Biking home from work, pickup truck honks at me and does that "angry pass" thing (you know where they pass you going way over the speed limit to take back that 2 seconds of driving time you stole from them). I flip him off. He flips me off. I flip him off again. He pulls over, gets out of his truck, calls me a homophobic slur and threatens to run me over. I call him a homophobic slur back (my bad y'all) and keep biking. He gets back in his truck, and I experience a moment of terror as I wait to see if he will in fact murder me over literally nothing. Fortunately, he relents and drives away.

Fuck. Why do people keep driving cars when it's clear that driving is such a miserable experience that motorists are routinely inches away from flying into a murderous rage? Why the fuck is that my fault? I'm literally the only person I know who's not contributing to the problem. I'll never own a car again. I never want to kill someone. I never want to make someone feel as scared as motorists make me feel. Why does that make me a fringe weirdo?

Like seriously, I've never met another person in my life who would even consider swearing off cars, even though a lot of them seem to understand they're bad. It's so isolating. Like, as scary as experiences like this one are, I'm way more likely to be killed in a so-called "accident" than deliberately run down. Which means every day I have to look at all my friends and family, knowing they all own cars, and think "one day someone just like you is going to kill me, and you're OK with that." And then they say shit like "stay safe out there" like if you want me to be safe stop doing the thing that's gonna kill me!

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Hope this is an OK place to post this stuff.

  • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    If every single person I knew had restrained from driving a car I know for a fact that at least 1 human being would be alive today who is currently dead. I don't know her name but someone I know killed her. It was an "accident" but it was also entirely contingent on that person's choice to drive.

    Yes, structural changes are needed, but I don't control municipal policy. All I can do is be out there, showing that there are people who want bike infrastructure, showing that there are viable non-car options with existing infrastructure, and figuring out how to live my life without killing people. If you have access to the levers of power, by all means, change the zoning laws, redo the street cross-sections, repeal the auto subsidies. If you're not in a position to do that stuff, what's your plan to get there? Otherwise "structural problems" is just a cop out. I've heard similar lines from carnists to justify why they eat meat.

    • MoneyIsTheDeepState [comrade/them,he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      If you’re not in a position to do that stuff, what’s your plan to get there? Otherwise “structural problems” is just a cop out.

      Tons of people have their hands full just sustaining themselves and their families. Do they need to seek a position in their Liberal democracy with the power to defy global capital's car fetish? Because that position effectively doesn't exist under a system designed to serve global capital

      • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        No, you don't have to seek institutional power. You can also do what I'm doing and just get by without putting human and non-human lives in danger by driving. Just don't bring up "structural problems" to justify actively participating in the violence.

          • sweepy [she/her,he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Yes. If you treat the location of your housing and the location of your job and the distance you feel you can bicycle as all being immutable, and your morals as a secondary concern, then it might seem impossible. But if you reverse the equation, and treat your life circumstances as mutable and your morals as a top priority, then your field of possibility can change. Maybe not literally tomorrow. I didn't ditch my car right away, it was a transition that took me a few years. But I suspect you have more options than you're currently considering as feasible. A thought experiment that helped me think through my options was, "OK, what would I do if I had a disability that prevented me from driving?"

            • MoneyIsTheDeepState [comrade/them,he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Yes, you can do quite a lot of things if you make them your top priority. I'm already putting my morals first, and I'm glad yours are going well too.