Yeah cool bro just swing around slowly and back into the park tail first while a huge line of people are waiting to get past.
Yeah cool bro just swing around slowly and back into the park tail first while a huge line of people are waiting to get past.
When Americans talk about driving I envision it's like the ending to Jesus Camp. Its this all American, morbidly obese, clearly brainwashed evangelical lady just driving her shitty car while right-wing talk radio is blaring in the background. Outside the window, you just see endless treat'n'slop signage and MacMansion Cul-de-sac labyrinths. Then she goes through the carwash, like she's washing away all the sin and filth. She goes "I love America, I love the American lifestyle." like she's trying to convince herself that any of this is worth it.
Just absolute fucking hell on earth.
that's pretty close. a high proportion of our built environment was designed and developed under the assumption that one would be moving 40+ mph through it. much of it includes garish/high contrast signage and symbols meant to elicit a brain response ("gas", "food", "turn here", "stop") and to facilitate, to some degree, entering and exiting of these wide avenues as you hurtle through space in your machine.
the only comparison i can think of to something people who haven't experienced it, is an analogy. think of a pleasant, easy to use website. that's a transportation system in a normal country. now think of the worst website you have ever been to, riddled with popups and autoplaying videos, and you have no pop-up / ad blocker software. that's 90% of roads in urbanized areas in the US. and if you're walking down the little narrow sidewalk (if there even is one), cars constantly speeding past you a few feet away with no protection or buffer, the aesthetic experience is horrifying and deeply alienating and just plain dangerous. in much of the US, the only people doing it are too fuckin' broke to have their own car, because it is so dangerous and unpleasant.
the car-brain thing is deeply self-reinforcing, because for an american to lose their car means being forced into that, especially since the only communities with planning for walkability tend to price out most americans, in terms of cost of living. the idea that if we collectively stopped driving we could reclaim our civic spaces for mass transit, pedestrianism and bicycling never enters the mind. our imaginations of a alternative have been foreclosed on.