shimanopower

You just make generalizations with out facts or evidence. Prove they aren't intelligent. Then also demonstrate to me why majority opinion means anything. "Laughing stock of the civilized world" when used as a premise to support a conclusion is known as inductive fallacy of appeal to the people.

shimanopower

maybe i did miss the point. sorry.

FXjohn

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself.

zakk

my big thing is I wear a suit every day to work, and there are no showers/locker rooms.

If there were places to shower/change, I'd drive in monday with 3 days of clothes, ride Tues, Wed, Thurs, Drive in Friday to pick it all up.

I'd also move appointments to Monday and Friday so I could trip-link.

Sadly, the need for my car for meetings and attire/bathing will not let me commute to work.

I'm always running errands on the weekends on the bike. I bought a backpack so I could grocery shop.

pinkrobe

I love this thread! It emphasizes the split between urban and suburban. My city [Calgary] has 1 million people, and one of the worst urban sprawl problems in North America [depending on who you talk to]. Still, it's easy to commute 20, 30 or even 40 km each way to work without getting killed. There's a standoff on city council between those who want to increase the speed limits and widen the roads in the inner city at the expense of residents, and those who would like to see improved public transit and alternatives to car commuting. All the while, cycling is considered to be a bonafide means of getting to work, and is incorporated into city planning at almost every level. I'm not sure why more cities don't think about cycling as an alternative to smog and gridlock.

DocRay

We can't get drafted to fight a war.

FXjohn

Did someone get drafted in the US lately?

pgoat

I definitely think - along with all the other factors mentioned here - that there is a social stigma against an adult using a bike in a utilitarian sense here in the US. A mtb or nice road bike can be a status symbol and a sign of health, taste, etc. - providing it is used as a recreational toy. But an adult who is riding a bike to get to work is often looked upon as an adult who wishes they were in a car, and for whatever reason (too poor to afford a car, lost their license, etc) is 'forced' to ride a bike.

One good example of this? A recent McDonald's commercial (shown in the NY area, at least) - shows a young fit looking guy eating a 'healthy' mickey Ds lunch on a bench....he looks at his ticket to find he has won a Sallen Mustang they are giving away. With a satisfied smirk he immediately picks up his mountain bike and tosses it into the East River......then does the same with his helmet.

So the message is, don't be a loser, riding around on that bike; eat our heart stopping crap, win a car and make sure to bury all signs of good sense by littering and polluting nature. Whoo-hoo! Nah, McDonald's isn't evil......they are really commited to improving the quality of life around the world.

A personal example? In NYC, providing you are assertive enough to ride in traffic, people expect to see lots of cyclists; this is reinforced by the fact that things are located closer to one another, people who don't ride aslo take public transportation - a car is just not necessary here the way it is outside of big cities......when I use to live on eastern Long Island, I was an oddity commuting on my bike. People in cars would laugh at me, throw bottles at my head, play 'chicken' - good stuff. I'd shake my head and wonder why I was so concerned with limiting my auto emissions by riding to work (in addition to half a dozen working bikes I owned a car, truck and Motorcycle-not that they'd ever guess that since no one in their right mind would CHOOSE to ride, right?) just to get that kind of abuse from cager bastards......

having said that, I was too lazy to ride this week (also, neck/back hurts, in the middle of reading a good book so the subway is better, had lots of formal dress appointments which were too spread out to get to by bike), which I am hating because the weather has been just gorgeous......oh well.....

shimanopower

I drive as fast as I want, drink as much as I want, I have sex as much as I want, and I buy whatever drugs that I want. Although, the drugs and speeding are illegal, it's a small nuisance. I'm not a slave to insurance companies and I've never see litigation.

Cromulent

I'm sure that's what the Founders had in mind when they broke away from England, declared our Independance, fought the war, and drafted the Constitution. Okay... maybe Jefferson.

Ineedhelp

I'd love to, but my husband is mean and won't let me ride my bike in the house.

But that's ok, because I don't think I'm missing that much exercise not riding it down the hallway to my home office.

FXjohn

Nice straw man. I didn't say the birth rate needed to be like a 3rd world country who can't afford their children. You've already called yourself ignorant, why continue with this.?

https://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...660854,00.html

https://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/417.html

https://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups...NPAN011036.pdf

pgoat

See my McDonald's rant above - I guess what I am saying is we (americans) let corporate advertising control what we do more than europeans do. There is an obesity problem around the world for example, and fast food chains are certainly to blame in large part - no, no one is forcing a consumer to buy/eat/die, but America is set up in such a way that favors the making of money. McDonald's execs getting rich does not translate into a better quality of life, imho.

I am NOT suggesting comforts and luxuries are all pure evil. I am glad to live in America but I often question our priorities. Perhaps ocassional commuting would introduce a balance......Why should we be afraid of a little discomfort, as one poster wrote? This country wasn't founded by couch potatoes with cup holders and biggie sized fries.

DocRay

I live in a city that had all of it street car tracks removed when Studebaker was producing autos here. There is documented lobbying by Studebaker in the 50s to remove the tracks.

Link to snopes, because I can't find any mention there, and all I see on this cheap site is contradictory opinions without proof.

This is from a very right-wing pro-corporate site: https://www.1134.org/stan/ul/GM-et-al.html

"There is a grain of truth contained in it: National City Lines, a subsidiary of General Motors, did buy the Los Angeles Railway [LARY] in 1944. They did replace some streetcar lines with buses, but the introduction of buses in the LARY had begun in 1930. But the real genesis of the myth was the above-mentioned court case in 1947. General Motors and its subsidiary, National City Lines, along with seven other corporations were indicted on two counts under the Sherman Antitrust Act. They were charged with:

* Conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monpoly;
* Conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines.

The defendents were aquitted on the first count. General Motors was convicted on the second count: "to monopolize the sale of supplies used by the local transportation companies controlled by the City Lines defendants." Which is to say, they were convicted of conspiring to have the GM-owned transit companies only buy GM buses. "

This was the electic car fiasco:

https://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech...ctric.cars.ap/

GM is now famous for using alternate technologies as a demonstration of failure for more efficient cars. The electric car lease program backfired, because owners wanted to keep the cars. GM repossed the vehicles and scrapped them , even though customers had a sit-in protest.

Toyota's Pruis hybrid can run on both gas or electric. In Japan, the car can be switched to 100% electric and charged, this option was removed for US sales. The problem for car makers is that aside from batteries, electric cars have many fewer parts and last longer.

https://www.mixedpower.com/modules.ph...rticle&sid=724

Mercedes refuses to import the SMART car to US. Says there is no demand. Currently, there is a waiting list of 9 months for a Smart in Canada. A US grey-market importer has pre-sold $130 Million in Smarts. Mercedes is now selling the company, says its not profitable.

https://www.jalopnik.com/cars/news/in...out-038104.php

The european Ford Focus turbodiesel can get 52 mpg. This is not for sale in US. My Focus gets half this.

So while the majority of suburbanites are simple clueless morons, for those who want to choose a different lifestyle, the choice is not really there.

FXjohn

PM sent!!

DocRay

I don't blame McDonald's. I don't eat there. No one has to eat that crap. It is very difficult to get real information in the US, most if it is filtered by commerce. Too many people believe that what they see on TV news is really verified, and now people are quoting bad resources on the internet. With Atkins, fast food convinced everyone that eating 1/2 pound beef burgers was healthy. And now post Altkins fad, Burger King introduced a sandwhich with half a kilogram of fat per serving for breakfast (US only).

Why do people eat this stuff?

shimanopower

lol

FXjohn

LOL...Buffoon~!

shimanopower

wow, I miss that peice of sh*t! Lol
(i edited out the part where i call u a moron)

jyossarian

Americans don't bike commute because most cities are car friendly. High availability of inexpensive or free parking, restaurants and malls with big parking lots and drive through windows and cities laid out to make driving easier. In the suburbs, I hardly see sidewalks anymore which encourages people to drive everywhere.

It's not like that everywhere. In NYC, Boston, Philly, etc., mass transit systems are safe and efficient means of transportation and are used more simply because the cities are smaller, older, denser and lend themselves to subways and buses.

Newer cities designed with driving in mind have broad streets, are less dense and sprawl outward rather than upward, making walking less practical and mass transit more expensive simply because it would require bigger networks and serve fewer people.

In European cities, many people bike commute because it's convenient. In Chinese cities, many people bike commute because they can't afford a car. That's changing now and there's been a dramatic increase in car traffic and car related accidents.

When it becomes convenient and safe in North America to bike commute, that's when you'll see more bike commuters. And it'll probably take a generation for it to become acceptable.

FXjohn

Still waiting for a reply to get "My formatting" right from Ben Cousins.

Avalanche325

I am not sure about your state, but some including CA, have manditory commuter assistance programs for companies over a certain size. If they don't get enough people carpooling, riding mass transit and cycling, they have to pay huge multi-million dollar fines. That makes the $32.50 a month per employee a bargain. I recently spent a few months implementing such a system in CA. It was only done to avoid the fines. In the building I was in, there was a no bicycles allowed policy. Go figure.

shimanopower

lol, I think he was bluffing!

pinkrobe

Fat = flavour!

aadhils

The word you want is sarcastic, not bluffing...

Looks like this thread has become a "My country is better than yours" thread...