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Activists (not) slashing SUV tyres

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  1. crowriver
    Member

    @Baldcyclist,

    "So, to poke the bear.

    How would you feel if your tyres were deflated, and you had no means to quickly inflate - I'ev heard cyclists complain of such action on themselves on here and on Twitter (I've complained myself). Furiuos comments about vandalism etc - even when they have means to fix quickly, say tacks on cycle path."

    No need to imagine. A few years ago I boarded a train in Dundee, to find the bike space full of holdalls belonging to a party of drunken oil rig workers seated adjacent. I politely stated that I'd have to move their bags as I had nowhere else to put the bike. I moved their bags, stowed the bike, put their bags back in front of the bike. Took my seat. At journey's end, went to my bike and they had let my tyres down. One piped up with a sarcastic comment "Oh mate, have you got a puncture? Terrible that, what a shame" and then they all laughed. I had no pump with me, so had to push my bike home from the station.

    All because I had the gall to move their bags.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  2. gembo
    Member

    There were so many SUVs in the new town we ran out of leaflets.

    So what the activists are doing is drawing attention to the brainless push for huge motors. And the sort of aim alright a Jack blindness.

    Good for them

    Up against the entire car and petrochemical industry their vandalism is a tiny thing and a good way of making the point.

    The Japanese car industry made inroads In America when gas prices rose. Lincoln stopped churning out enormous cars etc

    But the cycle is back round and SUVs are the new gross vulgarian car of the day except so many people have them there is some weird tacit agreement not to say anything about the sheer horror of buying huge motors when what is needed is tiny cars or indeed electric bikes.

    Maybe the increase in fuel costs will bring about some kind of change.

    Until then I support these activists.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  3. chdot
    Admin

  4. Baldcyclist
    Member

    @chdot

    They don't care about the oil. In 8 years you won't be able to buy a combustion car, they will be gone. They have already won.

    When all cars are 0 emmission they'll still be deflating the tyres, they're just vandals same as the council estate vandals.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  5. Rob
    Member

    I think this is the wrong approach. Our wants/needs are a result of the environment we exist within. We need to change the environment so people don't want/need SUVs, not punish individuals for putting themselves first.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  6. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    "When all cars are 0 emmission they'll still be deflating the tyres"

    Quite possibly as their manufacture won't be zero-emission (except in the most derisory, robbing Peter of carbon credits to pay Paul way) and neither, at that stage, will their charging be. And the larger the vehicle, the worse it will be.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  7. toomanybikes
    Member

    "have already won"

    Average lifespan of a car is 12 years, so on average newly bought ICE SUVs just before the ban kicks in will likely be around til 2041/2042 (half longer). Putting people off buying them now will be handy, given to limit warming to 2°C, global emissions must decline by about 25% by 2030. So waiting til even 2030 is too late, but by 2040 before this policy truly begins to bite, global emissions will need to be more than halved. (and that's globally, the developed West will need to lead on this and be well ahead of the curve)

    Additionally, electric SUVs will still use unneccessary energy. This energy will involve fossil fuels until at least 2035 (when UK grid is allegedly going to be renewable), but given we're missing our current targets, banking on the 2035 deadline seems perilous.

    Claiming environmentalists around transport have "already won" on the basis of policies which won't be enacted for 8 years, and won't have their main impact for another 12 after that, is just illiterate.

    Again, according to the foremost experts this week, we are on the path to an unlivable world, the only people who've already won are the nihilists.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  8. Morningsider
    Member

    Tricky one this. My gut is against taking direct action against private individuals involved in a lawful activity. I support the aims of these activists, but what if I didn't? Who are they to decide what is just.

    That said, the inconvenience caused is minor and transient and the "victims" amongst the most privileged people in society, which meant the publicity and debate generated were significant. I doubt a few tyres deflated in Wester Hailes would have troubled the media. It has certainly helped move the issue of the environmental impact of SUVs from academia and arcane corners of the web into the mainstream. That is clearly a good thing and unlikely to have happened through other means.

    On balance, I reckon the societal good outweighs the detriment to a small number of individuals.

    I disagree that environmental campaigners have "won" on internal combustion engined cars. Millions will be sold in the UK over the next eight years. UK cars have an average lifespan of around 14 years. The fewer SUVs and other large cars sold over that period, the better - as they will be hanging around into the 2040s.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  9. MediumDave
    Member

    The tyre deflating is a most excellent bit of theatrical monkey-wrenching. Protest necessarily needs to be unpleasant for those people targeted by the protest. Concrete consequences to the Dudley Loves of the New Town and their precious motors are minimal in this case.

    From the carry-on you'd think the protestors had burned every second vehicle!

    Whether such a protest will be successful in persuading people to change their ways is another matter. Nobody likes being called a terrible person. But maybe they need to hear it. Maybe we all need to hear it.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  10. Baldcyclist
    Member

    According to the beeb 10pm news the other night, CO2 emmissions in the UK are already below what they were before cars existed. This just needs to be mimiced in other countries.

    As per the heating poorly insulated tenement flats conversation, who cares how much energy is consumed so long as it is renewable.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  11. SRD
    Moderator

    Tenement flats don’t need much heating. We barely had the heating on this winter (it was an unusual winter).

    But we should absolutely have a ban on building new houses that don’t meet decent insulation standards.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  12. gembo
    Member

    Not like me but to return to point

    No one should drive such monstrous motors as single occupant vehicles in a medieval city

    Nor in a Georgian city.

    The streets are too narrow for them.

    Somewhere with massive freeways and terrible smog like LA or Shanghai feel free.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    “we should absolutely have a ban on building new houses that don’t meet decent insulation standards.“

    Yes

    More to the point, we shouldn’t have Govs that give in to ‘commercial interests’ and not massively improve insulation/materials/etc standards.

    Even more to the point builders/developers should WANT to use ‘high standards’ as a selling point.

    (OK I’m being naive.)

    Posted 2 years ago #
  14. LaidBack
    Member

    @toomanybikes Additionally, electric SUVs will still use unneccessary energy.

    Seems a trend for EVs to go the SUV route. Modest EVs hardly seen some days. This of course will become a new fault line. Families struggling to pay their electric bill while others use 'cheap' electricity to fuel up their car.
    Electric cargo bikes might be a mini example of this divide. No doubt some of our customers will have a large EV and a house with solar panels. Maximum new tech versus making the best of what we have (see rest of world). Recycling old bikes has little effect on planet - eg Elephant Bike.
    One forumer estimates his bike only does 15% of journeys. So rest likely to be by car of some sort and that may need to carry camping gear - even some bikes. Car club for EVs is way to go. New towners would have to share though and that is probably too socialistic.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  15. CocoShepherd
    Member

    to limit warming to 2°C, global emissions must decline by about 25% by 2030.

    Assuming that we haven't already reached 2°C which is becoming more and more debatable (www.independent.co.uk/news/study-warming-already-baked-in-will-blow-past-climate-goals-global-warming-study-goals-study-clouds-b1782322.html). A startling fact I read recently is that even if greenhouse gas emissions were cut to zero TOMORROW, the climate will continue to warm for another 30 or so years due to the lag in the system.

    Don't think it's hyperbolic to say that we are already in deep deep doodoo.

    We're all basically p***ing into the wind.

    Edit: gee whizz that's a depressing comment

    Posted 2 years ago #
  16. Yodhrin
    Member

    @Rob "The environment" we exist in is one created out of whole cloth by the car industry and their marketing skeevs. The actual market for people who's use could could even approach "needing" an SUV is miniscule, even smaller than the *real* market for work trucks in the USA. In both cases, however, there is more *profit* for the car manufacturers in selling those than there is in selling affordable, appropriately-sized urban vehicles, and it's worse still for electrics because the industry are now having to fight against their own prior marketing - by working their asses off to fuel "range anxiety" in the public, they've made it almost impossible to sell small, efficient EVs because almost nobody will buy one unless it has hundreds of miles of range, even if they only actually exceed 50 or so miles of travel in a day once or twice a year, and you need a HUEG vehicle body to fit all the sodding batteries into(and then more batteries still to drag all that extra weight).

    And EV's are hardly a magic bullet - they take almost as much carbon to build the vehicle itself as an ICE vehicle, and more again to mine and refine the rare minerals for the batteries. Sure they work out at about 1/3 the total carbon over their full lifespan, but that's assuming you're using green energy to charge them and that they get used for their whole lifespan - but, regardless, we don't have the carbon budget left to transition enough people over to EVs to decarbonise transport before transport carbon pushes us over the limit for 2C+ warming. Not to mention the big sodding things are even worse for particulate emissions due to their weight causing intensive brake & tyre wear, the space they take up, or the fact that being squashed by a green EV is scant consolation to the people getting squashed.

    SUVs are a problem now, dealing with them can't wait another ten years while active travel and public transit initiatives make car use less necessary, and they'll continue to be an issue even after that - the only approach that has any chance of achieving results is to make owning one a legal nightmare, which first requires people support that, which first requires people know about the problem. Tyre Extinguishers have brought a bigger spotlight on the issue in a couple of months than a decade of Nice Guy Activism, and while their approach will inevitably calcify some people's attitudes what's the alternative? All that can be done is to bring enough attention to the issue and hope either enough people stop being selfish of their own accord, or that like with smoking indoors and drink driving, their selfishness becomes something society shames them for and drive change that way.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  17. jss
    Member

    Thought this might be a good place to ask if anyone is interested in a 1985 Jeep Grand Wagoneer with authentic fake wood panelling ,a 6 litre v8 giving about 10 mpg but with a gas conversion which is even less efficient - the advertising for LPG at the time made much of “the only emissions are harmless CO2”
    Oh and it’s considerably bigger than any of these puny European SUVs
    Tyres don’t need slashing as they are cracking and slitting themselves after 30 years of sitting in my shed
    But no need to worry about tyre deflators anyway as I think it’s got a gun rack in there
    Had one of these beasts when I lived in Mexico in the early 1970’s with 5p a litre fuel.A bluegrass musician down south offered me one to me for a grand when I got back to the UK
    Wanted to pretend I was still on the highway to Durango when driving to Tranent or something insane like that
    Anyone innarested?

    Posted 2 years ago #
  18. gembo
    Member

    @jss, yes. I would like one to roll through the Crusher.

    Also thanks for this as I have a vague view that satire is not dead on CCE despite the banning of the non-literal.

    Also @Yodhrin, nice analysis

    Posted 2 years ago #
  19. Morningsider
    Member

    @jss - you have a shed that can fit a jeep! Respect.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  20. jss
    Member

    Old farm outbuildings and a gardener’s cottage I stumbled across about 40 years ago in le Midlothian profond and acquired for less than the price of a SUV today
    Space for many follies

    Posted 2 years ago #
  21. Wout Van Aerthur Seat
    Member

    Inspiring work by the Tyre-extinguishers!

    Posted 2 years ago #
  22. steveo
    Member

    I'm a data guy so I tend to look at the numbers not the style of the car. You know avoid prejudice... Christ imagine we we're beating on slightly Indian looking folk because we thought they were taking space from us white folk...

    Anyway.
    I pulled the stats on a few of the most popular cars on the road. SUVs in general a little heavier than a Mondeo, some have higher emissions, some SUV's have lower emissions than a Focus. All of the cars in the sample were about the same width ~2m and length range was 700mm from shortest to longest hardly significant when even a fiesta is 4m.

    I'd say styling has a lot more to do with it, the height and blocky design makes SUVs look wider. Their internal volume might be higher but doesn't effect us as cyclists and their emissions aren't significantly higher than similar sized vehicle. Even the sporty Evoque is only 20% higher than a Mondeo.

    I agree as a general point cars are too big; city electric cars especially should look more like travel pods from a sci-fi but if we're going to point our righteous anger perhaps SUV's aren't the worst offender if a little thought is applied.

    Table below. Might need to put into excel/sheets to read properly.
    weight (kg) emissions g/km width (mm) length engine (petrol)
    Focus 1321 138 1844 4371 1500
    2018 Hatch
    fiesta 1184 127 1941 4040 1000
    mondeo 1564 171 2121 4871 1999
    2014 Hatch
    ford s-max 1984 180 2137 4796 2000
    outlander 1540 196 1810 4695 2000
    2018 SUV
    Nissan Juke 1195 134 1983 4210 1000
    Current
    Qasqaui 1395 138 2070 4370 1500
    Range rover Evoque 1770 202 2100 4371 2000
    volvo xc60 current 1845 180 2117 4708 2000
    tiguan 1427 146 1837 4508 1500

    Posted 2 years ago #
  23. jss
    Member

    Interesting objective data
    Perhaps in the mix is anger at the social class of owners as much as outrage at class of vehicle
    Down with their tyres and off with their heads?

    Posted 2 years ago #
  24. Rob
    Member

    @Yodhrin exactly - the constant marketing by car companies is a huge part of it. Also, governments that allow such marketing/car safety standards that prioritise occupants, councils painting larger parking spaces instead of issuing fines, not placing weight/width restrictions on roads, gradual increase in the size of other people's cars.

    Admittedly, this is certainly raising awareness of the issue in a way which might hopefully give politicians the support to tackle them.

    The other concern I have is that a focus on SUVs=bad has the same issues as the EVs=good push. That is, if we all switch our car based journeys to standard cars, or even EVs, our cities will still be a congested nightmare.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  25. Baldcyclist
    Member

    "Perhaps in the mix is anger at the social class of owners as much as outrage at class of vehicle"

    Nah, it's just ignorance, and yob mentality.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  26. steveo
    Member

    @jss didn't want to mention that... Thing is though cars are cheap (relatively speaking) You don't have to be particularly wealthy to be upto your teeth in debt paying £400 a month for a car you'll never own but looks flash enough for some idiot to let you tyres down.

    @rob I'm not sure but haven't various govnt around the world passed legislation on occupant safety? This would also contribute to the ever increasing size and weight of vehicles. As you say yourself cars vs suv is a nonsenses the only answer is driving less, it really doesn't matter how big the car is if its legally parked*.

    *any cars in the city centre is totally different argument.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  27. chdot
    Admin

  28. Yodhrin
    Member

    @steveo First of all, equating deflating a few tyres in a wealthy area of town with racist violence - classy. Real classy.

    But still, good job illustrating the problem. The car industry has managed to convince a lot of people, yourself included apparently, that a vehicle like an Outlander or an S-Max are "hatchbacks". When I see the word "hatchback" what comes to mind is a Golf or a Punto, vehicles that occupy about half the volume and 2/3 or less the weight - that latter being an important "objective" fact to consider for many things, not least the wear they cause to roads. These vehicles are part of the steady trend of SUV-ification of the car market that is made possibly by the simple objective fact that most people don't understand the impacts of the size of the vehicles they buy, a reality that began with and continues to be exacerbated by SUVs(and in America, faux work trucks). I'd be interested to be linked to the actual source of your data(I'd hope it's from independent testing by non-industry bodies designing their tests in light of previous scandals about emission manipulation, and not just a bald assertion of the industry themselves...), and to know whether it might have included any more objective facts that are slightly less complementary to modern SUVs such as particulate emissions(since I'm assuming the "emissions" column is gCO2 only), RTC statistics for collisions that involve people who aren't sheltered inside their oversized mobile living room with abysmal sight lines, or the carbon embodied in their construction relative to vehicles more suited to urban environments.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  29. chdot
    Admin

    a town slated by many as a dull-as-death dormitory. Guildford has the kinds of things you’d expect – castle, museum, high street, SUVs

    https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/apr/13/where-tourists-seldom-tread-cumbernauld-guildford-leigh-runcorn-grantham

    Posted 2 years ago #
  30. steveo
    Member

    Its funny how people with no real argument resort to nit picking pointless minutia. But I'm bored so...

    @Yodhrin sorry is it okay if I just go round letting the air out of Asian peoples cars? You'll need to forward me the list of people I can discriminate against for the next time I feel like some ultraviolence with my droogs.

    Hatchback is the classification given by Ford and has little relevance to size of the vehicle, (your expert opinion not with standing,) its the boot type. But the Golf, quite light at 1200kg, short only 4.2m and width 1.8m. Comparable to the also hatchback Focus, heavier than the Duke (hatch) not sure how thats better.

    Other emissions, particulates etc are I expect a factor of weight and how they are driven, not how they look. Given cars parts are made all over the world and shipped to assembly points for tax reasons I expect the embedded co2 is only tentatively related to the kerb weight.

    I'm not going to dig out ncap or other KSI figures because your gut tells your SUV's are worse. Your gut also told you SUV's were bigger, wider and heavier than an undefined "car". If you think these things are true show me the data, because I'm not having an emotive argument with you. Happy to discuss when said discussion is backed with facts.

    All data from https://www.parkers.co.uk/ and short of doing my own original research with a tape measure and £1m of cars thats where I'm drawing the line.

    Posted 2 years ago #

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