It’s bob. Little b. bob. Geesh.
Bob, I see what you mean. It does seem to be that being behind the wheel of a car makes some people more aggressive than they normally are. But is this just an observation of yours or is there some kind of concrete action you’d like to see taken?
It’s bob. Little b. bob. Geesh.[/quote]
Whoa, why did you think I was talking about you?
[quote=“hsiadogah”] I think I see where you’re coming from with this. All the TV ads for cars here feature guys blasting through wide-open spaces, wailing carefree down empty roads, screeching around like stuntmen on ice and all the while being admired by inferior plebian members of society like trophy wives and pedestrians.
Is that what you’re talking about bob? Help us understand? :help:
But of course, marketing is all about fantasy and unreality. Do you really think that everyone with four wheels buys into that? :loco:[/quote]
Me and a buddy of mine once drove a 67 mustang non stop from Vancouver to the Mojave (sp?) desert only to get it stuck in the salt flats of Death Valley. Heck, even I buy into it.
I’d like to see more bicycles and fewer cars.
I have often thought that people in control of an automobile cannot be considered to be completely human anymore. They are more of a mixture of machine and flesh. Their capabilities are different. What human being can travel 120 kph while talking on a cell phone and throwing cigarette butts out the window? I know I am a different person when I’m driving. I curse. I’m more aggressive. You have to be to survive in Taiwan, but even in the States I was like that.
I think that when the courts sentence someone for a driving infraction, they should also sentence the car.
I’d like to see more bicycles and fewer cars.[/quote]
I agree, I’d ride a bike to work if there weren’t so many cars on the way. Exercising in a polluted environment is worse than not exercising at all. Fact.
So, you drive and create smog to escape the smog. I bet there are lots of people like that.
[quote]SOUTHBOUND ON THE FREEWAY
By May Swenson
A tourist came in from Orbitville,
parked in the air, and said:
The creatures of this star
are made of metal and glass.
Through the transparent parts
you can see their guts.
Their feet are round and roll
on diagrams–or long
measuring tapes–dark
with white lines.
They have four eyes.
The two in the back are red.
Sometimes you can see a 5-eyed
one, with a red eye turning
on the top of his head.
He must be special-
the others respect him,
and go slow,
when he passes, winding
among them from behind.
They all hiss as they glide,
like inches, down the marked
tapes. Those soft shapes,
shadowy inside
the hard bodies–are they
their guts or their brains? [/quote]
I think they should be sentenced for polluting the air, creating a disturbance and endangering public safety.
I’d like to see more bicycles and fewer cars.[/quote]Right. I thought that’s where you were going with this.
I too would like to see more journeys made by bike. I would like to see better, cleaner, more convenient public transport and more people using it. I’d like to see more effort put into the swift adoption of more environmentally-friendly car technology and the setting-up of the necessary infrastructure.
But you have to be careful with the simplistic “cars-are-evil” kind of talk. That’s not going to convert anybody. That nice ex-zookeeper environmental-type-guy on TV made the point that cars are here to stay. He made an excellent programme about the developments in green car technology. And, importantly, he showed some green cars that people will actually want to buy. There was a nice-looking hybrid SUV. And there was a fun all-terrain type thing that would do decent doughnuts.
The whole point is to be pragmatic – to aim for change that actually has a realistic chance of happening, rather than dreaming of ideal worlds.
[quote=“joesax”] I too would like to see more journeys made by bike. I would like to see better, cleaner, more convenient public transport and more people using it. I’d like to see more effort put into the swift adoption of more environmentally-friendly car technology and the setting-up of the necessary infrastructure.
But you have to be careful with the simplistic “cars-are-evil” kind of talk. That’s not going to convert anybody. That nice ex-zookeeper environmental-type-guy on TV made the point that cars are here to stay. He made an excellent programme about the developments in green car technology. And, importantly, he showed some green cars that people will actually want to buy. There was a nice-looking hybrid SUV. And there was a fun all-terrain type thing that would do decent doughnuts.
The whole point is to be pragmatic – to aim for change that actually has a realistic chance of happening, rather than dreaming of ideal worlds.[/quote]
Hey Joe (I bet you get that a lot) all I did was post the sentence “Road rage is caused by cars” in Mordeths thread. That statement got a dozen hits, and then somebody created this new thread. Anyway I don’t think there is any harm in pointing out the obvious with regard to the automobile situation now. Everybody hates the smog and the traffic but almost nobody who can afford to thinks to use an alternate form of transportation. It is a “character” issue as much as anything else.
[quote=“bob”]…all I did was post the sentence “Road rage is caused by cars” in Mordeths thread. That statement got a dozen hits, and then somebody created this new thread.[/quote]I created this new thread. For one thing, your comment was completely off topic in that thread, but more importantly, I felt it was an interesting point that had already provoked a little discussion and deserved its own thread.
[quote=“bob”]Anyway I don’t think there is any harm in pointing out the obvious with regard to the automobile situation now. Everybody hates the smog and the traffic but almost nobody who can afford to thinks to use an alternate form of transportation. It is a “character” issue as much as anything else.[/quote]Bob, you quoted my entire post but it seems that you may not have read it very thoroughly! I agree with you in some regards, but when you define it as a “character issue” and exhibit a confrontational attitude towards car drivers, you are NOT helping the cause of more environmentally-friendly transport!
You take this issue seriously but I wish you would also give it some analytical thought. Sometimes you remind me of the fanatical environmentalists I used to live with who criticised me for using herb teabags instead of loose herbs to make my tea because of the waste of paper in a teabag (even though said paper was from renewable sources anyway!)
Yeah, I get that a lot. 