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"Ready to help us take on the mighty car?"

(11 posts)
  • Started 12 years ago by chdot
  • Latest reply from le_soigneur

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "
    Sign up now and keep up with the film!

    "

    http://www.bikes-vs-cars.com/join

    "
    Bikes vs Cars is not only a film, we are a part of a global movement. This documentary is meant to be used an engine for all of us that think change is needed and possible. The film will investigate the politics that keep the car model thriving. Here's a peak into the synopsis:

    There’s an ongoing war: bikes vs cars. A multi-billion dollar industry that from early days has done everything to make society car dependent. Hundreds of billions of dollars are invested every year to sell the dream of car freedom. Now, oil prices and traffic gridlock have opened up room for bicycle revenge. Creative initiatives pop up, politicians and activists take on the mighty car. The car lobbyists have an enormous impact on city planning, in history and today. Do politicians dare to challenge the lobbyists?

    "
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fredrik-gertten/bikes-vs-cars-we-are-many/description

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. Baldcyclist
    Member

    "There’s an ongoing war: bikes vs cars."

    ...and talk like this just perpetuates the myth!

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. Morningsider
    Member

    Transformers: revenge of the bike-o-cons!

    Devious lobbyists, sexy campaigners, duplicitous politicians, confused planners...lycra vs. steel - who will win?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. gibbo
    Member

    "There’s an ongoing war: bikes vs cars."

    ...and talk like this just perpetuates the myth!

    I agree 100%.

    I have zero problem whatsoever with people who drive responsibly. They are not an impediment to my goal of cycling safely.

    It's the aggressive nutjobs who think it's a war that are the problem. (On both sides.)

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. Uberuce
    Member

    I theorise that the biggest problem isn't that the debate becomes an argument(although that's bad enough because arguments are usually more about social status than ideas) but that people bond with the folk on their side and don't want to betray them, for want of a less highfalutin' word.

    Admitting you were wrong and that it really is a doddle to cycle to work is hard enough, but being caught by your mates after you've shared a laugh'n'bitch about MAMILs and lemming hipsters is nearly impossible.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    ""There’s an ongoing war: bikes vs cars."

    ...and talk like this just perpetuates the myth!"

    In complete agreement. It's nowhere near being a war. There are some eejits out there on both sides, and as with any 'ideal' there are fundamentalists who completely polarise the debate. But in reality the roads are generally safe, and it's just those few eejits that need to be delat with properly.

    There's obviously the environmental discussion, but on a safety level there is absolutely nothing wrong with a correctly driven car.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. Roibeard
    Member

    on a safety level there is absolutely nothing wrong with a correctly driven car.

    I'm enlisting...

    The problem is that there is no guarantee that the car approaching is going to be correctly driven.

    Case in point, not even an hour ago, I asked my two boys to drop into single file through a pinch point at which there was adequate room for a correctly driven vehicle to overtake. The van driver, lorry driver and then car driver that then squeezed through at >10 mph over the speed limit have just meant that at pinch points where there might be room, there will no longer be any room.

    If that makes me an eejit, deliberately slowing traffic when there should be plenty of room to overtake, then tough.

    @WC - I doubt you'll consider me an eejit on this basis, but the point stands.

    I have no choice but to get off the road or radicalise. I'll choose radicalisation.

    Robert

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    @Roibeard, that's perfectly pragmatic in the situation and nothing like eejitism.

    But does it mean you think there's a 'war' between cyclists and motorists?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. Dave
    Member

    It depends how you define 'war', I suppose. Each mode of transport is competing for limited resources in much the same way that nation states compete for territory, energy security, whatever.

    "We" are keen on more enforcement, harsher punishments, etc. where the motoring lobby is hard at it with removing yellow lines, legalising dangerous parking, raising the speed limit, and so on. Just look at presumed liability for a particular focus of conflict, or the reallocation of road space, to/from pedestrians/cyclists/motorists.

    Just because people don't get up in the morning and set out to fight other people based on mode of transport doesn't mean it isn't effectively a war?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. Dave
    Member

    It depends how you define 'war', I suppose. Each mode of transport is competing for limited resources in much the same way that nation states compete for territory, energy security, whatever.

    "We" are keen on more enforcement, harsher punishments, etc. where the motoring lobby is hard at it with removing yellow lines, legalising dangerous parking, raising the speed limit, and so on. Just look at presumed liability for a particular focus of conflict, or the reallocation of road space, to/from pedestrians/cyclists/motorists.

    Just because people don't get up in the morning and set out to fight other people based on mode of transport doesn't mean it isn't effectively a war?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. Roibeard
    Member

    I don't think so, but the queue of drivers behind might think our occupation of an entire carriageway to be aggressive and unnecessary.

    As with SRD, I think there's no mileage in being "nice" and I came within centimetres of having one less child tonight as a result. It won't happen again no matter how inconvenient that may be to those "good" drivers who might otherwise have been able to get past.

    Am I deliberately going out to battle, seeking to antagonise them? No.

    Am I going to be ultracautious, and refuse to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if that's not nice, and even if I know I'm getting up their nose? Yes.

    No war, but I'm taking sides - mine.

    Robert

    Posted 12 years ago #

  12. le_soigneur
    Member

    I don't think Uberbruce is right with the herd loyalty theory. I think there is no one theory that fits.
    A small percent of drivers do battle with cyclists any time they come across them - they lose empathy once they get behind the wheel and view "inferior slow small" cyclists as obstacles over which they have the right of way.
    I get a completely different feeling on the motorbike - no close tail-gating, no diving-in, to be honest even when filtering I haven't had people trying to block me or trying to make it difficult for me to get back in. Of course there is still the odd smidsy.
    I think the motorbike is viewed as a different outgroup, on an equal footing or above the car. But also people instinctively imagine it would make a nasty mess on a car, compared to a "mere" bicycle. Even though it is still a vulnerable vehicle.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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