I encounter this constantly. I have never seen anything actually sway this kind of person other than the actual law or street changing around them despite their opposition.
Even in extremely bike-friendly urban zones, the “anti-bike” people are shockingly angry and quick to threaten violence. They show up with absolutely unhinged rants at meetings about bike issues.
I feel like the focus will have to be more on making good examples of good bike infrastructure in places with the least resistance and the most gain from small incremental changes, and then using those places as examples to expand.
Nothing will convince the SUV-driving nutjob who hates bikes and does shit like this to change their mind. We have to change the world around them.
Oh, I’m not convinced I can tbh. My priorities wrt these kind of people is A) dismantle their nextdoor safe space for suv driving nutjobs. B) point out this behavior and how it’s aggressive and homicidal to people who are observing and reading this thread. C) show soliderity and that we have allies to other people who are afraid of these folks already.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty in how effective I am at A, B, and C. Also, I’ll admit, some of it on my side is just pure venting, but also it’s quite personally rattling and I have trouble coping with that when it comes up in convos.
edit: It’s a little bit frustrating how people who arn’t as car-centric feel the need to cater to such people? Or how much anti car people pretend not to be?)
Even in extremely bike-friendly urban zones, the “anti-bike” people are shockingly angry and quick to threaten violence
Oh, that’s one funny thing. The number of comments where someone acts deranged and someone else responds “Um, that’s a designated bike path you’re telling bikes not to be on”, is quite high
That actually contributes to climate change because now a whole bunch of tires are going to be trashed and sold. A tow truck is going to come get all those cars.
If someone wants to get all sabotagy with the activism, they need to find a way to do it that actually reduces overall driving.
IDK, it seems attention grabbing, but I think it’s hard to judge the positive negative of it. I suspect a lot of the people to get ultra angry about this are the same kind of people who are already rabbidly pro-car, and I don’t think we’re going to move away from cars without bringing attention to it(unless we have a economic collapse from it, but even then, the ability of limited segments of the population to not be affected regardless, and those people having a ton of influence is a negative effect).
Hmm, I trust that we’re all anti car here. In the car war, there’s a lot of non-good-faith arguments about how “we can’t do anything to hinder cars because it…uhhh, trust me your the one with the climate problems not me” out there. “We understand that cars are bad, but people just need to indipendently chose not to have cars and until then we should build as much parking and lanes of road as people ask for” is another common one. I don’t really buy it. I’m not sure how to convert cities and stuff to not allow/cater to cars, but we clearly do have to do something and it clearly is the thing that we should be doing.
I think the forum is missing the main context of this protest. It happened in Glasgow. What else is happening in Glasgow right now? COP26 climate conference. This isn’t an anti-car protest, it’s an anti-high-pollution-vehicle protest.
I bet the owners of the SUVs are mostly going to be annoyed by the COP26 conference coming to their city, and them getting mixed up in the protests, rather than specifically being annoyed by any anti-car people. When the Olympics comes to a city, the residents aren’t anti-sports, they are anti-this-specific-annoying-event-disrupting-my-life.
What, in this action, will bring anyone who’s not convinced one way or the other to come to their position about car CO2 usage, particularly SUVs? This is the type of action that only intensifies us vs them dichotomy. Maybe they’ve intimidated some people who saw the tweet coverage not to buy an SUV out of fear of having someone specifically mess with them in such a way, but I cannot see this type of action convincing anyone who is undecided that, yes, the rational thing to do is reduce SUV production/limit sales through legal, legislative means because of someone’s direct action tactics.
I mean yes, these are some of the political moves that will bring us in a good direction. I mean less “what should we as a society do to change how our cities are organized” and more “how do we(as advocates and advocate groups) ensure that political change happens”.
What the Street!? Here’s a interesting site. I wish it had denver imo, but it’s still interesting. Far more interesting and useful for everyone in new york.
I like “This study has now been replicated twice with similar results.” Every article that talks about a study should have a line clarifying any replication attempts and their results!
Statistics disagree with your belief. Yes, of course there are bad drivers in all types of vehicles. Just like there is a Ferrari owner out there somewhere that drives safely. But several studies show that there is a correlation between more expensive cars committing infractions more often than other cars.
There are also studies showing the correlation between SUVs and trucks not only hitting more pedestrians, cyclists, etc. but being more likely to kill them. This was so obvious I don’t know if it needed to be studied, but it is confirmed. A driver high up off the ground with a huge grill has less visibility. And that huge grill slamming into a person’s entire body is more likely to kill someone than a little sedan hitting them primarily in the legs first.
Again, I must ask the fundamental question. If on no road in the US where the speed limit is higher than 85mph, why are cars that can go over 85mph street legal anywhere in the US? Such a car should be permitted to be operated only on a closed course, private road, etc.
The fact that they’re making trucks that require front cameras in order to see things at road level is fucking obscene to me.
I mean look I’m a cager and I get that no car choice is a good car choice, but you can at least make a less bad car choice than a giant fucking death machine that has no visibility and garbage mileage.
