I often see people in the comments acting like having a fast or loud car immediately makes your dick smaller or that you have ED. And people talk about owning a car as if they’ve never gone above 40 MPH and are terrified to do so.
For context I live in a city with actually ok mass transit, don’t own a car, and prefer to bike/take the train whenever possible. Trains, trolleys, bikes, and feet are the best forms of transportation imo.
That being said, body shaming or making fun of people with physical or mental issues (that may be no fault of their own) is just shitty. It makes this community look shitty. I hate reading comments about “loud car small dick this” or “fast car ED that”. It’s unnecessary. You can shit on asshole drivers without having to stoop that low. Secondly, some women enjoy cars as well; be more creative.
Finally, don’t act like cars can’t be fun. I’m all for phasing out the automobile and revolutionizing transport by returning to the ways of olde, but cars are fun. I understand some of you are grandparents and don’t like someone revving their straight pipes mustang down your block on a Saturday morning. That’s completely reasonable. But my god does this community act like you can’t have fun in a car. I absolutely enjoy loud and fast and powerful cars, because that’s an incredible work of engineering and it simply can be fun. Going fast can be fun. Being in a car that purrs like a lion can be fun. Going offroading or drifting or racing or anything in a car can be fun.
We won’t convince people to see our side by shitting on the things they enjoy. We convince people to try and see things from our point of view by actually looking through their perspective first, and acknowledging that while cars can be fun they are not sustainable.
ETA: Some people seem to think I think public roads should still be for cars. Never did I say that. I think the appropriate place for cars is the track. I would love to convert all the roads in my city to a mixture of bike and pedestrian lanes with trolleys running down the median. But cars can be fun and a track day can absolutely be a great time.
TL;DR: I agree with your point and I’m supporting it with an argument that comes at it from the other direction. You’re arguing that big/fast/fun cars aren’t worse, while I’m about to argue that small/slow/economy cars aren’t better.
The main point of this community is to spread the word about how cars ruin cities. The reason they do that is, in large part, a matter of simple geometry: it’s because they take up so much space, both on roads and especially while parked. Specifically:
All cars take up the same amount of space, so all cars ruin cities equally. All of them contribute to traffic. All of them beget zoning with mandatory minimum parking requirements, which forces parking lots to be inserted between destinations and ruins walkability. All of them incentivize sprawl-y, low-density development, with things like drive-thrus and big-box stores. All of them insist on being catered to in terms of infrastructure and policy, contributing to drivers’ sense of entitlement and privilege.
Substituting small cars for big ones does not solve the problems cars cause. Substituting electric cars for gasoline ones does not solve most of the problems cars cause. The only thing that solves the problems cars cause is substituting them with other transport methods entirely.
Folks, you do not get ‘credit’ for driving a small car instead of a big one or a fast one. What all the people here acting holier-than-thou about the evils of big trucks specifically are actually trying to accomplish is to absolve themselves of their responsibility for the problem as drivers, by scapegoating another subset of drivers. You are not entitled to do that! If you drive, no matter what you drive, you are part of the problem. End of!
Frankly, I consider everybody in here who rails about trucks (or some other scapegoated subset) instead of all cars to be a borderline reactionary concern troll.