Before I began driving less, I had long had a melancholic sense that the city lifestyle I lived was cut off from the seasons and nature
Most drivers are more car than person:
Truth is, though, all I would have to do is get back in the shared car that still sits in my drive, and I’d be on the other side of the divide again. I do it every month or two – to reach some awkward location – and I’ve noticed that at first, I feel terribly anxious about the fragile bodies of pedestrians and cyclists, and almost ashamed to be blocking up their streets. And then, if I’m honest, my consideration begins to evaporate, and I slip back into seeing the world through a driver’s eyes again.
But the greater the intervals between driving, the more strongly I feel I don’t want to see the world through driver’s eyes any more. And not just because it’s dangerous, bound up with the fossil fuel industry, and about the worst thing we can do for the climate, but also because, for me at least, driving is a time-consuming and meaningless experience. In fact, the word “experience” is a stretch – I’ve started to wonder if it is more like the absence of an experience.
It is crazy how angry car drivers can get. Saw someone screaming out their window at another driver today over some pointlessly small inconvenience.
I pointed and laughed.
When cyclists and pedestrians accidentally inconvenience each other we just laugh and give a little wave. I think once you remove the cars from the equation, which removes the “I could kill you at any moment by depressing my foot” vibe from the encounter, it’s a lot easier to be pleasant to each other.
Unless it’s parents picking up their kids while they wait outside their cars… I find schools are awful to cycle past. Then once in their cars it’s even worse.
In the UK all schools are within walking distance or they are required to provide free transport. You shouldn’t ever have to drive them yourself on a regular basis unless you are training them to be lazy.
You’re right. Often, the primary emotion is fear when something goes wrong when driving. But it gets pushed out as anger.
The other factor is that driving is a lot more frustrating than walking or cycling, at least in the city. Stop-and-go causes stress to build up because you feel like you don’t have control over your actions most of the time. That doesn’t happen with walking.
i only studied psychology a bit (because i couldn’t get into uni) but it is known that emotions have a difficult to change amount, “arousal” (not necessarily sexual), but the direction can be fairly easily changed, fear to anger, in the traffic scenario, or anger to desire, like in make-up sex, or anxiety to anger, like watching the news
Men in particular tend not to be taught as much about emotions and are not taught the skills to process them properly.
This is how you end up with the stereotypical man whose two emotions are calm and angry.
There’s a scene from the original Gundam that I think about a lot in this context.
The MC, having just gotten inside his giant death mech for the first time, is ordered to shoot some enemies (who had been trying to kill him just a moment prior) fleeing the battle. He couldn’t do it.
The next fight that breaks out, those same enemies are back, in their own giant death machines, and the MC stops to think to himself “this is much easier, they don’t look like humans now”. Then he starts firing his laser.
Not only that, but I live in the desert where practically everyone is rocking limo tint. I feel like the majority of people don’t see people driving cars. The knowledge is there, sure, (Unless it’s a robotic abomination maybe), but somehow implicitly when you’re just seeing logos and bumpers it removes the personhood of everyone else on the road.
Things become a lot less about sharing and cooperating, and more about “dealing with obstacles.”
I really wish this place were walkable or bikeable.
I miss walking to supermarket with my shopping cart and walking to the restaurants downtown. I really need to move out of this car-centric hellhole
Walking is great. There’s so much stuff to see and interact with. It’s better for businesses, too. Jacobs had this figured out in like the 1960s.
Good article.
I can’t not look at this and think it’s propaganda because of the whole fuel crisis
Most of this site is
Very poetic article, and it’s true. I’ve had moments on my bike when I can hear the dad and his kids on the sidewalk next to me, and notice/call out when one of the kids drops their hat.
I’ve taken side paths built for their scenery, in the middle of a dense city, and pulling to the side to take a picture is easy.
I’ve even started to understand a bit more the people behind the driver’s seats - though that is a bit harder to notice, by design. I think half the reason pickup trucks were built into destructive tanks is to make an imposing look.
People need to demand more out of their municipal leaders. Public transport and pedestrian infrastructure needs to be higher priority. Social spaces like plazas, markets, and parks should be protected and expanded. Other public infrastructure like schools and hospitals and mom and pop stores should be supported to allow jobs to flourish outside of cities and reduce the need for people to drive if they can’t live in higher density zones. Cars make people miserable, both inside them and outside them. They destroy the environment with their noise, pollution, accidents, and concrete carpeting. They make people lazy and unhealthy. It shouldn’t be our number 1 priority for travel solutions.
