Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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To be fair, the first pick up can haul dirty stuff or things that stick out like pipes, signs or maybe something like small boats. It's still hilarious tho that the carry capacity is comparable. Like you could theoretically fit a small pizza oven into it xD
What baffles me about Americans is that truck owners insist that they need to haul things. And I'm always wondering why would anyone spend time and money doing that? Here in the UK delivery is usually free. New bed? Free delivery. New PC hardware or huge TV? Free delivery. Lumber for a DIY project? Free delivery. A palette of cat food? Free delivery! Why the fuck would anyone waste money on petrol and haul shit themselves? The only paid delivery is groceries and it's £1 from Sainsbury's, I ain't driving for £1, fuck it.
As a Swede, I think the reason this baffles you has a lot to do with the fact that the U.K. is comparatively tiny, with 67 mil inhabitants on 244 sqkm. Sweden for example has 10.5mil inhabitants on 450 sqkm.
What happens is that densely populated areas will have access to these services, perhaps not for free, but they're at least there. Less sparsely populated areas have less service coverage, and so you get more car dependant. Here in Sweden at least we have a decent public transport network so even in my old village of 600 people you could make do without a car, you just couldn't be particularly spontaneous about things.
The U.S. is very much structured around owning cars. Massive roads, poor pedestrian/cycling infrastructure, and a general lack of public transit. I visited Massachusetts back in 2019 and got a completely different perspective on things. Until then I didn't understand why my friend just didn't bike everywhere, but having been there it's easy to see that it's not viable. Even the cul-de-sac they lived on wasn't very pedestrian friendly.
That's not to say that the U.S. could have more sensible sizes on their cars, they definitely could. I think the sizes of cars growing has to do with manufacturers wanting increased profit. We're seeing an increase in the average car size here in Europe as well, with a lot of the more compact cars being taken off the market.
It has nothing to do with the size of the US. You don’t drive from NYC to LA to pick up a fridge. You drive to the nearest city. So why should they not be able to deliver it to you?
And if you live so rural that that’s not feasible – well that’s your issue then, nobody’s forcing you to live in bumfucknowhere.
Sure, no individual is like to force you to live in the middle of nowhere, but circumstances might.
I'm not saying that cars should be a thing, but rather talking about (some) reasons they are. The biggest determining factor really is just car culture. The car and oil industry has done a great job at manufacturing demand for cars, and I'd wager that's the main determining factor.
If you want to see a reduction in cars on the roads, the best way to do so is simply to make other means of transport more feasible. You don't fix traffic by widening roads, that just induces further demand. Instead, set up bus lines, mark certain lanes as bus only. Heck, convert some lanes to bicycle only lanes.
It's been easy for me to take that kind of infrastructure for granted. Where I live for example, there's a pedestrian/bicycle path all the way from my town, to the nearby larger town ~35km away. It's fully possible to bike over there if you're prepared for a 1-1½ hour ish ride.
Because US "cities" are sparsely populated suburban wastelands that take hours to drive across. The model of exclusively cars and suburbs just doesn't scale.