this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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On one hand, yes this was terribly stupid.
One the other, I understand why people are forced to drive under desperate circumstances to get to work, doctors appointments, etc. because public transit in most places is so bad it’s worthless.
Indeed, when you experience the public transportation system in the 1st World EU countries and Japan, the USA is decades behind them. However, if you look at the US public transportation system until the mid 1960's, it was there.
On that note, it's worth bringing up that Los Angeles, a city known for its horrible traffic conditions, once had the largest electric rail system in the world before it was completely eliminated in favor of the gridlocked highways it has now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric
All explained in the documentary, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I think thinking of it this way only makes sense if commitment and desire to create good public transportation is somewhat comparable - which it's not. In the US (and a lot of Canada) there simply isn't any desire to properly invest in public transit. When public transit projects fail and a government is held accountable at the ballot box, the following government just slashes everything and washes their hands of it instead of trying to fix things. They're not behind in time, they're behind in commitment.
There's plenty of desire here, there's just no desire in our overlord billionaire class.
Fortunately for our billionaire overlords, we're still very fond of them.
Exactly, and it's good old fashioned racism that they use to get away with it, too.
Public transit still has a stigma in many parts of the US as being for poor people who can't afford cars. And as it happens, nonwhite Americans are a lot more likely to be economically disadvantaged due to institutionalized racism. On top of that, they are also a lot more likely to live in urban environments where there is some semblance of public transit due to the phenomena of white flight, where white people by-in-large started moving out of cities to get away from the coloreds, and so riding the train or taking the bus has become "out of style".
Basically, a white middle class American is likelier to reject the option of public transit because they don't want to share space with poor minorities, and so public transit is limited to urban pockets surrounded by an impenetrable wall of NIMBYism. Plus no one with the resources to afford a car wants to support measures to create more environments where cars are not needed, so attempts to improve existing public transit often fail.
I lost my license years ago because I could not pay my child support because of a work injury. I had no option but to continue driving. Then almost did not get a new job because I did not have a license. It was a vicious circle. 11 years after no longer having child support it is still effecting me, one state suspended my license because I was driving on a suspended license (but I was never notified) and even though another state gave me a license when I moved, they also suspended my license (again without notification).
My daughter went through this - Lost her license at 17, continued to drive, and each year got caught resulting in another year of suspended license. This went on for about 7 years. She finally went to the court and asked for a hardship license. It was a pain in the ass because she had to keep a log with her that documented every trip and her insurance was crazy expensive, but after a year of that, she got her license back. It sucks, but in the end paying a couple hundred dollars and going through the real process with the courts for a year was much cheaper than continuing to pay bail and tow fees.
Why would a 17 year child need to be able to drive a car?
School, work, extracurriculars, general 17-year-old activities.
Here everyone just uses a bicycle. We don’t even let children drive and it’s a non-issue.
That's not really an option here because of distance, weather, and infrastructure. You could do it, but it would mean riding in a regular traffic lane. It's more common in urban areas or small towns. We have bike paths in my suburban area, but they're mostly used for fun (behind houses, around a lake, through a park, ...). We sometimes ride to get a coffee or to the library, but it's mostly a fun afternoon activity, not a quick way to run errands or get to work/school.
As a Dutch person I can’t imagine how you can live like that. My bike is my primary mode of transportation and it’s infinitely more convenient than using my car. It’s faster to get around, you can actually ride into the city center and park your bike right outside any shops you need to go to. With a car you need to park it at the edge of the shopping district and walk everywhere (while paying an absolute fortune for parking).
Even when the car is a little faster, I go by bike anyway. My parents live one city over and while it’s 20 minutes by car and 40 by bike, I’d rather cycle. Instead of sitting in a stuffy car on a boring road breathing in the exhaust fumes of the guy in front of me, I can ride my bike through the fields and woods, enjoy the fresh air and the sounds of nature. I go months between uses of my car.
How far (km) is it to your parents? What do you do when the weather is bad? I'm in Dallas. My husband drives 40 miles to work each way and my work is scattered across the city. Shopping is usually stopping someplace with a parking lot on the way home. I would love to live in a city where there was a non-car option. Our public transit is not very efficient and for most people here, biking is just for fun - 'going for a bike ride' after work or on the weekend.
You truly don’t understand how large US cities are. Mine isn’t even in the top 10 in the country and it takes us 30 min driving at 65mph to drive from the north end to the south. That’s not a metro area, that’s within city limits. No one can bike around here and survive. For recreation, sure, we have bike lanes. It’s extremely difficult for anything else.
This is kind of true for me. My parents technically in another city, but the same metropolitan area. About 25-30 minutes by car, about 40-50 minutes by e-bike.
But the last time I biked there, I (and my little dog, strapped to my chest) almost got killed by a driver who was impatient with me not going enough over the speed limit. I was going about 27 or 28 in a 25mph zone. They passed me illegally, almost got hit, and would’ve slammed into me if they had gotten hit.
Bike infrastructure just isn’t here in most places. Our cities are sprawling because much of the US has no shortage of land, and cars are an integral part of navigating them. It blows.
It’s not just infrastructure, it’s the drivers as well. When I visit my parents I usually take the scenic route, which consists for a large part of narrow 60km/h roads that are shared with cars. The difference is that pretty much everyone who drives a car also cycles a lot. It’s also drilled into us during driving lessons to watch out for cyclists, since they are everywhere.
I’m so envious.
The ironic part is that I live in West Michigan. A huge portion of the population here calls themselves “Dutch” because their families immigrated here from the Netherlands a few generations ago. There’s a saying around here, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” So many names have “Van” or “Vander” or “stra” somewhere.
But of course they aren’t Dutch, they’re American. And their families left the Netherlands for many reasons, but a major one for the families that have been here the longest is that the Netherlands wasn’t conservative enough for them. So they’re like, the polar opposite of the modern Netherlands.
But there is a pretty good biking culture here compared to some other parts of the US. Unfortunately, that comparison isn’t particularly useful since most of the US doesn’t seem to care at all about cyclists.
I never understood that about Americans, claiming to be some other nationality. If you’re Dutch, then show me your Dutch passport.
It’s so weird, because when I as a European hear someone say “I’m ” I assume they are a citizen of that country, not that their great-great-great grandparents lived there. I wouldn’t even know where my ancestors lived that far back. I know my grandparents were Dutch, but I have no idea whatsoever about any generations before that.
In many parts of the US it's typical to start driving several years earlier than that, and realistically there is no way to get anywhere other than by car. Until kids can drive, they might quite literally be unable to go anywhere or do anything without an adult to drive them. It's sprawl to an absurd degree.
Even where bikes could theoretically be used from a distance perspective, it would likely be way more dangerous and way less practical (no bike lanes and every road is full of cars, no bike parking, you're never getting to a bike shop for repairs without a car, ...)
I bet Uber would have been cheaper than what he is facing now.