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- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
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Bus lanes and trams are a symbol of “communism” and car is a sign of “freedom” until you realize that the ultimate freedom is choosing to walk, bike, take transit, or drive to your destination.
his employer won’t reimburse him for mileage once he fully transitions into his new role next month
2018 Chevy Silverado, which he uses to carry equipment and supplies for the hotels, this year.
Well, that’s a fucking problem. Don’t take a job in which you are expected to use a personal vehicle for work purposes. Work provided vehicle and submit receipts for gasoline. Insurance company won’t like it. You won’t like how fast your car goes through tires and then dies. Etc.
I feel like the legality of not reimbursing him for using his personal vehicle for work purposes is fairly dubious though I’d be lying if I said I knew the specifics of the laws there.
Employer: taps head They’re a contractor and I don’t pay then enough to live.
I think in his case he’s salary as a regional manager. Contractor is a whole other thing.
I can only see so much of the article so I don’t know where he’s based, but I know in some places the reimbursement is mandatory. Per IRS mileage reimbursement is currently $0.725/mile. Working in hospice I drive to patients homes with my supplies full time, which cuts me a check for about $300-450 mo, which more than covers gas.
I actually just switched to a hybrid so since reimbursement stays the same, it’ll start paying for the car a well.
Given the cost of fuel, a bus pass for me (if I still had to commute, I work from home now) for a month is now just over $800/mo.
6 years ago, that was $375/mo.
I don’t think the issue is limited to car drivers, I suspect more than a few folks who took public transit with me are looking at a pretty impactful monthly cost.
Trains. Overhead wire. Green energy. Build it now or suffer later.
I agree.
That does nothing to address the current (rapidly rising) commuting costs happening now, though.
Buy a bike. Carpool. Work from home.
Militarize against police for eviction defense?
I think you missed the part where I pointed out that I do work from home.
I’d also point out that riding a bike for the commutes I’m mentioning is a non-starter, its too large of a distance for a daily commuter ride.
Again, the point is that this is not a car commuter exclusive problem, and its going to impact people who use mass transit. There are plenty of train lines that aren’t powered and require dual electric/diesel engines. Infrastructure installation to extend lines takes time, not to mention the lack of rail infrastructure in the first place that impacts the overwhelming majority of the US.
too large of a distance for a daily commuter ride
You didn’t mention this: what distance did you have in mind?
The current average commute for my state is about 15mi, but that number (annoyingly) includes WFH which skews the numbers.
Mine, for example, would be a 60mi commute if I still had one.
Edit: And I don’t think I should have to really mention that the overwhelming majority of commuters are leaving their town for work…
where I pointed out
Yes I did where was it
the infrastructure to deal with this problem does not currently exist because we tore it all down after world war 2 and that is a problem with building this infrastructure even though the problem will only get worse.
That’s a hell of a take
relief now!
You pissed in your bed America. I was telling you to stop now you’re too tired to stand and complaining about all the piss.
Yes I did where was it
Very first sentence.
Given the cost of fuel, a bus pass for me (if I still had to commute, I work from home now) for a month is now just over $800/mo.
Also, don’t make shit up and fake quote because you misread and want to be shitty about it.
Ride that bike 20 miles to work. Easy!
Some people do they’re in great shape from all the biking and don’t need gym memberships
You want infrastructure the nerds have been shouting about since it was torn up 81 years ago and infrastructure to make this not happen again or not matter takes time which is why we didn’t want it torn up and then wanted to build it back maybe listen to us next time
You ignored my last suggestion of quitting the job and joining with your neighbors to ban evictions in your community.
I do know a guy who rides his bike everywhere and he is HOT. Saw him in a suit and he has the kind of body that suits were designed to flatter. Wow.
We need Americans to feel the pain hard enough they screen for trains
Would be wonderful.
Unfortunately the time to do it was years ago. Obviously the next best time is to start now, but it will be years before results and that doesnt help those impacted now.
We need to Americans to come to psychologically distrust driving.
Way too much land, way too little education, and way too much selfishness to allow for that.
We had electric buses with overhead wires in São Paulo in the 80s.
The US had electric interurban railroads in the Rockies a hundred years ago.
It can happen very fast.
No I’m sorry I’m informed that trains do jot ql4eady exist and so cannot exist
Yeah. I feel very lucky to have moved to a place where I have an electric train and an electric bus system powered by hydroelectric.
Oh wait, climate change means our glacial flow is 12% of the typical rate and the province is announcing a datacenter construction plan?
Well fuck me too I guess.
Commenting for update on response ^
?
What update are you expecting here?
Your response to that comment. I wanted to know, so I used a comment as a bookmark.
Wait. Where are you that a bus pass changes price based on fuel?
Northeast US.
Costs go up -> price goes up.
Bus lanes and trams are a symbol of “communism” and car is a sign of “freedom”
This is basically it.
I saw a post the other day that argued to the conservative mind there must be an underclass. There must be poor people whose lives suck. If you try to make things good for everyone, you’re going against nature and will just make things bad for everyone.
Thus good public transit is bad. If different classes of people all mingle then it’s like mixing your food up on the plate and that’s just wrong!
They really are like children
But but the oil and car companies DESERVE our income! Corporate rulers are just born better! /s
I still don’t get truck culture.
I grew up kinda out in the sticks, fair number of religious nuts and racists.
You know what they’d say about trucks, in the late 90s?
If you need a truck, like, really actually need a truck, you get it and use it only for actually hauling shit, or towing something.
Then you have a sedan or similar for everything else.
Like, … the yokels of 20/30 years ago would all be laughing at the yokels of today.
I don’t get how these people can be this aggresively stupid, its literally an insult to their ‘heritage’, fucked up as that heritage may or may not be.
They would! I remember my gear head uncles scoffing and laughing at the extended cab in the 90s.
They would absolutley laugh at these yuppies. Now some of them are the yuppies.
its wild.
Yep I remember that too, specifically
Extended cab? Ridiculous. Like ‘hwaaaak ptooie’ ridiculous.
Whatchu gonna do with that?
Take your wife down to the feed and seed, ask her for help liftin bags into the bed?
Ahhahahahah!
Swear to god I heard nearly exactly that at some point.
This implies your wife is so large she couldn’t just sit in the passenger seat to one’s right.
It’s masculine insecurity. Our culture doesn’t produce men who are secure in their gender identity so they have to constantly proofs it to themselves and others all the time. Once you see it, you realize it’s the root cause from everything from truck nuts to looksmaxxing
Your description of the 80s and 90s lines up with Charleston SC, but not with backcountry SC, or anywhere I went in Alabama or Texas.
The default is a pickup, sedans are for posh people.
EXACTLY. GIVE A CHOICE!!
I myself am a car person but still. Give us a choice. I would be ALL FOR banning cars in our downtown area and just having to bike walk or bus to get there from farther away. Cars ruin cities.
We need them in rural. But thats far fewer people.
It is going to be very funny (read: horrifying) watching the American economy entirely grind to a halt, due to our car centric design of everything just completely imploding as ICE vehicle commuting itself becomes a luxury.
We’re so fucking delusional about this.
Cars are unaffordable.
Gas is unaffordable.
Public transit basically doesn’t exist outside of some major cities, but not even close to all.
If it costs more to go to work and be able to go to work, than you are paid for working, it is imminently rational to not go to work.
Just most people in general will completely lose their minds as this gets worse.
What will win?
Just get an EV or Hybrid or Motorcycle or E Bike…
Or…
No, cuz that’s gay/stupid/‘unreasonable’… ?
Or just can’t afford to buy a new vehicle, ironically enough. I would love little more than to get rid of my car for an EV right now but I was barely staying afloat before gas prices started to surge, now it’s just even more precarious.
I guess you could put it like this:
How do we improve traffic?
Raise gas prices, dramatically.
Anybody who cannot just stop driving will tell you the many many ways why that’s a terrible idea without like 15 other things done first
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The problem in the US is that everything is to far from everything else thanks to low density, sprawling suburbs. Public transport works best in high density neighborhoods where they constantly have enough passengers that allows for a bus every 5 minutes. The other difference is that in my city you don’t get any free parking, because the land value is insane and parking garages charge something like $10/h or so. This means for me driving into the city would be expensive, inconvenient and slow because of the traffic lights on every corner, so bus or tram wins every time over the car.
Apparently motorcycles are selling really well. Ebikes are gonna be big winners in town too. Transit ridership appears to.be slightly up but lots of cuties are still below pre pandemic levels due to cuts
I would LOVE a motorcycle, but the reality is that if anything hits you, even a tiny car, you’re going to get smeared. Best case scenario, you just destroy one leg if you fall over.
I have literally had dreams about riding a motorcycle, but I just can’t balance the risk on that one. If the rider makes a small mistake, dead. If there is a foreign object in the road that you hit and go flying, dead. If a deer pops out in front of you, dead. If some crazy person in a tiny car gets mad at you, dead. If some crazy person in a big truck gets mad at you, dead.
There are so many ways to be dead and so little between you and a lot of big immovable objects. Our little meaty bodies are not meant to sustain the forces that happen in a motorcycle crash. Yeah, you should wear a good helmet and all the riding gear, but at most, it will just serve to contain the meat paste that your body will be transformed into if you get hit hard.
So depressing. It looks like so much fun.
I sold my bike after getting into a head on collision in my car when some guy playing with his phone decided to smooch his headlights with mine, had I been on two wheels I’d be dead. Get a dirtbike and go off road, just as fun to twist the throttle without the traffic and road rage.
Yeah I lost a friend to one in college in a rather horrific crash and I’m not nearly as athletic or coordinated as he was, decided I’d always stay away from them after that happened.
But at the same time, using mopeds and motorcycles is extremely common in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa.
And many of those places have road infrastrucure as bad quality as ours.
Yeah, if 10% of US drivers just switched instantly from cars to motorcycles, that’d be quite dangerous, because most American car drivers are idiots who shouldn’t own cars or be able to drive them.
But… if 10 or 20 or 30% of US car drivers just… stop driving, full stop… and then more people switch to motorbikes…
Might be less of a blood bath?
I don’t want to justify the use of cars, but the reality is that it’s a big place here. Also, much of the place has winter. A motorcycle is more of a toy than transportation unlike other countries. A lot of people can’t afford a car and a motorcycle–hell, they can barely afford the car.
Now our obsession with big trucks is just stupid.
San Diego is about to increase fares and reduce service. They seem to think they have a captive audience in the poors, the disabled, the old.
Yet there are so many deaths on motorcycles. This week alone there has been at least one death a day where I live. I used to want to buy a bike. Nope.
Won’t be as great for road death stats though.
There’s simple solutions for all of that:
- Fire anyone who’s not essential. Poor people don’t have any money to spend anyway, firing them will not have big impact on the economy
- With less workers you can transform free office space into dorms. Employees will be able to rent them for a small price.
- Unemployed people don’t have money to buy food so it doesn’t matter if they can drive to the store or not, another problem solved
- Put up military style camps with tents and bunk beds next to factories. Workers will be able to rent those beds and get basic food rations for a % of their salaries. No commute needed.
I’m patiently waiting to see what else it takes for Americans to overthrow this government.
From his pedophile ring to unlawful executive orders, wars, tariffs… Trump keeps breaking the law and acts outside their beloved constitution. All with consent from the majority in both ruling parties, either by direct support ® or silence (D).
It’s already happened, the coup is done.
I still see a small chance to reverse this, if only the rest of the world wouldn’t continue sucking up to this criminal government.
The funny thing is how you pretend that it wouldn’t be the same fucking thing in any other country. I don’t recall seeing this line of garbage about Hungarians “allowing” Orban to control the country for 16 years.
The article is about the US.
But since you mention him, Orbán was plenty bad, afaik he acted largely within the law. Like the gerrymandering in the US that disenfranchises minority voters. And as I said, Trump acts outside the law in addition to all the fucked up stuff they’re doing by the book.
hes saying that people were not suggesting hungarians allowing orban to do things. Honestly Im pretty sure I did see things blamine hungarians for the state hungry with voting and such though. So not sure I agree on him. Still I get that many people are nasty despite the many americans tha actually are fighting in the ways they can.
There was plenty critique for Orbán here, I really cannot stand the whataboutism this comment shows.
We have our problems in Europe as well that we need to takle quickly and decisively. If Trump gets away with shit there is someone else in the world taking note, it’s a preview of what may come for us soon.
My original comment is in part frustration but also a genuine question. People being driven into existential crises just sucking it up and taking on a 4th job? I would have beheaded Ronald McDonald long before.
If it makes you feel better I am unemployed and protesting. I will keep protesting even if I get a job (technically I substitute teach). Im more take a bullet than leave a bullet though. So we either get through it like south korea and hungary or I eventually fall one way or another. But yeah I don’t get people able to live day to day business as usual.
How I feel is irrelevant, but thank you for protesting. Getting out there regularly is important and may encourage others to join you.
I believe we will all get through this, the question is how much unjust suffering and death needs to happen first.
Ukraine did a thing iirc that lead to them being a massive resistance to Russia.
So now you’re telling me that investing in a culture that denies basic physical reality might result in a situation where reality is inconvenient?
America is just too car centric
Yeah, I think we are certainly learning it, albeit slowly. When we set up our suburbia world, it was fine, because there were just fewer people, and we had the room to do it. It’s now chaos, you take your life in your hands driving to work, it costs an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, we designed ourselves into a corner, and (at least where I live) trying to fix it feels insurmountable. And I live in a place with some of the best trains outside of Manhattan. And they’re terrible.
No solutions here. Just observations.
Hi, I’m Trevor Moore. Did you know that it’s illegal to say “I want to kill the President of the United States of America”?
RIP Trevor Moore, one of the funniest (and whitest) kids u know.
He died like a Russian dissident except his death was actually an accident
If the average American is working mostly to pay rent and commuting costs, they’re less likely to look for a new job, or to try to improve conditions at their current job.
But hey. At least you know you’re FREE.
But we’re not even free. I want a refund
The rich are loving it because they have more reason to fire people.
I mean, commuting was unaffordable for a lot of American workers beforehand, too. I knew a guy that worked at a grocery store, had his car destroyed by an uninsured driver, and when he had a night shift, there was no public transportation. He had to shell out more in Uber and taxi to get to and from work than he made on his shift.
It’s just a lot more, I guess. At least, EVs will start selling again, right?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unsustainable
not capable of being prolonged or continued : not sustainable
The new job entails thousands of miles of driving each month to properties in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois […] and his employer won’t reimburse him for mileage.
No fucking comment.
There’s now less traffic during rush hour. But you know, just like with the pandemic, those cars will come back doubled just as soon as fuel becomes cheap again regardless of who made it cheap again.
Stupid trump is literally the green party! LOL. He’s forcing people to think about commuting! He’s forcing people to get rid of their cars…flooding the used car market and affecting their price so others may afford a ride. He is also making food and foreign good expensive… So people are loosing weight and buying less junk! Shipping companies will be forced to use paper based packaging because it has less plastic… And lighter products so less fuel is used.
LOL… Not lol. The price to pay is this gigantic ball of hurt just slowly accumulating. I hope it dissipates in a slow leak rather than a big pop.
People already made several attempts at his life.
Takes just one angry marine…
And then an angry nightclub owner.
Can you tell that Marine to hurry the fuck up?
They are a bit arthritic, just need to distract the nurse for them a bit, and off they go to finish the war they fought 86 years ago.
I like how everyone forgets EVs exist.
EVs mitigate one tiny slice of the problems caused by car culture.
Carbon emissions are only a tiny problem? What world do you live in?
- They still put crap in the environment from the tires
- much of the energy powering them isn’t green
- car culture still creates horrible spaces to live in
- crashes are still a common, ruinous, event
- doesn’t solve DUI
- still is expensive to own, maintain, insure
- car culture promotes isolated, sedentary life, which is bad for physical and mental health
Just off the top of my head. If you swapped all the gas cars for electric cars, you still have all those problems.
agree strongly on all points except:
- much of the energy powering them isn’t green
long debunked. even coal power to EV is better than gasoline emissions.
Not debunked at all: “Better than gasoline” is a low bar.
Coal is still not at all “green”/renewable/sustainable.
- The production emits a lot of greenhouse gasses, and requires a lot of ressources.
- Same goes for the infrastructure.
- EVs perpetuate car dependence, making it difficult to choose green modes transport.
- The space they take up, pushes everything further apart, making every other mode of travel less climate-friendly, because people have to travel further.
Better than ICE cars for the environment, in the same way that a commercial plane is better than a private one.
Tailpipe CO2 emissions are indeed only a fraction of the problem with ICE cars. EVs still cause CO2 emissions from production, maintenance, and especially infrastructure, in addition to being just as dangerous, noisy, and socially disruptive as an ICE car.
Further, if they are cheaper to operate, the Jevons Paradox means that we’ll end up using more total energy for EVs than we currently do for ICE vehicles, with all of the knock-on effects of pollution and environmental destruction wrought by automobile-oriented land use. That environmental destruction also drives climate change, and the Antheopocene mass extinction currently in progress.
It sure is. But we were talking about how regular people are currently affected by rising gas prices. Getting a used EV would be a helpful way to mitigate its effect on you.
You mean bicycles, right?
I do. I’ll just bike 30 miles to work on the highway… it’ll be fine.
You could put your bike on the front of a transit bus if those existed.
Ive done that before. Felt cool af
I used to do that in college. Would bike from school to work or take the bus when weather was bad or I was being lazy.
Unfortunately now I live in the suburbs away from any bus transit. :(
You done fucked up. Move.
Correct.
Here in the southwest, an EV is only cheap to charge at home. Many ordinary people live in apartments.
For now. I imagine gas prices will soon surpass the DC fast charge prices.
They aren’t cheap and that often means installing some at home charging station since ev charging stations arent great.
Thank god.
If you can avoid highway to get to work, a .50cc scooter sips gas and doesn’t need a motorcycle license to ride.
Bicycles have infinite mileage…
Or if you’re like the guy I saw the other day, you can intentionally take the highway during rush hour and split lanes the whole way.
That’s insane. 🤣
Splitting lanes is illegal in BC and is one thing cops will really fuck you over for. I have a motorcycle though. But those .50cc scooters are great. Vespas and Yamahas have plenty of storage too.
Bicycles are fine and all, but round these parts we have BIG hills. You’ll want an ebike or a scooter for that. And scooters are a lot cheaper to buy.
