I hate hydrocarbon burning vehicles. Hate. With a passion. As with many 'causes' I suppose my hatred of cars stems from personal experiences and/or selfish desires. So let me come clean and explain what I hate about cars, and why I think we should ban them. Outright.
1) I don't want my children continuously exposed to exhaust fumes. I think it's inexcusable to be exposing all of us to such high levels of carcinogens on a daily basis. In fact, it seems absolutely insane.
When combined with close proximity to an emissions source, such as a bus or coach station, a child was at 12 times the risk of dying from cancer.
12 times the fucking risk? UNACCEPTABLE. Not to mention the other health problems associated with vehicle exhaust. What sane person wants that? By the way drivers, you too are at risk in your car.
2) I find the direct automobile mortality rate unacceptable. USians! Tens of thousands of you are killed every year in motor vehicle accidents! And you aren't even one of the worst countries for fatal auto crashes! Car crashes are the leading cause of accidental death. The seventh largest killer overall.
Now I don't drive anymore, so my chances of a highway collision (the most likely way to be fatally smashed to a pulp by hundreds of pounds of steel) have lessened. Unfortunately you can get wiped off the face of the earth just crossing the street when some moron blows through a light, a crosswalk, or down your residential street. Yeah, 33 pedestrian deaths in Montreal may not sound so horrible. Then how about 4,378 pedestrians killed overall in the US in 2008? Not enough gore for you? In 1996 there were 3,511,000 motor vehicle injuries in the US, 82,000 of which were pedestrians. But hey. Half a million people killed and 34 million more injured in the span of ten years is no big deal, right?
These are the two main reasons I hate cars, but here's another.
3) I'm tired of cities accommodating themselves to vehicles, rather than people. This may be less of a problem in older cities, but the newer cities are built like fairy-land suburban car paradises. Talk about urban sprawl! Drive through mall experiences! No public space, fuck you who needs sidewalks when I gotsa HUMMER! Strip mall after strip mall. It's an unsustainable way to live, and the fact that we deliberately construct inefficient urban landscapes made for cars, not people, drives me nuts.
I'm aware that our current mode of living means we cannot in one fell swoop eliminate all motor vehicles. We need transport so those of us in urban centres don't starve to death, and so on. But I do not believe we need anything near the amount of vehicles that are currently on the road, and not nearly enough is being done to shift us away from vehicular dependency.
Yeah, I hate second hand smoke, but I hate cars more.
Let's clear this up for all the people absolutely fucking intent on ignoring the following:
I stated I wanted a ban on cars. I explained my selfish reasons for this desire. I then made it clear that a ban is not something I actually believe is possible or desirable for obvious reasons like, oh, MASS STARVATION.
Now since some of you CAN NOT get over the thread title and the opening of the OP, I've included a poll. I am fairly sure Napotec is the ONLY poster in this entire thread who has actually said he supports an all out ban, and only one that would be phased in gradually. All of my posts have clearly laid out what I think could be done to lessen our vehicular dependency. I am not going to argue with you about your mistaken view that I actually support an immediate full out ban, full stop. You are wrong if you actually think that, and no amount of 'hur hur but you said...' crap is going to change that. I have clarified this many, many times. Kindly get over yourselves, and read what is posted. Thanks.
