How do they have so much solidarity with each other?
Parking spaces are the eternal ire and nobody ever seems to consider that maybe John Example could maybe walk 500m along a safe pedestrian route instead of taking his car and taking up a space.
But especially with rising gas prices people don’t seem to realize they’re all basically in a bidding war over combustion fuel and maybe if the 20% of drives that are under 2km - going by german statistics - would consider occasionally, on a nice day, taking a bicycle, you’d save on some of the demand.
And adding on to this: Everytime gas prices shoot up most people manage to triangulate themselves into a somewhat correct position of “man these oil companies are ripping us the fuck off” but like only temporarily until it goes down back a bit and gets accepted as the new standard. Again, for germany fuel hasn’t actually become much more expensive adjusted for inflation, but everything else has, but they break the 2€ barrier per liter and people are up in arms until it goes back down to 2,05 and then it’s fine, surely the oil companies have stopped ripping us the fuck off.
What’s the mechanisms at play here? If I depended on a car and had carbrain I’d be furious at John Example
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Sort of a tangent:
I’ve had an EV for going on 2 years now (I live in the burbs; I like to BBQ and drink homebrew; I’m a terrible leftist). I would think a gas crisis with no end in sight would make the mouthbreathing gasheads at my work more curious how I’m getting to and from work for less than $1.50 in electricity costs.
Nope! I’d argue people around the office are more hostile. Sure some (like three) people have genuinely inquired about the ins and outs of owning an EV (home charger set up, costs, etc). But by and large, people are pissed that their limited fuel resource is now somehow… more limited? And they HATE that some of us are escaping punishment even though we all drive the same shitty stroads - just for a fucking fraction of the cost of their inefficient shitboxes.
(lol eat shit 20 mile F150 commuters)
What pisses them off more: on the weekends and around town I use my e-bike. Everyone should get one of those.
All the “bad car drivers” and problems with cars get instantly transformed into minority groups they hate if you pay attention. So middle-aged women, immigrants, young people, [insert race/thus stereotype], etc. It’s false consciousness.
Reactionaries will always fall in lock step to defend their in-group as a whole, but will gleefully fight each other as individuals.
There’s constant carbrain infighting (Prius drivers vs truck drivers, EVs vs gas cars, US-made cars vs foreign-made cars if you’re from the US). Every carbrain hates every other carbrain. This is called “I hate traffic.”
There’s plenty of infighting among car people in the forms of near unlimited road rage incidents but ultimately car brain always agrees on never giving up the car in an almost hive mind fashion. This includes hating any other species of non car user that impede the car.
I was talking to a friend about it and came to the conclusion as much as it sucks and costs a huge portion of your wage it is in a way a strong expression of individual agency. A portable safe box you can speed around in like taking a part of your sofa and home and putting it on wheels.
I don’t drive because the sensation makes me so stressed I feel sick but the concept is alluring. Go anywhere in your safe box that’s not actually statistically safe but it FEELS safe in a way that I don’t see many willingly giving up even if all the downsides are known and experienced. Like the priorities are always privacy, security, safety and even if public transport is fine it doesn’t feel like that to a car brain.
Like if you had cars fitted with a hand that slapped you every hour of driving and charged you for the privilege Vs completely free public transport I’d wager a majority would pick car
but ultimately car brain always agrees on never giving up the car
Hell I’d argue most car people are perfectly adept at going “not giving up MY car”, all the other idiots being there being the cause of the traffic jam is a pretty common one.
Yet when it comes to parking or fuel prices, that doesn’t carry over at all, and I can’t make sense of why that is. Both are by any and all means an obviously limited resource - like road space - and yet it never carries over. The guy driving a clapped out Opel Corsa 15km to work on the “kill everything that’s not a car” country road is perfectly happy to stand shoulder to shoulder, share gas and parking space, with John Example driving his V6 for 500m to work against the woke mob of “people who don’t take up roadspace and don’t contribute to fuel demand much”
That’s kind of how it works when they all agree upon the same benefit of being able to drive. Hate each other all day every day until an external threat presents itself then band together to eliminate it and go back to hating each other. I guess because driving a car is a strong identity and goes beyond the function like being a fan of a specific football club or a
We need to made a train user fan club or something where we all kiss to get the same effect
Honestly my best guess is that people can’t actually conceive of not driving for every trip anymore in the sense that if you asked me to climb mount everest I’d tell you to go kick rocks. But then these same people will do like 20km bike tours as a leisure activity on the weekend
these same people will do like 20km bike tours as a leisure activity on the weekend
But that’s just it, a leisure activity
They don’t see that as a legitimate form of transportation, it’s a recreational activity; something you do when you have an abundance of free time and the weather is nice
And then there’s me: leisurely riding my bicycle to relax from all the commuting by bicycle I did during the week.
ER doctors are like this.
ER doctors are not real people and should be removed from the sample group
idk prius people hate lifted truck people.
there used to be way more brand loyalty with ford guys hating chevy guys but maybe their kids finally took the keys away
also if you live somewhere post-car urban “planning” touched you’re kinda stuck in it with everybody else because you definitely can’t walk and probably can’t bike anywhere
My sense: there is an enormous amount of one on one conflict between car people—road rage and anger episodes are through the roof when people are in a car. Maybe because you feel separate and anonymous etc. but when you zoom out to a lifestyle population, other motorists (future targets for your anger) are fellow members of your car mobility class, and you all share solidarity over the annoyance of a pedestrian or cyclist slowing your roll for 10 seconds in the way to the store or the shitty job you hate.
other motorists (future targets for your anger) are fellow members of your car mobility class
I think my point is that they can sometimes differentiate here. I remember much malding at a job I used to have about how the employees had to pay for parking, but the CEO didn’t because he got a private spot on the property. They all found it insanely unfair. Yet, to stick with the example, never got mad at John Example and his 500m car commute. And I’m not being hyperbolic about that example here. John would later transition to sometimes driving past the office for about 500m and walk back because there was free parking there and that still didn’t elicit any sort of “what the fuck are you doing” from the car crowd.
Yeah, that guy is definitely something. But yeah they’ll get mad when the issue is inside car-culture. The parking thing is inane—I work at a place with a massive parking lot, and luckily I work from home now, but people were so focused on getting spaces closer to the entrances… I always chose to park farther out because I wanted ur walk to delay getting to my desk… sigh.
There’s been so much propaganda and conditioning to make cars not just a normal part of life but a rite of passage and status symbol. Obviously there’s an entire (stupid) hierarchy of car ownership but so long as you have even the rustiest shitbox then you’re in the club and not one of those dirty probably poor “others” (pedestrians, cyclists, transit users). And there are concrete benefits to owning a car so long as you can afford the expenses. Fuel and maintenance adds up but driving a car is almost always faster than any alternative (rare exceptions apply depending on time/place/routes) and therefore more convenient. Like another poster said it’s like bringing a little piece of your home wherever you go, it’s nice (if socially detrimental) to have your own space away from other people (again though this is bad overall, see roadrage stats etc)
As big of a pain that other drivers are they’ve at least bought into the same system as you. They deal with the same bullshit, pay the same fuel prices, deal with the same mechanics, there’s a sense of solidarity there. Non-drivers (literally) don’t buy in to the same system, they don’t have to deal with insurance, worry about unforseen maintenance, think about cost of fuel, etc, and wether consciously or subconsciously drivers resent them for showing them an alternative to their lifestyle
In a way it’s kinda like why you’ll see non-vegans have such a visceral negative reaction to vegans or even the idea of a vegan diet. They’re entrenched in what they know and changing their lifestyle would prove they’ve been wrong all along and that there is a better way forward
What do you think car accidents are?
in a carbrain perspective? Random acts of god that never could anything be done about
“won’t happen to me” “I would never fuck up like that”
Unironically, class consciousness… or well, since it’s a mostly unconscious relationship in this case, maybe class unconsciousness??? Point is they see themselves as part of a group within society and despite their many and constant disagreements (road rage and accidents) they automatically place the self-preservation of the group above those disagreements. We see this phenomenon constantly, for example, when people get a flight cancelation, it has been observed that passengers suddenly become more social and talkative among the affected even to the point of concerted group actions and bargaining, creating a temporary common class, disgruntled passengers.
Coming back to the motorists, they see their class members as equals and the pump prices as the enemy, should the prices rise too fast, if the commotion dies down and the sense of emergency goes away, then there is no need for group action.
This is one of the main reasons proper socialist class consciousness is so important, by recognizing that they all share a common constant property, their relation to the production and distribution of goods, the sense of emergency becomes permanent, the oil barons are going to jack up the prices because it’s their profit incentive and fuck over cyclists and pedestrians to force everyone to drive.
