Title. Genuine question. Intended for people owning cars. That’s all.
Edit: Thank you to everyone pointing out that my comments are rude and that I was being an asshole. I lost sight of the intention of this post. I will stop replying in the same manner.
Edit 2: imma downvote those comments I guess cuz there’s no karma fuck reddit
Well this isn’t necessarily true. Electric or regular bikes are always an option. Yes, car dependency still sucks.
Very clear where your bias lives now. No one wants to bike for an hour to work. Depending where you live too, even if you had public transport, it might add an hour or two to your commute time.
Their profile says they are 15. Maybe not really encountered the need for a reliable form of transportation. That is if they aren’t privileged to be living in a country with amazing public transport that makes cars unneeded.
Nope. I am 15, nice observation. I have lived far away from things before, where driving is the only option. We all agreed we needed to move ASAP, so we weren’t driving half an hour to school every day. So glad I’m riding my bike to school now. Public transport is relevant here, but I’m biking.
Distance isn’t the only factor. You need to consider if the place you are biking actually has proper bike lanes separate from cars to actually make it safe. I’d love to ride a motorcycle or bike, but I am not interested in risking my life with the drivers in my country.
And something you may realize is that in some countries being able to live close enough to even consider biking is for those who are in situation of financial privilege or sacrificing financially given the higher costs of rent and home ownership. Not all people live far away because they want to, but because they have to and keep getting pushed further and further out to find more affordable living conditions.
That’s fair. Cars are unfortunately the only solution in some cases. Thanks for the insight.
You need to understand this a very privileged way to think. There are a lot of people far from civilization that moving is not an option for. A lot of people can’t just uproot their lives for. What if they are farmers? They should just leave their farm?
Oh my gosh, I’m not advocating for all cars getting banned, I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clearer. Are you a farmer by chance?
Not everyone can ride a bike safely. Injuries happen. Permanent problems happen. To deal with this you need good public transport. Even in Europe this doesn’t exist unless your entire world is a large city.
I heard that bike injuries are on par with car injuries. Don’t know the source, though. Either way, biking can be safe most of the time if you do it right.
I am biased. I’ve seen too many reasons not to own a car.
So you didn’t post the question looking for legitimate answers?
Sealioning
That’s a cool concept actually
Maybe on the more developed end of “rural”. But rural tends to be sparse and require long distance travel. An electric bike would be better than nothing, but it is not a substitute for a car for a lot of rural areas. If you are going 30+ minutes to get to the grocery store, it’s going to take a heck of a lot longer on an e-bike, and you’re not going to have cargo capacity to do a large grocery trip, so you’re going to need to go there much more frequently. And hopefully the roads are safe for biking. And let’s hope the weather is conducive to being able to do hour long bike rides year round.
Yeah, in rural areas a reliable form of fast transportation is very important if the distance from a hospital is far. Being able to just do with an ebike or regular bike is more a luxury during times of health, but if an emergency happens you have to hope you or someone around you has an actual car.
I see where your coming from, but those problems aren’t nearly as prominent as you think they are. Weather can be compensated by casual gear. Cargo bikes can haul practically anything. Getting an electric bike also helps. There are lots of bikes out there, so you can get one optimized for you.
You also just said
So, the issues aren’t prominent as long as you move out of a rural area?
Yes, if you live in a poorly mapped out city with car dependent infrastructure, then you’re going to need a car, sorry for the confusion.
Side comment: I just looked at your profile and saw your most recent comment regarding you realizing you came in with a close mindset and now realize that. Good on you! You’re young and learning. I totally get the general “cars bad” mindset. I wish that at least US cities and major suburbs were designed to be livable without cars. Some are, or at least some areas are, of course, but cars and car infrastructure almost always comes first.
Getting away from needing cars would be awesome and it should become a bigger goal in the US. I don’t disagree with you at all there.
Keep in mind that the US is BIG and, from an area perspective, a vast majority is rural. Out there, cars really are a necessity. Maybe there are long term solutions to reduce the dependence on cars in rural areas, but I have a hard time imagining what they are. Keep in mind that rural means that there simply isn’t the population density to support public transit because, pretty much by definition, rural areas don’t have centralized locations for people to be picked up at; small numbers of people are going long distances to a variety of places.
That said, cities and big towns are the “low hanging fruit” for reducing car reliance with by far the largest return on investment.
Edit: it’s great to be passionate and have goals. It’s great to want to reduce or eliminate reliance on cars. But, as I think you’ve learned here, you need to keep perspective on what is practical and recognize the system people are currently living in. When you revcieve new information that doesn’t fit with your view, think about it and learn. It doesn’t mean you are wrong or your overall goal is a bad one, but it’s good to understand the perspective of people you disagree with. In this example, take the reasons people give for needing a car and try to understand those reasons. Assuming that people are giving vailid reasons, try to figure out how we might be able to change things so that those people don’t need to rely on cars. Don’t tell them “just ride a bike”. In many many situations, that isn’t reasonable. Instead, try to figure out how we, as a society, can fix this over the long term.
Cheers!
Thanks for taking the time to lecture some kid online. I’d probably do the same.
Maybe look up what rural means.
Brother I live a 25 minute drive to the closest grocery store.
On a bike that’d easily be 1.5 to 2 hours each way.
To get enough groceries on a bike to last a month I’d have to make at least 8 trips, probably double that. Its 104°f today.
straight up you’re asking me to die of heat stroke
Electric bikes go pretty quick. If that’s mostly backroads, you’d probably get about the same time. If you’re hitting highway, there’s no comparison though. My 15m car commute is a 25m e-bike commute, and I don’t show up all sweaty and gross like I would on a regular bike. I can only do that about 8-9 months of the year though, the rest of the time it’s car or don’t go to work.
Thanks for doing data. I could never.
You expect someone to fucking BIKE a 2 hour car ride to an Airport? You must be off your rocker.
Renting a car is way cheaper unless you drive like every day. Edit: to be clear, no, you don’t have to use your bike and your only source of transportation.
Renting a car is definitely not cheaper than owning one. Rentals have a fixed daily cost. If you pay cash for a car, you own it and don’t incur a fixed monthly bill to pay off the car. Your costs become upkeep, insurance, and gasoline. Which, you still have to pay Gas and Insurance on a Rental too, and often maintenance if the rental is in your possession and it needs maintenance.
Where I can afford to live versus where I can afford to work, I have a commute of 1 hour and 23 minutes, or 90 miles one way. This means I have only one option for work, and work from home as often as I’m able to.
Do I like being dependent on a car? No. Is it my only option currently? Yes.
That said, I do enjoy driving, and part of that is having responsible drivers on the road. The more people that have public transportation, the better, IMO, since it means less people and less bad drivers. In my ideal world, the only people on the road would be people who just enjoy driving, but do not need it. A pipe dream for sure.