this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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Fuck Cars

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/33126960

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 70 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Service vehicle never "have" to block the bike lane. They could simply block the general purpose lane instead.

In other words, they are making a deliberate choice to fuck cyclists' safety in order to prioritize convenience for car drivers.

[–] crashoverride@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Either way it's block lane A or block lane A and B

[–] HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world 19 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I think you're attributing malice to laziness.

I cant think of a single courier or delivery driver that would actively think "let me take an extra 20 seconds to reverse into this driveway just to fuck with bikes". They just want to get it done and get to the next

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 8 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

I think the word "deliberate" might be a little strong, because it's not one person's choice alone. It probably is laziness, but the way the road is made makes the lazy choice the one that screws over everyone else to prioritise cars. They could leave the van in the middle of the road, but drivers would get angry, so they make a subconscious choice.

Cars are large, cumbersome, dangerous objects with horns on them, and the road's design centers them. If you park in the middle of the road, cars are so space-inefficient that you cause a traffic jam and people get upset and honk, but nobody's in much more danger. If you block a pathway for pedestrians and cyclists, they can get around, but it's much more dangerous, especially for children and the disabled, but most of the time the delivery driver isn't forced to deal with that fact. Those people are much less visible.

So the result is that the mode of transport which causes the most problems for the people around it is also prioritised above all others. Decisions were made at the city planning level that put cycle paths together with cars. There are much better ways of doing things, for instance separate paths, with bollards so cars can't just leave the road. You could make delivery vehicles smaller and lighter, with dedicated delivery bays. You could narrow roads and slow them down to disincentivise inner-city traffic, and encourage the use of bypasses, and subtly teach drivers to expect frequent stops in town.

[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

it would be far easier to simply stop in the lane they are already in. No, they go out of their way to park in the bike lane.