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There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN. Most will tell you that they aren't actually anti-car and they don't hate them - just

There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN. Most will tell you that they aren't actually anti-car and they don't hate them - just everything about them.

dc-programmer 5y ago
Maybe we just aren’t willing to accept 35k deaths (insert your countries count here) a year plus countless injuries to a problem that could easily be mitigated. The high human cost absolutely does not have to be the trade off of driving considering most car violence is the result of human error (breaking pre-existing laws)
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > easily be mitigated Your easy solution would be...?
  - dc-programmer 5y ago
    Enforcing existing traffic laws with consistency and social norming good driving behavior. Banning things never works but having people face the consequences of their actions on a consistent basis can change behavior
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      As an example, there are no traffic-related fatalities in the pedestrian-only streets in my city. There are also no pedestrian fatalities inside our mass-transit system. It’s all about priorities.
      - kcplate 5y ago
        Ahh yes, hyper-dense populated, walkable cities with good mass transit. Meanwhile where I live, we grow the food you city dwellers eat and to get to just about any store it’s at least a 10 mile trip. Maybe I’ll take the bus…oh wait…the nearest stop is 4 miles from my door.
        Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        ... Yes and? They pay the taxes that fund the development for the miles of power lines and piping that need to be placed to support non-city dwellers. We can play this game all day. Civilization is all about paying into the common good.
        kcplate 5y ago
        Ahh yes, thank you for being so generous to locate your power plants and waste treatment facilities out here and being so gracious to let us ride on your pipes and wires, while we generate the electricity you consume and clean the water you dirty. NIMBY right? However, since my comment was about the need for automobiles in rural areas because the distances between services are not supportive of mass transit and reasonable walkable distances. Folks that live in urban areas seem to forget that the bulk of this earth doesn’t have the luxury of a bus stop or train station a block away from their home and place of employment.
        rbanffy 5y ago
        You do understand that we are talking completely different things here. Obviously farmland is not the right place to put power plants (unless their emissions can be used to benefit crops - think reusing clean CO2 to feed crops in greenhouses) or waste treatment facilities (unless they produce fertilizers that can be used to increase crop yield). Nobody is proposing to ban cars where they are actually needed - and there are a lot of good use cases for cars, but densely populated cities ARE NOT one of them. Also, banning cars from rural areas would probably not make a dent in avoidable pedestrian deaths, as most of them happen in more densely populated areas (such as suburbs, which are kind of in the middle between rural and urban). I'd be totally fine with banning manual driving in suburban areas as soon as self-driving cars prove safer than humans. Furthermore, we could extend the mass-transit system with self-driving cars and trucks - no need to walk to the bus stop if you can have one pick you up by your door upon request. And, since it's per request, it doesn't even need to be a bus. Many short-term car-rental companies are looking for self-driving cars to remove the issue of having to pick up and return the car at a specified spot. For a long time I didn't have a bus stop near my door - what I did was drive (a 15-minute drive) to the subway station parking building and use my tax-deducted park+ride year-long pass to get to my office.
    - kcplate 5y ago
      Pretty sure in most places traffic laws are enforced as consistently as law enforcement can. You can’t really enforce a traffic law that you don’t see broken and most LEOs I know do traffic stops on violations they see.
lbebber 5y ago
Hahah I don't know if you meant that sarcastically, but I think I fit into that description--I do like, even love, driving, etc., but I do hate most of the consequences of having cars around.
Sharlin 5y ago
Yes, those are typically the people who know what the term negative externality means.
CarelessExpert 5y ago
> There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN And there's a significant population of folks who are bike-hostile here on HN. In fact, there's probably a significant population of folks who are X-hostile, for any value of X you can conceive of, given the size of the HN userbase. What's your point?
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  I think the point is to poison the well. When people point out an issue with cars, it isn't because they're using evidence-based reasoning, it's because they're just a bunch of nasty car haters (and communists.) Contrary to OP's assertions, I actually do enjoy cars, but I don't think they work well at all in the city. I think there are better solutions out there (Japan is a leading example.)
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    I am not trying to poison the well. I just can't help but observe how often people here post things anti-car and then ascribe all sorts of societal problems under the sun to the fact that the United States is so car-centric. I've also noticed that the car-hostile folks have a tendency to assume malice whenever someone defends the automobile. I mean right now I was just accused of poisoning the well. The GP mentioned that people here are bike-hostile, but you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism.
    - SantalBlush 5y ago
      >you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism. I think the reason we don't see dozens of submissions about how terrible bicycles are is because they don't kill car drivers to even remotely the same degree. I mean, come on.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN. Most will tell you that they aren't actually anti-car and they don't hate them - just everything about them.

dc-programmer 5y ago

Maybe we just aren’t willing to accept 35k deaths (insert your countries count here) a year plus countless injuries to a problem that could easily be mitigated. The high human cost absolutely does not have to be the trade off of driving considering most car violence is the result of human error (breaking pre-existing laws)

rootusrootus 5y ago
> easily be mitigated Your easy solution would be...?
- dc-programmer 5y ago
  Enforcing existing traffic laws with consistency and social norming good driving behavior. Banning things never works but having people face the consequences of their actions on a consistent basis can change behavior
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    As an example, there are no traffic-related fatalities in the pedestrian-only streets in my city. There are also no pedestrian fatalities inside our mass-transit system. It’s all about priorities.
    - kcplate 5y ago
      Ahh yes, hyper-dense populated, walkable cities with good mass transit. Meanwhile where I live, we grow the food you city dwellers eat and to get to just about any store it’s at least a 10 mile trip. Maybe I’ll take the bus…oh wait…the nearest stop is 4 miles from my door.
      - Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        ... Yes and? They pay the taxes that fund the development for the miles of power lines and piping that need to be placed to support non-city dwellers. We can play this game all day. Civilization is all about paying into the common good.
        kcplate 5y ago
        Ahh yes, thank you for being so generous to locate your power plants and waste treatment facilities out here and being so gracious to let us ride on your pipes and wires, while we generate the electricity you consume and clean the water you dirty. NIMBY right? However, since my comment was about the need for automobiles in rural areas because the distances between services are not supportive of mass transit and reasonable walkable distances. Folks that live in urban areas seem to forget that the bulk of this earth doesn’t have the luxury of a bus stop or train station a block away from their home and place of employment.
        rbanffy 5y ago
        You do understand that we are talking completely different things here. Obviously farmland is not the right place to put power plants (unless their emissions can be used to benefit crops - think reusing clean CO2 to feed crops in greenhouses) or waste treatment facilities (unless they produce fertilizers that can be used to increase crop yield). Nobody is proposing to ban cars where they are actually needed - and there are a lot of good use cases for cars, but densely populated cities ARE NOT one of them. Also, banning cars from rural areas would probably not make a dent in avoidable pedestrian deaths, as most of them happen in more densely populated areas (such as suburbs, which are kind of in the middle between rural and urban). I'd be totally fine with banning manual driving in suburban areas as soon as self-driving cars prove safer than humans. Furthermore, we could extend the mass-transit system with self-driving cars and trucks - no need to walk to the bus stop if you can have one pick you up by your door upon request. And, since it's per request, it doesn't even need to be a bus. Many short-term car-rental companies are looking for self-driving cars to remove the issue of having to pick up and return the car at a specified spot. For a long time I didn't have a bus stop near my door - what I did was drive (a 15-minute drive) to the subway station parking building and use my tax-deducted park+ride year-long pass to get to my office.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    Pretty sure in most places traffic laws are enforced as consistently as law enforcement can. You can’t really enforce a traffic law that you don’t see broken and most LEOs I know do traffic stops on violations they see.

lbebber 5y ago

Hahah I don't know if you meant that sarcastically, but I think I fit into that description--I do like, even love, driving, etc., but I do hate most of the consequences of having cars around.

Sharlin 5y ago

Yes, those are typically the people who know what the term negative externality means.

CarelessExpert 5y ago

> There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN And there's a significant population of folks who are bike-hostile here on HN. In fact, there's probably a significant population of folks who are X-hostile, for any value of X you can conceive of, given the size of the HN userbase. What's your point?

SantalBlush 5y ago
I think the point is to poison the well. When people point out an issue with cars, it isn't because they're using evidence-based reasoning, it's because they're just a bunch of nasty car haters (and communists.) Contrary to OP's assertions, I actually do enjoy cars, but I don't think they work well at all in the city. I think there are better solutions out there (Japan is a leading example.)
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I am not trying to poison the well. I just can't help but observe how often people here post things anti-car and then ascribe all sorts of societal problems under the sun to the fact that the United States is so car-centric. I've also noticed that the car-hostile folks have a tendency to assume malice whenever someone defends the automobile. I mean right now I was just accused of poisoning the well. The GP mentioned that people here are bike-hostile, but you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    >you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism. I think the reason we don't see dozens of submissions about how terrible bicycles are is because they don't kill car drivers to even remotely the same degree. I mean, come on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]