Hacker News Reader

Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

In theory, but that would also require changing how/where many people live (which would require a lot of construction which would require energy and concrete - both bad things for the environment). I’m thinking over my schedule today and needing to drive the kids places, often many miles away in different directions, plus going to work, running errands with multiple people, etc. Both a bike and a trike would be wildly inappropriate. Especially where I live where it rains steadily for 9 months of the year. A car is the only practical way to move around without somehow either having fewer people to move around, moving the places we need to go closer together, changing the weather or moving to a drier climate, etc.

Frankly I would love it if that was a reality and everything was within easy walking or biking distance, but it simply doesn’t match reality as things are currently built.

View on HN

A cargo ebike is a game changer for all of this. I can bring 2 kids to school and do a full grocery trip without even breaking a sweat. I do 6 miles each way and since I avoid traffic it's just as fast as driving.

Plenty of people bike all 4 seasons, the Netherlands is the go-to example... it rains a lot there. Driving to work under-dressed in a heated box is a luxury that's kind of harmed a lot of people's ability to know how to dress for the weather. It's not particularly difficult.

>A cargo ebike is a game changer for all of this

Not so long as a "never in a lifetime on average" crash remains an acceptable justification to spend tens of thousands of dollars it's not. And that's ignoring weather and convenience.

> Not so long as a "never in a lifetime on average" crash

What does this mean?

People justify purchasing large vehicles with their fear of being hit by one.

> "never in a lifetime on average" crash

That’s a strong argument against SUVs, a type of vehicle that is notoriously dangerous because drivers can’t see children in front of their hood. It also flips over and kills people inside at minor incidents.

Cargo bikes don’t have those issues.

It's an arms race - cargo bikes might not have those issues, but for one of those types of crashes I'd sure rather not be on a bike.

That's why I only leave the house to step into my Marauder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic I think every other vehicle should be banned.

>flips over and kills people inside at minor incidents.

>a strong argument against SUVs

This kind of hubris to think you can plan the exact details of the market for a product followed up by cognitive dissonance when it doesn't work out drives me up the wall.

The SUVs back in the day when they were becoming a thing had fine visibility, great even by modern standards. Then you people said they rolled over too much and were too unsafe so they grew wide to be stable and they got thick bodies and doors and strong pillars and high belt-lines to be strong and nobody could see out of them. And then you people backed over your kids. And then we got backup cameras and all sorts of tech. And now you people complain the screens are distracting and un-ergonomic. You see the pattern here?

Just stop trying to tell everyone else what's good for them and then force it on them and we wouldn't have this problem.

Want me to do zoning too? Because it's basically the same story.

who is “you people” here

Something tells me the intersection of the "you people" trying to reduce car dependence and the "you people" arguing to make cars bigger and heavier is not a large one.

Increasing car size (sometimes) increases safety for the driver at the expense of anyone in a smaller car or not in a car. Road deterioration also increases exponentially with vehicle weight so people that opt for no-car or smaller cars are effectively subsidizing the excessive vehicles of other people with their tax money. iirc a Hummer causes 21x more damage than an "average car."

https://www.gao.gov/products/109954

Good for you!

My needs are:

- have place for a family of four, two of which are small children;

- be something I can use with said family in -15 Celsius;

- Be able to be used for a 200km trip weekly with said family;

I have an EV.

- two cargo bikes, each ridden by each adult

- layers, and canopies for aforementioned e-bikes

- train

Of course, speaking in the ideal. Just because the car has been the only option for so long doesn't mean it's replacement has to replace every trip either.

I'm a family of five, three kids and my wife and I and we commute around using this method all the time. I do on average 20-30km per day on week days and a little less on the weekend. My 12 year old son bikes along side me on his own bike. If it rains, we put on waterproof clothes. As the Dutch say "we're not made of sugar!". When we need to visit another city (or other parts of Europe) we jump on the train!

"We're not made of sugar" - seems it is a popular proverb around the world.

EVs might be less efficient, but not by multiple orders of magnitude. A google search indicates about 5.8 to 125 Wh/km per person. I don't think traveling with trains changes the overall travel time by much, even though they do go faster, and a Tesla with 2 people will probably use about 100Wh/km per person.

I think bicycles certainly have a place in the Netherlands, with actively car-hostile policy, a very high population density and hardly any distance longer than 300km; but any nationality that enjoys their personal space will probably be better of with something else.

I do wonder if rails or road are more efficient ecologically and economically. I've been wondering about smaller-and-slower-than-airliner planes or even eVTOLs, since they don't need a lot of infrastructure and the physics are surprisingly efficient. The technology isn't there yet but sooner or later I don't think flying is a bad idea. A small 4-seater airplane uses about 10-20 liters of fuel per 100km at faster speeds and more direct travel than a car, and if legislation allowed barrier-less mass-use and thus mass-production, planes wouldn't cost much more to the end user.

Hi! Do you live in The Netherlands or somewhere else? If the former, I have a question, though I guess anywhere in Europe is probably close enough.

I just moved here from the US. I live in the Noord Brabant in NL and currently own a car. The village I live in does not have a train station, not to mention that it is pretty pricey to take the train to work, both in time and money. My commute costs about €15 per day on public transport and up to 2 hours each way. I also have family that live in Belgium, about 150km away, also in a small village with no train station. Driving makes a lot of sense for me currently.

Sorry, to the actual question. When you travel abroad, what is your cutoff for taking the train versus flying? From where I live to Brussels, it's about half the price to take the train versus flying, but go out a bit further to Paris, and it's about 25% cheaper to fly. If I'm in NL, it seems like it would almost always be more economical to fly if the destination is more than 300km away. These are also cursory Google searches so the timeline is 3-4 weeks out. When planning a trip months in advance, I would assume the flights and train tickets will be cheaper, but likely still comparable in terms of percentages.

My car is also very efficient. A full tank to drive 600km costs about €60. I realize I would need to pay for parking at the destination, but if I'm staying at a hotel or outside the city center, I think it would still be cheaper. Another cursory train search, Eindhoven to Prague is €140 per person round trip. Traveling alone, probably worth it, but with a family, driving seems more economical.

I feel a bit ramble-y but hopefully that makes sense. I'm trying to figure out how this whole "European" thing works :)

Noone is going out alone, let alone with their kids, on a cargo bike at -15C

Trains are only useful within and between densely populated areas. The 200 km weekly trip might well be to a cabin in the mountains, definitely no train.

Going to a cabin in the mountains is a luxury few of us can afford. Even fewer of us can afford to buy such a cabin more likely you would rent it for a weekend or week. So if you're going to the mountains say twice a year we could assume that you also rent a car to get there, and back.

Even if they own a car, the aim is to reduce car ownership and drastically reduce car usage/need, not eliminate them entirely. There are 289MM cars in the US (.87 cars per person), in The Netherlands there are 8.7MM cars (0.5 cars per person).

People miss this so often when they respond to arguments to reduce car usage with "I need a car because of xyz reason" where that reason probably doesn't apply to most people, certainly doesn't apply to all people, or only applies to most people because whatever society they exist in (probably the US) is incredibly car-centric already. The Netherlands is clearly not car-centric but with 0.5 cars per person clearly people that need (or strongly want) cars still have them. Reducing car usage in the US can only have positive benefits for society imo.

You don't need to bike every trip to reduce your reliance on cars! Even if you replaced solo trips in the spring and summer with a bike, for many people this ends up being a big reduction in car use... which isn't only good for the environment and your health, but reduces car wear & tear.

If you're not interested enough to invest in an ebike, an escooter is a good way to try... though it removes the exercise element and restricts you to what can be carried in a backpack.

You can't be serious. It's great it works for you. An ebike isn't a serious replacement for cars used by families in most of the world.

> An ebike isn't a serious replacement for cars used by families in most of the world.

"Most of the world" is a big place.

Are there more cars or mopeds in the world? I assume that the typical family in Asia has either a scooter or no vehicle, so an ebike would be an improvement for them. Probably the same for Africa and a lot of South America. I'm confident that numerically there are more families without cars in the world than with.

I mention this to demonstrate that most of the world doesn't have cars, and they get along ok. Such a thing is not impossible.

It's understandable that you're having a hard time imagining it because you live in a car-centric society, but "most of the world" is objectively wrong here.

There are roughly 1.4bn cars in the world for 7.8bn people... so most people get around without one.

You can see it if you travel a bit, in India and China you'll see families getting around on bikes and scooters. Over 1/3 of the Dutch use a bike as their primary means of transportation. People often cite weather as a reason not to, but if the Finnish can regularly use bikes to get around (another European country with high bike use)... nearly anyone can.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com