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Im am anti car zealot. I'm labelling so my self auto-ironically (no pun intended), as i own a car, but i prefer cities with less cars. I'm angry how often we ex

Im am anti car zealot. I'm labelling so my self auto-ironically (no pun intended), as i own a car, but i prefer cities with less cars. I'm angry how often we externalise damage generated by cars to someone else. We are technically capable to produce silent cars, yet we somehow try to workaround this by building houses of different materials? How backwards that is instead of just legally limiting the sound levels for newly produced cars. And eventually cars will have only rolling noice. But then someone would say oh but then cars are dangerous when they are silent, let's install speakers in them so pedestrians can hear approaching car and move out of the way. See what's happening here? Instead of jus making a car unable (auto breaks) to hit a pedestrian, we are doing some silly workarounds (ok, no silly but cost saving) to emit noise and shift the burden of moving out of the way to the pedestrian. Again polluting city with noice. Done ranting. Have not touched pollution, wight, speed limits and general car infrastructure :) Time to get my morning coffee. P.S yes, i'm very much influenced by "Not Just Bikes". Youtube channel about European city planning (human/bike oriented) https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes

atoav 3y ago
Societies thinking around cars really shows just how "unnoticeable" the influence of something becomes once it is ubiquitous. In a car-based world everything takes the shape of cars, and the crazy thing is, that many people won't even see how unusual that is. I once lived next to a busy inrush road in a city. Once a week I could wipe black grime from my balcony desk. Every second night I would wake up from people speeding or trucks rushing through. One day I spent on the balcony counting cars. 100% of the SUVs had only one person in it. But the worst thing was the noise. I didn't notice back then, and I am not a sensitive person (I play in a noise rock band), but when I moved and was in a silent new flat, it felt as if someone had lifted a rock from my chest. And let's not think about the black grime. Cities and cars are not a good mix, unless you own a car and don't care about the people living there. I especially dislike how naturally we are expected to yield public space to ever-bigger cars for only minor fees.
- Ma8ee 3y ago
  What I find most striking is that people with very rudimentary training are allowed to use machinery of 1.5 tons and more, in public, in the vicinity of unprotected bystanders. This leads to about 43,000 deaths per year in the US alone. And for some reason this is considered normal.
  - atoav 3y ago
    In the meantime you have safety trainings for how to use a ladder properly in your org. Don't get me wrong, work accidents do happen with ladders, and training/inspection can prevent them, but the risk stemming from ladders doesn't compare to cars. The way society accepts risks tells a lot about that society.
    - Ma8ee 3y ago
      If cars weren’t so ubiquitous otherwise in society, it would probably require several months of training to be licensed to drive a car in the workplace. And then you wouldn’t be allowed to drive faster than 15 mph except in special fenced in areas.
      - atoav 3y ago
        I mean I got my driving license in a country where the fast way of doing it takes 6 months and includes driving on a test pad where multiple dangerous situations are simulated: - a wet road and you drive over a "moveable" section of road and as soon as your front wheels are over it jerks the rear wheels randomly to either the left and the right ans you need to recover - a course that you drive through and randomly a wall of water emerges from holes in the street and you need to safely stop or avoid the obstacle (this teaches you about the safe stopping distance and problems that can emerge when you suddenly try to avoid things) with and without ESP - driving too fast around curves on purpose - trying to do similar things while multitasking in the vehicle to demonstrate how bad that influences your performance I don't know what the level needed is in the US (I grew up in Austria), but even with that training I still feel cars are taken not seriously enough.
mynameisnoone 3y ago
Perhaps if we're going to continue to have highways through cities, containing their noise and emissions should be a priority rather than shifting externalities as various kinds of pollution onto neighbors and visitors. Build residences that are each bunkers with massive walls, airlocks, and HEPA filtration is probably not going to scale to all demographics very well. I think (the US) needs more public transportation that gets people out of single-occupant vehicles without imposing time, money, or practicality costs onto them.
throwaway346434 3y ago
Yeah, but also, nah. You can regulate cars and get 90% to a level society can deal with happily. But then you get a hoon in a performance vehicle doing a burnout in suburbia, and the police twin engine helicopter thrumming overhead tracking them down. Or the neighbours who enjoy Vietnamese karaoke, or the neighbours having a domestic on the street. These aren't the most fun aspects of living in a community (unless you get invited for the karaoke!); but they benefit from ambient noise cancellation.
- Doxin 3y ago
  I feel like you're underestimating how loud cars in regular use are. On my walk over to the supermarket I basically have to shout if I want to have a conversation. No one is driving especially loudly and in fact the problem is mostly tire noise.
  - spockz 3y ago
    Where do you live? When I was still living in the city we could talk outside at a slightly raised voice when walking or biking. You had to speak in the direction of the other person obviously. Only sometimes at something like a gas station you have to really raise your voice.
    - Doxin 3y ago
      > Where do you live? The Netherlands > When I was still living in the city we could talk outside at a slightly raised voice when walking or biking. True for most parts of the city I live in too, but that's mostly because in most parts of the city there's either no cars or very slow cars or only one car within hearing distance at a time. As soon as you're walking along a busy road where the speed limit is 50km/h it starts getting loud. It's quite possible there's some cultural influence here too. Dutch people don't tend to speak especially loudly when compared to e.g. Americans.
  - serf 3y ago
    are you walking along a high-speed interstate? I live in LA and the vehicle noise is negligible on any walk to anywhere compared to the low roar of the sounds of living otherwise -- unless you happen to get some muffler-less asshole driving his shitbox next to you; but that same rule applies just about anywhere. I guess it could be a benefit of the low speed LA traffic? Personally anytime i'm near traffic the stuff that bugs me is exhaust and brake/clutch dust. Nothing like a hot semi truck parking next to you in traffic after a long downhill stretch to cool his brakes and douse you in friction-material fumes while he waits for the light to turn green.
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
> Instead of jus making a car unable (auto breaks) to hit a pedestrian, we are doing some silly workarounds I have a car which auto-brakes when an obstacle is ahead. Usually helps when parking in tight spots, or when backing out — its systems have wider FOV than I do, and it warns of incoming cars of pedestrians a fraction of a second before I can see them, which is good. Except when the weather conditions or something on the road trigger a false positive and I suddenly go from 45-50 km/h to full stop. It's also a lot of adrenaline fun for the drivers behind me. Happened twice last year. So no. A speaker is more reliable and robust and simple a solution.
- bigfudge 3y ago
  Separating your car from unprotected humans is the solution. Your right to drive a 2 tonne machine through residential streets where other people live and their kids play is a historical and cultural anomaly. Let’s not pretend the solution is speakers to get pedestrians jumping quicker.
  - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
    I welcome you to design such a block of streets, though keep in mind that it still needs to be maintained. Also when you have a grocery shop, something needs to load and unload groceries. Also, you have fire trucks, ambulances, police cars that need to have access.
    - vincnetas 3y ago
      Emergency vehicles do have these things called sirens. I'm not against them. Thats an emergency after all.
      - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
        I wasn't talking about sirens at all. You make vehicle-friendly neighborhoods if you want emergency vehicles to be able to get there. The moment there are vehicle-friendly neighborhoods, the locals will inevitably come with reasons and excuses to have their cars parked as close to their house entrances as it gets. You don't win against human nature.
hawski 3y ago
Other than cars with mufflers cut out most car noise (above a certain speed) is the tire noise. At least that's how I understand it. Not to say it wouldn't be nice if cars would be otherwise silent, but i.e. highway noise wouldn't be significantly quieter with BEVs all around. Could you tell me what do you mean by technical capability to produce silent cars?
- vincnetas 3y ago
  Tire noise is related to speed and (i'm guessing weight of car). Usually you don't live near highway, so urban street noice levels would be much lower when there would be no engine noise car would not weight 2+ tones and preferably would use low noise tires (quiet tires).
- bigfudge 3y ago
  car tires are wide. Much wider than they need to be to do same speeds on normal roads. This is fashion driven and encourages drivers to go faster than they should. It also wastes fuel and makes more noise. We could tax car tires by width and gain a lot.
  - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
    Not only fashion, when driving on icy roads, every square centimeter of contact surface counts.
    - vincnetas 3y ago
      It counts, but does it in a meaningful amount? We are not on a race track. There is no need to be faster by 0.01 second. If road conditions are averse, slow down. You are not expected to WIN morning commute.
      - lostlogin 3y ago
        > You are not expected to WIN morning commute. This is my favourite bit about cycling. The commute is a race. It’s often with others, but the likes of Strava gamify it such that you are racing yourself too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bongodongobob 3y ago
I appreciate your sentiment but go to Google maps and take a look at at any non-coastal state. There's just no way cars are going away. Short of a quintillion dollar restructuring of our country, it's a complete pipe dream. Id encourage you to be pro clean/public transportation rather than anti car. Zealotry gets us nowhere.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  No, anti car. There was recently a pro-car terrorist attack in London. I am not kidding - someome made a bomb and blew up a lamppost with cameras for reading number plates. Its hardly been reported. Can you imagine the coverage if the climate protesters blew up a betrol station, or god forbid, if this was something to do with currst conflict in the middle east? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/bomb-attack-ulez-camera-grotesquely-irresponsible-london-mayor https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/bomb-att... So why anti-wcar? So in inner London, like 40% of households have a car but 90% of public space is roads. When u suggest that maybe the 60% deserve at least 20% of space for walking and cycling, you get labeleled anti car. People complain about having like 8 coherent cycleways across all of london taking up too much road space, compared to thousands of roads. People complain about not being allowed to drive ancient diesel vehicles that kills kids eith astma. Fine then, I am anti-car.
  - LeanderK 3y ago
    same in berlin. Someone blew up repeatedly the same speed measuring tower for cars on a somewhat major road (https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/berlin-charlottenburg-explosion-von-blitzer-am-kurfuerstendamm-li.2167565 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/berlin-charlottenburg-e...) I am also anti-car, not anti-car everywhere but they just don't belong in cities.
  - bongodongobob 3y ago
    I'm pro practical and pro blow shit up if you have to, but I don't know what your point is. Look at a map. Just zoom around the entire US, that isn't on the coast, and tell me how you're going to get rid of cars.
ricardobayes 3y ago
Unless you have a souped up engine/exhaust, most of the sound of a car comes from the tires rolling (at highway speed).
slifin 3y ago
100% agree I think there's a perception too that before cars there were just horse and cart When I look at old pictures of my local town there is a huge network of street trams, larger rail network than there is now People used to have better public transport than they do now here and for much longer than most people assume
nottorp 3y ago
How about the neighbor's music? Silent cars won't fix that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

atoav 3y ago

Societies thinking around cars really shows just how "unnoticeable" the influence of something becomes once it is ubiquitous. In a car-based world everything takes the shape of cars, and the crazy thing is, that many people won't even see how unusual that is. I once lived next to a busy inrush road in a city. Once a week I could wipe black grime from my balcony desk. Every second night I would wake up from people speeding or trucks rushing through. One day I spent on the balcony counting cars. 100% of the SUVs had only one person in it. But the worst thing was the noise. I didn't notice back then, and I am not a sensitive person (I play in a noise rock band), but when I moved and was in a silent new flat, it felt as if someone had lifted a rock from my chest. And let's not think about the black grime. Cities and cars are not a good mix, unless you own a car and don't care about the people living there. I especially dislike how naturally we are expected to yield public space to ever-bigger cars for only minor fees.

Ma8ee 3y ago
What I find most striking is that people with very rudimentary training are allowed to use machinery of 1.5 tons and more, in public, in the vicinity of unprotected bystanders. This leads to about 43,000 deaths per year in the US alone. And for some reason this is considered normal.
- atoav 3y ago
  In the meantime you have safety trainings for how to use a ladder properly in your org. Don't get me wrong, work accidents do happen with ladders, and training/inspection can prevent them, but the risk stemming from ladders doesn't compare to cars. The way society accepts risks tells a lot about that society.
  - Ma8ee 3y ago
    If cars weren’t so ubiquitous otherwise in society, it would probably require several months of training to be licensed to drive a car in the workplace. And then you wouldn’t be allowed to drive faster than 15 mph except in special fenced in areas.
    - atoav 3y ago
      I mean I got my driving license in a country where the fast way of doing it takes 6 months and includes driving on a test pad where multiple dangerous situations are simulated: - a wet road and you drive over a "moveable" section of road and as soon as your front wheels are over it jerks the rear wheels randomly to either the left and the right ans you need to recover - a course that you drive through and randomly a wall of water emerges from holes in the street and you need to safely stop or avoid the obstacle (this teaches you about the safe stopping distance and problems that can emerge when you suddenly try to avoid things) with and without ESP - driving too fast around curves on purpose - trying to do similar things while multitasking in the vehicle to demonstrate how bad that influences your performance I don't know what the level needed is in the US (I grew up in Austria), but even with that training I still feel cars are taken not seriously enough.

mynameisnoone 3y ago

Perhaps if we're going to continue to have highways through cities, containing their noise and emissions should be a priority rather than shifting externalities as various kinds of pollution onto neighbors and visitors. Build residences that are each bunkers with massive walls, airlocks, and HEPA filtration is probably not going to scale to all demographics very well. I think (the US) needs more public transportation that gets people out of single-occupant vehicles without imposing time, money, or practicality costs onto them.

throwaway346434 3y ago

Yeah, but also, nah. You can regulate cars and get 90% to a level society can deal with happily. But then you get a hoon in a performance vehicle doing a burnout in suburbia, and the police twin engine helicopter thrumming overhead tracking them down. Or the neighbours who enjoy Vietnamese karaoke, or the neighbours having a domestic on the street. These aren't the most fun aspects of living in a community (unless you get invited for the karaoke!); but they benefit from ambient noise cancellation.

Doxin 3y ago
I feel like you're underestimating how loud cars in regular use are. On my walk over to the supermarket I basically have to shout if I want to have a conversation. No one is driving especially loudly and in fact the problem is mostly tire noise.
- spockz 3y ago
  Where do you live? When I was still living in the city we could talk outside at a slightly raised voice when walking or biking. You had to speak in the direction of the other person obviously. Only sometimes at something like a gas station you have to really raise your voice.
  - Doxin 3y ago
    > Where do you live? The Netherlands > When I was still living in the city we could talk outside at a slightly raised voice when walking or biking. True for most parts of the city I live in too, but that's mostly because in most parts of the city there's either no cars or very slow cars or only one car within hearing distance at a time. As soon as you're walking along a busy road where the speed limit is 50km/h it starts getting loud. It's quite possible there's some cultural influence here too. Dutch people don't tend to speak especially loudly when compared to e.g. Americans.
- serf 3y ago
  are you walking along a high-speed interstate? I live in LA and the vehicle noise is negligible on any walk to anywhere compared to the low roar of the sounds of living otherwise -- unless you happen to get some muffler-less asshole driving his shitbox next to you; but that same rule applies just about anywhere. I guess it could be a benefit of the low speed LA traffic? Personally anytime i'm near traffic the stuff that bugs me is exhaust and brake/clutch dust. Nothing like a hot semi truck parking next to you in traffic after a long downhill stretch to cool his brakes and douse you in friction-material fumes while he waits for the light to turn green.

WesolyKubeczek 3y ago

> Instead of jus making a car unable (auto breaks) to hit a pedestrian, we are doing some silly workarounds I have a car which auto-brakes when an obstacle is ahead. Usually helps when parking in tight spots, or when backing out — its systems have wider FOV than I do, and it warns of incoming cars of pedestrians a fraction of a second before I can see them, which is good. Except when the weather conditions or something on the road trigger a false positive and I suddenly go from 45-50 km/h to full stop. It's also a lot of adrenaline fun for the drivers behind me. Happened twice last year. So no. A speaker is more reliable and robust and simple a solution.

bigfudge 3y ago
Separating your car from unprotected humans is the solution. Your right to drive a 2 tonne machine through residential streets where other people live and their kids play is a historical and cultural anomaly. Let’s not pretend the solution is speakers to get pedestrians jumping quicker.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  I welcome you to design such a block of streets, though keep in mind that it still needs to be maintained. Also when you have a grocery shop, something needs to load and unload groceries. Also, you have fire trucks, ambulances, police cars that need to have access.
  - vincnetas 3y ago
    Emergency vehicles do have these things called sirens. I'm not against them. Thats an emergency after all.
    - WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
      I wasn't talking about sirens at all. You make vehicle-friendly neighborhoods if you want emergency vehicles to be able to get there. The moment there are vehicle-friendly neighborhoods, the locals will inevitably come with reasons and excuses to have their cars parked as close to their house entrances as it gets. You don't win against human nature.

hawski 3y ago

Other than cars with mufflers cut out most car noise (above a certain speed) is the tire noise. At least that's how I understand it. Not to say it wouldn't be nice if cars would be otherwise silent, but i.e. highway noise wouldn't be significantly quieter with BEVs all around. Could you tell me what do you mean by technical capability to produce silent cars?

vincnetas 3y ago
Tire noise is related to speed and (i'm guessing weight of car). Usually you don't live near highway, so urban street noice levels would be much lower when there would be no engine noise car would not weight 2+ tones and preferably would use low noise tires (quiet tires).
bigfudge 3y ago
car tires are wide. Much wider than they need to be to do same speeds on normal roads. This is fashion driven and encourages drivers to go faster than they should. It also wastes fuel and makes more noise. We could tax car tires by width and gain a lot.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  Not only fashion, when driving on icy roads, every square centimeter of contact surface counts.
  - vincnetas 3y ago
    It counts, but does it in a meaningful amount? We are not on a race track. There is no need to be faster by 0.01 second. If road conditions are averse, slow down. You are not expected to WIN morning commute.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      > You are not expected to WIN morning commute. This is my favourite bit about cycling. The commute is a race. It’s often with others, but the likes of Strava gamify it such that you are racing yourself too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bongodongobob 3y ago

I appreciate your sentiment but go to Google maps and take a look at at any non-coastal state. There's just no way cars are going away. Short of a quintillion dollar restructuring of our country, it's a complete pipe dream. Id encourage you to be pro clean/public transportation rather than anti car. Zealotry gets us nowhere.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
No, anti car. There was recently a pro-car terrorist attack in London. I am not kidding - someome made a bomb and blew up a lamppost with cameras for reading number plates. Its hardly been reported. Can you imagine the coverage if the climate protesters blew up a betrol station, or god forbid, if this was something to do with currst conflict in the middle east? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/bomb-attack-ulez-camera-grotesquely-irresponsible-london-mayor https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/bomb-att... So why anti-wcar? So in inner London, like 40% of households have a car but 90% of public space is roads. When u suggest that maybe the 60% deserve at least 20% of space for walking and cycling, you get labeleled anti car. People complain about having like 8 coherent cycleways across all of london taking up too much road space, compared to thousands of roads. People complain about not being allowed to drive ancient diesel vehicles that kills kids eith astma. Fine then, I am anti-car.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  same in berlin. Someone blew up repeatedly the same speed measuring tower for cars on a somewhat major road (https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/berlin-charlottenburg-explosion-von-blitzer-am-kurfuerstendamm-li.2167565 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/berlin-charlottenburg-e...) I am also anti-car, not anti-car everywhere but they just don't belong in cities.
- bongodongobob 3y ago
  I'm pro practical and pro blow shit up if you have to, but I don't know what your point is. Look at a map. Just zoom around the entire US, that isn't on the coast, and tell me how you're going to get rid of cars.

ricardobayes 3y ago

Unless you have a souped up engine/exhaust, most of the sound of a car comes from the tires rolling (at highway speed).

slifin 3y ago

100% agree I think there's a perception too that before cars there were just horse and cart When I look at old pictures of my local town there is a huge network of street trams, larger rail network than there is now People used to have better public transport than they do now here and for much longer than most people assume

nottorp 3y ago

How about the neighbor's music? Silent cars won't fix that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]