cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/23351353
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Fuck Cars
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This doesn't make any sense. The only way to move around without depending on other companies is by walking, and there's no way that can replace cars, trains, buses, bicycles, etc.
Not depending on anyone else is not a sensible goal. We live in a society.
If you have all of those options available, you can never be stranded when one of those options fails.
But with a car-centric society, all it takes is a single point of failure, and you are no longer free to move about the society.
They are not advocating for society to be less interdependent. They are explaining that a car-centric society has less freedom of movement, because the "independence" of a car is a lie.
Well that's just nonsense. There are enough downsides to cars without having to make up fringe lunacy like this.
Nonsense and fringe lunacy... like asking for multiple options when it comes to transportation? Recognizing that building redundancies into our infrastructure is actually more efficient than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution?
A car breaking down can completely derail an individual's day. A truck breaking down on a highway can derail a city's day. The less the person or city needs cars to function, the less likely they are to be stuck when something goes wrong.
No, like trying to say that cars don't give you independence because they need insurance and servicing. That's simply not the kind of independence people are talking about.
It's like saying metro systems aren't convenient because they are really difficult to build. It's confusing two different things.
So? You know what can also derail your day?
Yes it is. People praise the car as the ultimate freedom because they imagine that they can take that car anywhere. But the moment they have a problem with their car, they literally can't go anywhere.
Everyone has a story about how their car didn't start, or about the mechanic that didn't actually fix the problem, or how they're still waiting on a part and can't fix it until tomorrow. Plenty of people are stuck waiting on the roadside for hours waiting for a tow. Plenty of people are stuck waiting for days to hear back from their insurance company on if repairs are covered or who will pay for it or which mechanic is allowed to do the work.
Do you... think that's a gotcha? How many times has your train derailed? Is this a common problem in your life? Don't you hate it when your employee doesn't show up to work all the time because his train derailed?
It's so ridiculously uncommon that it may as well be a rounding error compared to car accidents and incidents.
They can!
Nobody is under the illusion that cars never break! Come on dude. Trains and buses are hardly infallible either!
Everyone has 10 stories about trains being cancelled or buses not showing up. That's life. Completely irrelevant to the fact that cars give you independence.
Obviously I was not talking about actually derailment. That was obvious to anyone not being deliberately stupid. Trains are delayed or cancelled all the time. Much more frequently than cars break down.
It's becoming clear that you live somewhere where there are no trains or buses so you have no actual experience of them and imagine them to be perfect.
So... again... if you have access to a train, a bus, and a car, then one single failure won't stop you. If you only have access to a car, a single failure will stop you. I don't know how to make that any more clear. It's not about a train being better than a car, it's about only having a car.
But, yes, trains and buses in a functioning mass transit system are insanely more reliable than cars. That's not just personal experience, though it's quite an assumption to make! That's just statistics.