented” drivers.

rsj_hn 5y ago
> The lack of a license doesn’t necessarily prevent people from driving. OK, but you need to first decide whether the state should require a license to drive in the first place. And if it requires a license, whether this license should be required to identify you or not. Because you are going to have a hard time with a licensing system in which the license cannot identify the holder. Maybe it shouldn't. That's a useful and honest discussion to have. What is not a useful or honest discussion is whether we should require it but not really enforce the requirement. If you require it, then you should enforce it, and you should not refuse to enforce it because you think that enforcing it does more harm than good. If it's really true than enforcement does more harm than good, then don't require it. But this idea that group X should meet some standard, but group Y can meet a lower standard, is lawless and discriminatory. It violates the principle of equal treatment before the law, and it destroys the willingness of society to abide by laws. It creates a population of lawbreakers that can be the victim of selective enforcement, e.g. to punish enemies, while it rewards friends by promising to not enforce the laws. This is basically institutionalized corruption in the sense of the old machines like Tammany Hall. It's when you get to a situation where government can destroy enemies by deciding to enforce laws against them, because there are so many laws whose enforcement is arbitrary. That goes for every aspect of controlling our borders and deciding who can come here. If you want to make an argument for open borders, go ahead. There is legit intellectual case to make for that. But don't say, well, for one group we should enforce things but for another group we shouldn't, because then law abiding people end up waiting for years (my parents waited for 10 years to be able to come to the U.S. legally) while others just overstay their tourist visa (my mother's relatives did that). That's discriminatory and lawless, and sets you up for a system in which those who obey the law are recognized as suckers and forced to subsidize those who do not.
- ryantgtg 5y ago