Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
2 Likes
“What’s finally sunk in with many people is that we have parking minimums and yet housing maximums, which means we have too many cars and too little housing. We have things the wrong way around,” said Shoup.
1 Like
Even if we could make all the self driving cars wonderful, we would need computers to do the driving. The energy required to do all the computing for all the self driving cars would equal that of all the data centers that already exist on our planet. I don’t think that’s going to work.
The evidence is quite clear at this point. Electric cars, self driving cars, or flying cars. The only thing that can save us from climate disaster is less cars. A lot less.
2 Likes
Turns out EV cars are way more fragile than we thought.
We’ve seen multiple types of failures with Tesla models. This one might be the most egregious–it’s the most basic safety feature of any car design and they can’t even get THIS right.
Well… I wouldn’t have seen this coming.
28 minute explanation about a pretty serious gap in US automotive regulations that allows electric vehicles using regenerative braking to slow down without illuminating the brake lights. And not just a theoretical gap, an example of a vehicle that can come to a complete stop without the brake lights coming on. He makes a great point too, that the driver of the vehicle could easily be unaware of this behavior in their own vehicle and the risk they are creating to following vehicles.
2 Likes
Nice. Have oft wondered about this, as a person who frequently drives a car that utilizes regenerative braking.
1 Like
The entire highway was closed completely, and predictably, not a problem! Induced demand is real. We can get rid of most of these roads and lanes, no problem.
2 Likes
I know we talk a lot about how electric cars aren’t the answer. They don’t solve any of the problems of traffic violence, city planning, and maybe not even climate change on a macro scale.
But one thing they do solve is gas stations. It will be awesome to see no gas stations anywhere. Even if there are still lots of gas burning cars, we may see a situation where there are very few gas stations since they aren’t profitable to operate.
There are a lot of towns along the non-thruway route to get to Rochester from here that went from “one gas station” to “zero gas stations” just in the last ~5 years.
Things are heating up. The war on cars feels like a real grassroots movement that’s just getting started. https://twitter.com/CBSSunday/status/1677694028555403270
I think we’re going to get there, eventually, but I don’t think it will be soon enough.
1 Like
When I suggest things along these lines, they are usually brushed off as outlandish and ridiculous ideas. Then someone goes and does it.
4 Likes
Good for my home country, but this kind of law is already in effect for our neighbors in Switzerland.
I’ve actually recently started to watch a channel called DashcamDriversGermany, but unlike a lot of other dashcam channels the narrator isn’t sensationalizing or trying to go trend chasing. Instead he is very calmly pointing out mistakes and gives advice how to better act in specific situations. Nevertheless, every time I watch a video my resolve to never own a car again and keep driving to a minimum is strengthened anew.
The channel also does other good things. Recently they did tests of high-visibility vests, which are mandatory to keep in your car and you have to put on if you leave your car in case of accidents on highways. They found that a lot of commonly sold ones are awful and give no benefit whatsoever. They also showed how to test high-vis vests at home.
1 Like
SUVs use on average a quarter more energy than medium-size vehicles. They generate almost 1bn tonnes of CO2 emissions annually – the amount by which we overshot our Paris agreement targets. Their increasing adoption is directly contributing to the climate crisis, according to the International Energy Agency.
If not for SUVs the UK would have hit the Paris agreement target.
3 Likes