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Comment by cscurmudgeon | Hacker News Reader

This is a bad way to look at it.

We should ask how many more people would die each day without cars.

Somehow, this basic analysis is absent in all of the car-hate posts.

Not considering pros and cons fairly is a not an honest approach.

You can’t claim to be objective by just looking at negatives and proclaiming cars are bad overall. You need to sum up the negatives and positives (assuming an utilitarian view).

Otherwise, just accept all car hate is based on subjective emotions.

It is not like car users are cackling evil Captain Planet villains. Most of us are not rich enough to live near work and schools.

That brings me to a related issue car haters miss: Bike-friendly cities should be designed for everyone, not just for wealthy white cyclists

https://theconversation.com/amp/bike-friendly-cities-should-...

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Because that question is practically impossible to answer. You can't extrapolate current circumstances and draw a conclusion from there. The best you can do is compare with other countries, disregard any non-related-yet-ultimately-significant and draw a fairly weak conclusion from there.

Most of those conclusions would not be in favor of cars, either. Especially not in light of environmental damage.

It is not impossible. Car haters like to think it is impossible.

Try it. I assure you, almost any angle you take can be poked through.

Cars shine in large, low density zones. For good reasons. Most anti-car people are not in favor of removing cars in these zones or removing cars altogether, so arguing here is moot.

Other places, whether removing a large amount of cars is beneficial or detrimental is decided either by culture, or by reinvestment options. And then, you're still stuck only comparing rationalities, with actual numbers being far harder to judge.

The car-hate posts can be quite emotional for a number of (valid) reasons, but understand that reducing cars and car trips doesn't happen in a vacuum. No one is arguing to instantly and immediately eliminate every vehicle out there. It's part of a larger process to replace personal vehicles with transit, walk-ability, bike-ability, and generally car-free or car-reduced places where people live.

Biking is the ideal solution. There is one significant downside, though: the practicality of biking is limited by region and time of year+day. In most places in the Southern portion of the US (regardless of coast), biking any significant distance between the hours of 8am to 9 pm is basically saying "I want heatstroke" for nearly 1/2 of the year

"wealthy white cyclists"

What in the ever-living fuck are you even talking about?

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