Comment by nayuki | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nayuki | Hacker News Reader

> Moral progress is annoying

> When we’re told that something we see as ordinary – like eating meat – is actually wrong, our first reaction is to get irritated and dismissive.

I am experiencing this firsthand in debates about urban transportation policy. One part of the challenging is getting people to recognize the negative impacts of cars (pollution, injuries, parking space) and car-dependent designs (unwalkable neighborhoods, little consideration for mass transit service, no autonomy with a car).

Another part of the challenge is to dispel myths about cycling: that bikes are just for kids, bikes are for exercise and not transportation, bike lanes are a waste of space, cyclists don't pay road tax, you can't bike in bad weather, etc.

> efforts to use the term ‘survivor’ instead of ‘victim’ when referring to people who have been sexually assaulted – were also seen as preachy and annoying

Continuing with my experiences in transportation debates, there are a few proposed changes to mainstream language that I agree with.

One is to never describe a traffic collision as an "accident", and instead call it a "crash" or "collision". This is because these "accidents" happen at a predictable rate and have mundane, preventable causes (e.g. drunk driving, dangerous road geometry, poor visibility, lack of police enforcement, heavy vehicles proliferating, protests against speed cameras, deliberately engineered prioritization of speed over safety in road design).

Another is to stop using the passive voice (almost universally used in news reports), which draws attention away from the culpable driver and makes it sound like a random act of God: "6-year-old killed in accident with SUV" versus "SUV driver kills 6-year-old in a crash".

> When new norms are enforced by the community, it can add fuel to the fire, leading to embarrassment and alienation, which can deepen social divisions and quickly tip into fear, anger and outright hostility.

Exhibit A: An unhinged person who cut down a speed camera and threw it in a pond. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-speed-camera-vandal... . People are indignant about any decrease in the freedom to drive without restrictions or accountability.

> I am experiencing this firsthand in debates about urban transportation policy. One part of the challenging is getting people to recognize the negative impacts of cars (pollution, injuries, parking space) and car-dependent designs (unwalkable neighborhoods, little consideration for mass transit service, no autonomy with a car).

I recognize the negative impacts, and yet will happily keep my vehicles because the benefits outweigh the risks and negative impacts. It's a trade-off many of us will continue making because there is no better alternative that checks all the boxes.

Yeah I understand. I've seen many responses along the lines of "my drive to work is 30 minutes; if I had to take public transit then it's 3 buses in 90 minutes". So far, I'm tolerant to those comments.

What I have a problem with is that instead of saying that a car works for them personally, they start attacking the people who challenge the car-dominated status quo. They propose ridiculous edge cases as gotchas, blithely ignore any evidence presented, and make it clear that you're an idiot for proposing any idea that differs from the norm. Furthermore, they fiercely attack any incremental change - whether it be congestion pricing or upzoning or adding bus-only lanes - even when every time it has been tried the populace is satisfied with the outcome after it gets implemented.

I understand why you would continue driving because of the lack of alternatives, but why would you be happy about doing so?

> benefits outweigh the risks and negative impacts

This is deflecting a critique of a systemic problem with a defense in terms of individual (and personal) effects. Taken broadly, this statement is utterly wrong, and the benefits come nowhere close to the dramatically negative impacts on human health and life, accessibility, neighborhood cohesion, child development, commute time/difficulty, the local and global economy, the local and global environment, etc.

If the whole system around you were changed, even marginally, toward more efficient and effective uses of land, infrastructure, and resources than a car culture, you would almost certainly significantly benefit (along with everyone else). For problems of this magnitude your personal choice is not really the issue (though there are certainly personal choices you can make which have a slight positive impact in your local neighborhood).

Which country are these myths from?

We have our share of problems with bikers and drivers (I am both) but none of them are even remotely close to the list.

I would say that the one that is annoying is that drivers do lt like bikers, and vice versa (and both have good and bad reasons for that)

I am speaking of the composite opinion of Toronto (in-person consultations and Facebook groups/people/threads), Canada+USA as represented in mainstream news and social media, and Reddit/FuckCars (with a big North American and youth tilt).

This is interesting because your list is mostly around costs, when ours is about people hating each other :)

Cultural differences is a thing.

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