Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

a friend fell off a Vespa once and busted his face! well he was more like a sugar daddy. then 3 weeks later he insisted I go for a ride with him and I don't know why I got on. those bends!

it was real awkward too because I was out with a friend and my wife was throwing a party for the girls while I was out. so like I couldn't just come home all fucked up. we wound up just staying out and drinking beers outside. wound up coming home after she was asleep and had to wake her up and be like uhhh if you see me don't freak out. also should mention she never wanted to ride those when I suggested we should because she thought they were really dangerous

omg you just drove like right into the tree, it sounds like

The few times I’ve been on one of the app rental scooters I have felt very unsafe, like the brakes would fail at any moment or the thing would snap in two.

yeah so I hit this 2 inch deep pothole and it made the front wheel go all wobbly and I couldn't control it with the handlebar. it started going all topsy turvy and my brain gives my body the signal to just bail and go into a barrel roll but before I can move I hit a curb and just faceplanted into the one fucking tree on the whole block. at least that's what it felt like, but I got my hand out in front of my face so that's what took the worst of it. but it got my arm, my forehead, my stomach, and part of my leg. thought I broke my hand but somehow I didn't. amazingly it did not hurt at all afterwards, I just walked away as both passer-bys and my Apple watch asked me if they should call the police. it sure as hell hurt that night though.

Omigod

froggy baby :(

I had a similar thing on a bike, just flew right off a hill. a neighborhood woman took me in and dressed my wounds when I was like 11. will never forget her.

oh no!! that would have rattled me at 11

i stopped riding bikes when in the 7th grade my pal and i walked out of his apartment and turned the corner onto Broadway where a cyclist who had just been hit by a bus was lying dead, with her helmet on in the biggest pool of blood i've ever seen.

about 10 years later my best friend and housemate was working as a bike messenger part time and in a bicycle shop part time. one day on her way home she found this amazing ca. 1950's-60's bicycle someone had discarded. it was banana yellow, really gorgeous and retro. and she said, you walk everywhere, you need a bike, it's yours (we lived in long island then, it wouldn't be like riding in the city, and getting around on foot was a drag)

so i couldn't wait to ride it into town! it was a blast, i felt 9 years old again, and rode it down a steep hill FAST.

and the front wheel went flying off the bike.
and i was thrown god knows how many feet onto someone's front lawn (thank god)
and like i wasn't seriously injured but it fucked me up a little
and i haven't been on a bicycle since
so the lesson here is don't ride dumpster bikes, kids.

I used to work on a farm picking beans in the summer holidays, when I was 13 I used the money to buy a mountain bike. there was a fairly steep road just up the road from my house, which was a dead end so didn't have a lot of traffic, so I used to speed down it over and over, until one time the front wheel hit a manhole cover and launched me over the handlebars. I split my head open and a similar thing happened, a man came out of one of the houses and checked I was OK and went and got my mum. I remember there being blood all down my face so it must have been horrible for her. had to go to A&E and they glued my head back together, I still have a slight lump there (it's under my hair though so can't see it). had nasty road rash on my back which took weeks to heal. it didn't put me off riding a bike but I didn't race down that hill as fast as I could any more.

iirc it tooks ages to find a replacement wheel for the one that buckled so I couldn't ride a bike for months anyway

wow guys intense stuff!

i feel personally that i would not do well like in an emergency room, i'm not the best with blood

I used to work on a farm
picking beans in the summer holidays
when I was 13 I used the money to buy a bike

there was a fairly steep road just up the road from my house
which was a dead end so didn't have a lot of traffic
so I used to speed down it
over and over

until one time the front wheel hit a manhole cover
and launched me over the handlebars

I split my head open and a similar thing happened
a man came out of one of the houses and checked I was OK
and went and got my mum

I remember there being blood all down my face
so it must have been horrible for her

had to go to A&E and they glued my head back together
I still have a slight lump there
it's under my hair though so can't see it

had nasty road rash on my back which took weeks to heal
it didn't put me off riding a bike
but I didn't race down that hill as fast as I could any more.

-John "Cougar" Mellencamp

to crosspost with the "what would you be like at 16?" thread - I think the Florida law banning everyone under 16 from social media is probably a good idea. I mean it's not really enforceable and will likely make no actual difference but I am starting to really believe that teens spending time on Insta or Tiktok really does mess with their value system in a way that is really bad for their mental health

I have had some dire bicycle accidents— flown over handlebars, taken huge skids, been doored— but I will never stop riding a bicycle. I love it so much, it is the only mode of transport I truly adore.

-John "Cougar" Mellencamp

i laughed _way_ too fucking hard at this

portland is a really bike-friendly city. unfortunately my cerebellum is not bike-friendly, as in i can't ride a bike, so i wind up walking a lot. no idea if i could use one of those lime scooters or not. never tried.

i'm on team "ban all cars" but while that's an uncool belief, it doesn't seem particularly _conservative_.

There's an Old World conservative worldview that I could see it slotting in quite easily with here in Europe. In the US, not so much.

Ostentatious car love is definitely conservative coded in the Anglosphere

Same everywhere, it's just there's also an ecofascist counterweight.

My paternal grandfather, who was decidedly conservative, used to say, "I can afford the gas, I'll drive whatever I damn well please." As though being able to afford to drive a gas-guzzling beast was the only consideration.

Which, if you are able to externalize every other cost, I suppose it is.

old cars are fucking cool. I’m really into reading about restoring barn finds lately.

I love restorations, no doubt. Maybe that's uncool?

People like driving for a lot of reasons that make good sense (more targeted mobility, in some cases much shorter transit time, ability to easily transport children and stuff, control over climate/environment, not having people's armpits in your face, etc.), and if you want to move people toward driving less, you have to improve the alternatives rather than just make driving harder or more expensive. I know that's far-fetched in many parts of this dysfunctional country, but that's what I think needs to happen. Even when we build bike lanes they tend to not be very good or well thought out bike lanes. I barely ride a bike, but getting around Berlin on a bike was easy because of the way the lanes and roads are designed. My town just put in a basically useless bike lane that is only marked by paint on the ground and only goes on the main throughfare, and unsurprisingly it gets little use.

What would really make sense in my town is some kind of shuttle bus to downtown/the train station. The town is small enough that you can get from one end to the other in like ten minutes and from most places to the downtown and train station in 5-7 minutes. Even if a shuttle took a few more minutes I think people would take it to not have to deal with parking, and it would reduce a lot of car use. I would gladly hop on a shuttle with the kids if we just wanted to go downtown for a meal or ice cream or whatever.

Anyway, that's not really conservative or liberal I guess - I am pro-transit and car alternatives, but anti-knee-jerk-anti-car-reaction. Cars have their uses but there are a lot of situations where we should be giving people a better alternative.

Driving can just simply feel good, in a sensual way almost.. not driving in traffic

i want to drive

Right, it can be enjoyable too, but the sheer enjoyment of driving isn't even #10 on my list of reasons to have a car. I don't think it benefits anyone to pretend that anyone who prefers driving is an asshole, especially when, on top of some of the inherent advantages of driving, our society (at least in the US) is structurally set up to privilege driving in a way that's beyond most individuals' control.

When we lived in the city, I used to take my then baby/toddler on the subway a lot, and you know what? It's fucking hard! The elevators don't work half the time and I would wind up either carrying the stroller down those massive stairs or precariously taking it on the escalator (many of which also often didn't work). And I was lifting regularly at the time and strong enough to carry a toddler in a stroller up 4 flights worth of stairs, but a lot of parents aren't going to be able to do that. Then it's hard to find space for the stroller at any peak time (which in NYC is huge swaths of the day) and you never know if you're going to wind up with someone's butt in your kid's face. And the delays and getting stuck in the tunnels are like 10x more stressful with a little kid. And the bus was fucking impossible with a stroller. Thankfully we could walk to groceries and we eventually got a car, but I can't imagine having to do any kind of shopping via subway with a kid in tow. Is congestion pricing going to fund legit improvements to these issues? I certainly hope so.

Like what I have now is a very short car commute and the ability to work from home half time, and I certainly prefer less driving to more. It's not about wanting to drive for its own sake.

yeah good points

(breathes)

(bites tongue hard)

you seem to be missing the point that cars make life absolutely hellish for the people who don't own them , which in a place like nyc is more than half of everyone, and closer to 80% of manhattanites.

I think man alive's points did implicitly address yours, Deflatormouse?

I love restorations, no doubt. Maybe that's uncool?

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

i mean what kind of restorations are we talking? the stuart restoration? i'd say that's an uncool conservative belief. restoring, like, art, or old cars, or shit like that... i don't necessarily think of that as conservative or uncool.

idk if this is a 'conservative belief' but i wish we had japanese laws around cars:

* must provide proof of having a place to park yr car when you purchase it
* no overnight street parking allowed

a lot of ppl in the US would read this as 'conservative' because poor ppl don't always have off-street parking available and thus a law like this makes owning a car the sole province of the landed, which i get, but man you really notice how different the urban environment in tokyo is without all the fuckin cars

granted i think these laws have been on the books there since the 1950s or something so yknow

cars specifically make life hellish for parents trying to take baby/toddlers on the subway, because absolutely enormous amounts of public money are spent on roads and highways, versus expanding, maintaining, and improving infrastructure and service standards on transit. many or most of your subway complaints, man alive, are really issues of investment in these things, not innate to the transportation mode. as it is, the deck is stacked, so, yeah, no surprise that driving works really well for some people; we've made it that way! we've built huge swaths of the country entirely around this mode of transportation! but at the expense of so much else.

I think man alive's points did implicitly address yours, Deflatormouse?

this?

, our society (at least in the US) is structurally set up to privilege driving in a way that's beyond most individuals' control.

which is why i am griping about ebikes upthread instead of cars

the subway in new york objectively sucks in a million ways compared to pretty much every other underground metro system i can think of. that’s not an argument for cars it’s an argument to stop starving the MTA of cash. a point you pretty much made with your bike lane story to be fair.

when you think of the number of people subways serve and the economic function of moving workers and consumers from place to place it’s just astonishing how poorly they’re funded. businesses ought to be donating large sums to their upkeep and improvement.

bordeaux - a famously conservative city! - has been working on a tram system for about 20 years now and at this point it is extremely good. it’ll take you to and from the airport, the train station, the universities, the outlying suburbs, etc. In fact, there is apparently a plan to ban cars from the entire urban centre (unless you live there). which will drastically reduce the hassle of driving for locals, and make it a nicer place to be for tourists and well, everybody else too

xxp yep cars make every other form of transit more miserable, if not extremely dangerous

xp to Dr Casino: that was kind of my point. Only I think structures drive individual behavior much more than the other way around. NYC is only as car-oriented as it is because of top-down decisions, and it only has as good a subway as it does for the same reason. You can brow beat people all you want, but they're just never going to take the 2 hour sweaty train or bus trip over the 45 minute air conditioned car trip if they can afford the latter, because that's just how humans are.

It's not "people driving cars" that make transit miserable, it's structural investment in car infrastructure and lack thereof in transit.

xp, right, so like it seems to me the way to address that in a place like nyc would be to give over the vast swathes of public space devoted to cars back to new yorkers by banning them

thereby making bicycles much safer, buses much faster etc etc

so that we can have green space instead of walking out the door into a concrete hellscape

so that we don't have to carry groceries across roads designed to accommodate bridge traffic etc etc

Pedestrians much safer.

yeah see ymp's post about the scooter, we are sharing the sidewalk with ebikes now, and even the occasional motorcycle because they feel too unsafe in the road

I kind of thought that was the way policy had been going in the last decade or two. E.g. a bunch of bus and bike lanes have been created, citibike, reducing parking in a lot of parts of Manhattan, pedestrian corridors, etc. But they need to also do things to make buses and subways much more user friendly - better maintenance, create spaces for strollers and/or grandma carts of groceries, make the buses easier to board, etc.

I was living in Queens when they built the bike lanes on Queens Blvd, which were tbf not terribly designed or terribly unsafe - they were separated from the main road and seemed fine. At the time we left they were still not getting much use and I don't really know why. For us they just didn't serve any purpose, because there weren't a lot of scenarios where we'd be going down Queens Blvd - everything was pretty much either local in the neighborhood and we walked to it, or we occasionally drove or took the subway for longer trips, but there weren't a lot of trips where "let's bike down Queens Blvd with the kids in a tow cart" would have been a feasible option. Maybe part of the problem is that patterns of living and working need more time to adjust.

TBF, aside from when you have a stroller or a lot of stuff, I think buses are actually a massively underappreciated mode of transit in NYC. In a lot of ways they're much more pleasant and easier than the subway.

if they were more frequent and didn’t feel about a billion years old and falling apart people would probably use the more. agree on the general superiority of the bus for many kinds of trips.

where I live, your public transportation is a really mediocre local rail (Sunrail) that doesn't even fuckin' operate on weekends or run anywhere near late enough to be effective, and covers only a tiny fragment of the city.

we finally have high speed rail between cities (i.e. like Orlando to Miami), which...fuckin' finally, but local transit? a joke, man.

or a bus system (Lynx) that doesn't remotely adhere to its schedule and makes 5-10 mile trips take hours, and half the time you get stranded mid-way through because you have to change buses so many times and invariably one of them either doesn't show up on time or blows by the stop. it's a complete joke. I once had my car towed and trying to take the bus to the tow yard took two hours, and it was like...5 miles away. this was pre-Uber.

eight years ago, my roommate tried to go car free and take the bus 3 miles to work each morning, it showed up so late every day that he was late to work constantly and they threatened to fire him, and the path to work is not well accommodated for cyclists at all (no bike lanes, and one of the most unsafe roads), so he wound up buying a car he couldn't afford.

I don't particularly love being beholden to a car, but man some cities give you little choice. and at this stage, the cat's out of the bag, so I don't see Central Florida getting much better in that regard, esp with Republicans in charge.

xxp i lived off Queens blvd in forest hills at one time
crossing was notoriously dangerous with many pedestrian deaths
i used to use the subway underpass just to cross the street for basic errands like grocery shopping.
bike lanes on Queens Blvd should be protected by concrete barriers from buses and ambulances etc, with no private cars.