What a surprise, the laws of physics apply in Wales just the same as everywhere else, no matter what the motor/oil industry lobbyists claim to the contrary...
We have created a society where to survive a large proportion of people are compelled to spend a ton of money to risk their life and risk becoming killers, at least twice a day, every single workday! They have no other choice.
It is madness!
We have created a society where such a system is so normalized and internalized that the victims of it fight to keep it! And the more victimized, the harder they fight.
Shit. Thought I saw a positive story about refurbishing and reopening a major train station...and it turns out it's just a puff piece about a rich Ford family guy buying it and turning into a "tech hub" for Ford's campus. #Trains#FuckCars#Transportation
Imagine if most people shopping at WalMart carried a chainsaw, running full tilt. ( For some hypothetical reason, shopping took half as long with the chainsaw, than without )
Shoppers would hold the chainsaw out in front of them, and be very careful passing other people. But every now and then, somebody would trip, or sneeze, and cut off another shopper's arm, leg or head. Or maybe they just got angry, and then claimed they'd sneezed.
The news, the police and the safety officials would cluck and say "oh, no. This is so sad. We will dearly miss Aunt Mildred from Lincoln Avenue [ but mistakes will be made, and we understand that ]".
Some people could decide not to carry chainsaws, and accept that their shopping takes twice as long. But they are ridiculed, and told they aren't personally any safer without the chainsaw.
This is basically how we live with cars in our crowded cities.
@NewNordicNormal And often (especially during the twice-per-day Black Friday clearance sales), not carrying the chainsaw makes shopping actually faster.
As I heard the Indy cars zipping around in circles on my father in law's TV, I remarked, "You know, people ride around at 200mph or more every day on bullet trains and planes, and nobody finds it exciting. It's mundane, like walking or sleeping. But do it recklessly in tiny little metal boxes, instead of safe big metal boxes, and people get excited. That's weird."
"The ultimate test to prove what cars have done to the American psyche only requires that you walk out your front door. Take a photo with your phone. Now highlight in red the places in which it would be fully legal for a car to strike and kill you. Now highlight in yellow the places in which a car could strike and kill you and you would have to make a legal case that it was not your fault. Now highlight in green places where you believe you are safe from cars." - Dan Sheehan #fuckcars
6:30am, Thursday, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
This congestion could have been a single train car, but the powers that be decided that it was better (for them) to make everyone dependent on the oil and auto industry.