without a major total rebuild of my city, adding public transfer infrastructure etc… cars are necessary for me to go to the grocery stores
Yes, that was my point when I said that actually, if you use a car today in motornormative societies, it does not count as true enthusiastic informed consent, because you do not have another viable option.
Bottom line 500 things need to be done before they start restricting cars
Not really. You start by doing what New York is already doing with congestion charges in inner-city areas that do have good alternative options. You make licensing requirements stricter, including removing the ability to drive “yanktanks”/“wankpanzers”/“emotional support vehicles”/whatever you want to call those absurdly dangerous impractical vehicles that are some of the most popular cars lately on a regular car licence, and instead require an upgraded, more expensive type of commercial/truck licence.
To do much more than that, yeah, you probably need to start doing more. Building separated bike paths as standard in all new roads and roads getting resurfaced (if there’s more than 2 lanes) or lowering the design speed & speed limit and adding modal filters (on smaller 2-lane streets) is kinda the bare minimum, and costs precious little, since you do it at the time you’d be spending on maintenance anyway
serve pretty much no practical use in civilized society
100%. I’m not at all trying to draw a perfect equivalence between guns and cars. Only to point out when people—even well-meaning people—may be reinforcing harmful motornormative ideas. America’s gun problem is for sure far, far less excusable and far easier to address. Which is the reason that so many other countries have addressed it, most famously when an Australian conservative politician fronted up to a crowd of angry gun owners wearing a bulletproof vest when announcing Australia’s new gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre, and yet motornormativity still pervades Australian culture to almost the same degree as American. And Canadian culture. And even the UK, though to a much lesser degree.
except, potentially protect yourself from someone with a gun
Disagree. Owning a gun increases your chance of being a victim of gun violence. There are valid reasons to own a gun. These are pretty well covered under Australian law which should serve as a model for America, if America actually wanted to become a sensible country. But self-defence is not one of them.
Yes, that was my point when I said that actually, if you use a car today in motornormative societies, it does not count as true enthusiastic informed consent, because you do not have another viable option.
Not really. You start by doing what New York is already doing with congestion charges in inner-city areas that do have good alternative options. You make licensing requirements stricter, including removing the ability to drive “yanktanks”/“wankpanzers”/“emotional support vehicles”/whatever you want to call those absurdly dangerous impractical vehicles that are some of the most popular cars lately on a regular car licence, and instead require an upgraded, more expensive type of commercial/truck licence.
To do much more than that, yeah, you probably need to start doing more. Building separated bike paths as standard in all new roads and roads getting resurfaced (if there’s more than 2 lanes) or lowering the design speed & speed limit and adding modal filters (on smaller 2-lane streets) is kinda the bare minimum, and costs precious little, since you do it at the time you’d be spending on maintenance anyway
100%. I’m not at all trying to draw a perfect equivalence between guns and cars. Only to point out when people—even well-meaning people—may be reinforcing harmful motornormative ideas. America’s gun problem is for sure far, far less excusable and far easier to address. Which is the reason that so many other countries have addressed it, most famously when an Australian conservative politician fronted up to a crowd of angry gun owners wearing a bulletproof vest when announcing Australia’s new gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre, and yet motornormativity still pervades Australian culture to almost the same degree as American. And Canadian culture. And even the UK, though to a much lesser degree.
Disagree. Owning a gun increases your chance of being a victim of gun violence. There are valid reasons to own a gun. These are pretty well covered under Australian law which should serve as a model for America, if America actually wanted to become a sensible country. But self-defence is not one of them.