it's useless to worry about global warming (for the time being), rant #1230120

[jverne]

Yes, but they have a top speed of 50-60mph (make that 35-40 uphill). They are not an adequate replacement for the car because they are only a sensible or safe choice for city use. You're also a lot more vulnerable on these machines because they're harder to see, have a lot less presence on the road, have shite brakes and skinny tyres, and no better acceleration than a small car. They completely lack one of the key advantages of bikes (performance).

Bikes (motorised or otherwise) are never going to replace cars. All the practicality and false economy issues aside, riding is very dangerous, especially in urban areas. I wouldn't expect anyone to commute through London via motorbike, because the odds are you WILL get hurt - especially if you're only doing it to get from A to B and don't spend your spare time improving your abilities like us enthusiasts do.
I got rear-ended by a muppet just yesterday, sub-5mph and no damage to either vehicle but it was enough to make me drop the bike on my bad leg and render me incapable of riding the rest of the way home or standing on the leg. Ended up spending all night waiting in A+E, and now I'm limping heavily for a while and out of action for a few days. There's no such thing as a "fender-bender" on two wheels, and in heavy traffic you're far more likely to have an accident in the first place too. I could just as easily have fallen the other way and ended up laying with my head and neck in the line of fire of oncoming traffic. It's not a choice of transport for the faint-hearted. As a lifestyle it means some big sacrifices and, for most regular riders, living with a legacy of various painful injuries which come back to haunt you later on. Even bike nuts give up biking for these reasons. Our society is far too risk-averse to ever accept that as mainstream, especially if it's just for the sake of quicker commuting.



Such things have fallen by the wayside here.



Keeping a separate vehicle for recreation is far more wasteful than using it daily. A vehicle only has value when it's in use. Really it doesn't matter so much from an ecological perspective what you use, so long as you use it. The biggest waste is buying new and then trading it in two years later for something else new. If you really want to help the environment, buy whatever the hell you want, but buy it second-hand and then run it into the ground until it's only good for scrap. Then buy something else second-hand.
That being said, I hate urban 4x4s and similar for a whole host of other reasons. They're usually driven by myopic, selfish idiots who just want it to be someone else who dies when they cause an accident through their abysmal driving.



Um, no. It's really quite simple. You can do what you want unless you interfere with someone else's right to do what they want. People should take responsibility for themselves. Government gets involved in all kinds of things they have absolutely no business getting involved in. I mean, the government is the biggest spender on advertising in the UK. So my taxes are being ploughed into propaganda? Great.
There's something very wrong when we work for the state more than we work for ourselves. How the hell did 40%+ tax rates combined with huge taxes on everything we buy, save and spend, become an accepted norm?



If you don't want to have a big city, live somewhere else and you won't have to pay the price. Meanwhile, you can also benefit from the economic boom of the big city which subsidises you.



Not at all. I'm saying you can't have your cake and eat it. Overpopulation unavoidably places undue strain on resources, the environment, quality of life, people's disposition...and, well, everything really. We have much smaller homes which we have to pay a much higher price for, major transport problems, strain on public services, and of course all the accompanying social problems that result from putting too many people in too small a space.



Consumerism is causing most of society's problems full stop. Unfortunately it's a deeply ingrained cultural thing, and it's not something you're going to solve with punitive taxes or oppressive government.



Hmm no, I'm saying you don't need laws to govern every interaction you have with anyone else. Laws are inflexible, the majority of them are completely unnecessary and are usually passed at the whim of some special interest group. They are often badly enforced (hence prosecuting people for doing 33mph in a 30mph zone at 2am).
These days everyone is a criminal because the law is so complicated and absurd that it's impossible to stay on the right side of it the whole time, and acting legally often conflicts with acting in the common interest or with common sense anyway. It's a ridiculous situation.



I'm referring to the loonie environmentalism aka socialism in disguise that has become popular in very recent years. Which is driven by ignorance, hatred, reverse bigotry and envy, rather than any genuine desire to "save the planet".



What crazy assertion? You took what she said completely out of context:

"They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours."



In my experience, only a handful of global warming activists or whatever the hell you want to call them actually have a clue what they're on about or why. Mostly they just get whipped up by the media and are given a free excuse to hate a convinient group of people. It's something to latch onto in a world where we all search for meaning.
If there was any rational thought behind it all, they would seek to solve actual problems instead of trying to replace cars with buses which are far less efficient, encouraging people to get rid of their old cars for new ones with slightly better fuel economy (FAR better for the environment to just keep the old car). Likewise, they wouldn't create a situation which harms mankind through economic and technological regression. So you're in poverty? That's ok - so long as you're not polluting the planet. It's got to the stage now where it's so ridiculously expensive just to live that even people with well above average incomes are really struggling. Most of this comes down to our oppressive tax regime.
Being "green" is just a pious fashion statement, and isn't about the well-being of the human race at all.

firstly i would like to point out that i'm not looking for a car replacement, but it would be nice if people would more regularly choose better performing (ecologicaly speaking) means of transport. that especially goes for the city folk.

i think that vehicles today are really (most) poorly made and thats probably the reason why second hand ones are crap. i for one have an 14 year old Citroen AX which is in pretty bad shape but it can still drive 200km for 15 EU (fuel), which is somwhere around 7 liters per 100 km. they rarely make cars like this nowadays. you know a product is good when it far outlives it's current competition. there very are few cars older than 5 years in my country since most of them either don't perform good after that time or that they don't meet the environmental standard required for registering the car.

anyways for daily city use anything bigger than a smart or a yaris is probably overkill.
4x4 vehicles are really useful to a minority of people. like you said most city folk that drive 4x4 are careless pricks.

You can do what you want unless you interfere with someone else's right to do what they want.

what's your plan in teaching people responsibility?

There's something very wrong when we work for the state more than we work for ourselves. How the hell did 40%+ tax rates combined with huge taxes on everything we buy, save and spend, become an accepted norm?

i think it has alot to do with military spending, corruption and downright stupid political decisions.
i don't have a good answer for that. but i wasn't implying that the government should control our finances.


are you saying 4x4s are the reason for the economic boom of the big city?



i agree that overpopulation is a huge factor that is destroying "our" lifestyle standard.
when you have two people arguing it's much easier to come up with a solution for both of them. but when you have thousands of them, democratically established laws are the only option.


i give you that, laws can be inflexible, but thats not their fault. it's the people who make them that poorly defines them and even more badly execute them. i've read alot of laws that actually make no sense and doesn't benefit anyone not the pople, not the elite not the environment.
i think the problem lies in the fact that common people don't have a say in making laws. the government is out of touch with the people. that's probably why we ended up with this black and white situation where you have people blindly following our leadership and those who reject them.
what happened to by the people for the people?!

 

[repiV]

firstly i would like to point out that i'm not looking for a car replacement, but it would be nice if people would more regularly choose better performing (ecologicaly speaking) means of transport. that especially goes for the city folk.

But what I'm saying is that owning, running and maintaining multiple vehicles is expensive and usually a false economy. Running a motorbike alongside a car may be ecologically viable, as they are very small and there is much less to manufacture than with a car, but if you're running a decent bike it's certainly not economically viable. Bikes are very high maintenance and expensive to run for this reason - almost every part of a bike is a consumable and needs to be replaced on a regular basis (even the engine on a two stroke), and the high-revving nature of bikes means that they get subjected to a lot more mechanical stress than cars. The main benefit of motorcycle commuting is time saved, not money.
I can't envisage any realistic situation in which running a pleasure car and a daily car would be ecologically viable, unless you have a Lamborghini or something.

i think that vehicles today are really (most) poorly made and thats probably the reason why second hand ones are crap. i for one have an 14 year old Citroen AX which is in pretty bad shape but it can still drive 200km for 15 EU (fuel), which is somwhere around 7 liters per 100 km. they rarely make cars like this nowadays. you know a product is good when it far outlives it's current competition. there very are few cars older than 5 years in my country since most of them either don't perform good after that time or that they don't meet the environmental standard required for registering the car.

This is true. Manufacturers are sacrificing build quality for other things, but that's only in response to market factors really. If you want to make motoring more environmentally friendly, this is what really has to stop. It's the same with bikes - many of the older ones last practically forever, but these days the primary market is well off people who use them only as toys for 3000 miles a year, and so most of the new bikes on the market corrode and fall apart under any decent mileage or winter use. People actually buy separate winter bikes because the modern sportsbikes just get destroyed by bad conditions.

anyways for daily city use anything bigger than a smart or a yaris is probably overkill.
4x4 vehicles are really useful to a minority of people. like you said most city folk that drive 4x4 are careless pricks.

True, but it's not the fault of the vehicle but the idiot driving it. They choose them because they can drive like morons and it's other people who have to suffer the consequences.

what's your plan in teaching people responsibility?

I think you've got it backwards. People don't take responsibility because they don't have to - there's always a government handout or frivolous lawsuit to step in and save you. Parents today are also raising their kids in a manner that keeps them wrapped in a cocoon of safety and so they never get to learn about the consequences of their actions. Then they get out into the real world and when they screw up the government is always on hand to help them with money taken from people who didn't screw up. We have a society of eternal childhood.

i think it has alot to do with military spending, corruption and downright stupid political decisions.
i don't have a good answer for that. but i wasn't implying that the government should control our finances.

Well...military spending is a drop in the ocean really. The biggest government expenditure in the UK is welfare, followed by health...defence doesn't even come close.
The problem is that politicians have a ticket to spend other people's money however they feel like, and of course the nature of elections means that they never look at the long term. So we end up with an unthinkable amount of waste on making good headlines.

are you saying 4x4s are the reason for the economic boom of the big city?

No? :|

i agree that overpopulation is a huge factor that is destroying "our" lifestyle standard.
when you have two people arguing it's much easier to come up with a solution for both of them. but when you have thousands of them, democratically established laws are the only option.

It should come down to ensuring the greatest liberty. There is no case for marijuana being illegal, even if 99% of the population wants it to be so - it doesn't affect them. Mind your own business etc.

i give you that, laws can be inflexible, but thats not their fault. it's the people who make them that poorly defines them and even more badly execute them. i've read alot of laws that actually make no sense and doesn't benefit anyone not the pople, not the elite not the environment.
i think the problem lies in the fact that common people don't have a say in making laws. the government is out of touch with the people. that's probably why we ended up with this black and white situation where you have people blindly following our leadership and those who reject them.
what happened to by the people for the people?!

This is why the power of government should always be limited.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

It should come down to ensuring the greatest liberty. There is no case for marijuana being illegal, even if 99% of the population wants it to be so - it doesn't affect them. Mind your own business etc.

I love you.

Kidding, but I do agree.

 

[jverne]

But what I'm saying is that owning, running and maintaining multiple vehicles is expensive and usually a false economy. Running a motorbike alongside a car may be ecologically viable, as they are very small and there is much less to manufacture than with a car, but if you're running a decent bike it's certainly not economically viable. Bikes are very high maintenance and expensive to run for this reason - almost every part of a bike is a consumable and needs to be replaced on a regular basis (even the engine on a two stroke), and the high-revving nature of bikes means that they get subjected to a lot more mechanical stress than cars. The main benefit of motorcycle commuting is time saved, not money.
I can't envisage any realistic situation in which running a pleasure car and a daily car would be ecologically viable, unless you have a Lamborghini or something.



This is true. Manufacturers are sacrificing build quality for other things, but that's only in response to market factors really. If you want to make motoring more environmentally friendly, this is what really has to stop. It's the same with bikes - many of the older ones last practically forever, but these days the primary market is well off people who use them only as toys for 3000 miles a year, and so most of the new bikes on the market corrode and fall apart under any decent mileage or winter use. People actually buy separate winter bikes because the modern sportsbikes just get destroyed by bad conditions.



True, but it's not the fault of the vehicle but the idiot driving it. They choose them because they can drive like morons and it's other people who have to suffer the consequences.



I think you've got it backwards. People don't take responsibility because they don't have to - there's always a government handout or frivolous lawsuit to step in and save you. Parents today are also raising their kids in a manner that keeps them wrapped in a cocoon of safety and so they never get to learn about the consequences of their actions. Then they get out into the real world and when they screw up the government is always on hand to help them with money taken from people who didn't screw up. We have a society of eternal childhood.



Well...military spending is a drop in the ocean really. The biggest government expenditure in the UK is welfare, followed by health...defence doesn't even come close.
The problem is that politicians have a ticket to spend other people's money however they feel like, and of course the nature of elections means that they never look at the long term. So we end up with an unthinkable amount of waste on making good headlines.



No? :|



It should come down to ensuring the greatest liberty. There is no case for marijuana being illegal, even if 99% of the population wants it to be so - it doesn't affect them. Mind your own business etc.



This is why the power of government should always be limited.

that is mostly true that having two vehicles is not that economic. what i had in mind is that having maybe a medium sized car and a bicycle or maybe even a small bike like this one.

50cc air cooled
50km/h
1.8l/100km

i don't own one, but from experience with simmilar models it requires next to no maintenance.
but this particular model is relatively quite expensive.


as for 4x4 drivers. i think that in dense areas like city centers should be closed for certain vehicles, in this case 4x4s.


well then how do we teach parents responsibility...trough schools and advertise campaigns?

It should come down to ensuring the greatest liberty. There is no case for marijuana being illegal, even if 99% of the population wants it to be so - it doesn't affect them. Mind your own business etc.

i'm sorry but i'm not quite sure what you mean by this, could you expand on it a bit.
what do you mean by ensuring greatest liberty...that the people arguing could do whatever they want?




oh and...you don't approve of universal health care? welfare is a bit complex i won't go into that just now

 

[repiV]

I love you.

Kidding, but I do agree.

Can I have some free bacon? I hear the radiation is a flavour enhancer.

that is mostly true that having two vehicles is not that economic. what i had in mind is that having maybe a medium sized car and a bicycle or maybe even a small bike like this one.

50cc air cooled
50km/h
1.8l/100km

i don't own one, but from experience with simmilar models it requires next to no maintenance.
but this particular model is relatively quite expensive.

I wouldn't be seen dead on one of those things.

I also think that mopeds limited to 30mph are stupid and dangerous, as traffic tends to move somewhat faster than that even in the city. And the people who ride them tend to be clueless. Cue rant about muppets on scooters who cut me up, make suicidal maneuvers and sit in front of me at the lights forcing me to accelerate with all the gusto of an asthmatic weasel and try to avoid being squashed by cars. Grr.

as for 4x4 drivers. i think that in dense areas like city centers should be closed for certain vehicles, in this case 4x4s.

I don't see what difference it makes - they don't take up significantly more road space than a normal car. You still have to keep the same gap between vehicles anyway which is significantly larger than the length of any car so it's a case of pissing in the wind really. Especially given the numerous lorries, mostly empty buses and other large vehicles on the streets.
Exception being that it's more difficult to slip past those things on a bike because they're exceptionally wide - but that's no reason to bar them from cities!

well then how do we teach parents responsibility...trough schools and advertise campaigns?

Why do you have to teach parents responsibility? They're not children, it's not the government's place to educate/brainwash adults.

i'm sorry but i'm not quite sure what you mean by this, could you expand on it a bit.
what do you mean by ensuring greatest liberty...that the people arguing could do whatever they want?

No...I mean that democracy is not about enforcing the will of the majority. Everyone should be free to go about their business unless it infringes unduly upon the ability of others to do the same.

oh and...you don't approve of universal health care? welfare is a bit complex i won't go into that just now

I never said that. I don't approve of the colossal levels of waste, however...doubled NHS spending in the last ten years to no benefit whatsoever (if anything, it's worse than it used to be).

 

[Kula Meenur]

50cc air cooled
50km/h
1.8l/100km

Death on wheels, a coffin with a handlebar D: Don't buy the ****er whatever you do!







that's just my opinion...it's your life.