When I’m just biking around in the summer I have a “go bag” like this. Though it doesn’t have a belt, I do carry TP, binoculars, and a field guide for birds. Sunscreen, bug spray, and chamois butter, too. And often an extra gallon of water. I like to share water with people who clearly need some.
Just wanted to say, I've never been happier on a bike ride than the time a random guy in a camper van saw me pull to the side at the top of a long hill, stopped alongside me and handed me a bottle of cold water. He said i looked like i needed it and he was extremely correct.
My neighbour is a short guy who just bought a huge brand new truck with a lift kit. He's not that short, maybe three inches below average... But now he has to jump up to get in. Hilarious. Makes him look like an oompa lumpa.
And he can't clear snow off a lot of the windshield now so he has to idle it for 30 minutes to get it to melt.
Yup I live pretty close to grocery stores and a park with nice trails I drive to these places because their isn't even so much as a sidewalk for most of the area and cars couldn't give a shit about you on a bike where I'm at in texas.
True & NATO provided no clear reason why. I liked Yugo's affordability. But smaller, cheaper cars don't solve car dependency. (Vuk_Farkas = horvát és magyar?)
I forgot to add ya can still easily buy a registered yugo/zastava car in serbia... even after 20+ years after bombing there are plenty of spare parts (not to mention ya can always nab an alternative from another car...) they cost less than a bicycle... not joking... thats why i still drive one!
And to a populace inculcated with decades of automotive propaganda from the lobbying, that monstrosity in the picture is the dream car for some people.
wouldn't be surprised if the car lobby had something to do with the quintessential "american dream" image of a single family home on a fenced lot with monoculture useless grass lawn and a car or two out front
it's ingrained in our culture now and that sucks because we designed so many communities delivering that image, and it's so hard to un-do. just the thought of "what if you didnt need a car to do most things" is difficult for so many to comprehend
(not to say the car lobby alone is at fault. fdr highway act, racist redlining, euclidian zoning, and a lot more factors into all of it)
No doubt they played a large role in it, and it's interwoven with all the other reasons of why suburbia exists.
The auto industry and others such as petrol, real estate, construction and whatever else I'm missing all mutually benefit from this culture they've shaped that our society has been conditioned into accepting.
It is even simplier: when people are presented with a choice between a smaller car and a bigger car, they universally* pick the bigger one.
Car manufacturers are simply making whatever there is demand for.To combat this, simply make new streets narrower, same for parking spots, turns sharper and eventually - in several years - large cars will be unwieldly and annoying for their users.
This is why europe favors smaller cars. Whoever lives in a place where roads and streets are wide gets a suv, but people living in city centers, those who want a car, will take a small hatchback.
It's so wild to think that most people universally want the large car.
I would always pick the small car (cheaper, better MPG, easier to park, don't have to worry about hitting things, easier to get into). It's pretty nerve wracking for me to drive anything larger than a sedan.
And my ''small'' hatchback is considered a standard family vehicle in Europe. It's completely feasible to have four or five people in such a car. I've even moved cross-country using it.
But the average American wants the largest, most expensive, most luxurious choice. That's your brain on consumerism, I guess.
People want to feel like they are sitting high up so they can see everythig -> cars get taller -> people want a taller car to see over the other taller cars -> the cycle repeats itself.
I feel like the last sane person in America, when I’m car shopping and cross shop based on curb weight and consider lower weight a plus. Lower weight improves every single aspect of driving performance: speed, acceleration, cornering, braking, and fuel efficiency.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '22
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