Not everything is harmful, just everything anyone might possibly want to do, for fun or profit. And if it's not, someone will decide it is soon. Once you decide to be obsessive about safety/environment/whatever, there is literally no limit to what you will obsess over once (or even before) all the major problems are taken care of. Vehicle emissions and fuel economy are actually the perfect example. All the major improvements - things like catalytic converters and basic EFI which are easily worked around or with by those who really care about performance and don't completely de-character a car even in their worst forms - are now decades old and relatively mature technologies, but the standards never stopped getting tougher, so now engineers are chasing smaller and smaller improvements at greater and greater costs, because they have to rather than because any customer wants them to. Chevrolet now makes a half-ton pickup with a four-cylinder engine, so heavily computerized that there is barely any connection left between what the driver does with the gas pedal and what the engine does in response, all to eke out maybe a 1-2 MPG improvement in government tests - and the engine is so stressed trying to move such a heavy vehicle that it actually returns worse fuel economy than the more traditional six- and eight-cylinder engines in actual use!
Or maybe there just are more dangerous things than you want there to be? So it's just important that people who only want to know about cars, and nothing else, can just keep on ignoring the consequences of their actions? So what do you propose instead? Cars are an ideal target for emission reduction, because the reductions will only impact the small subset of car guys, not the entire economy. This is just a very narrow case. Most of the times the engineering does bring measurable improvement. However, what we really need is a shift in consumer behavior. We need more people using public transport, as well as not buying cars just for show (what the fuck does Average Joe need a V8 fullsize truck for?). And the fact that you don't want things declared dangerous does not make them safer. Reality does not give two shits about what anyone wants.
To make sure the economy is running at 100% efficacy, we should destroy individuality and make everyone behave exactly the same, so every movement are completely synchronized. Don't be a troll, please.
I think people should allowed to drive cars, especially if they live out in the countryside where there is no public transportation. Some people like driving on their own and there are people that don't want to be in a bus full of passengers. That said, I also think people should be allowed to use public transportation, especially if they can't drive for reasons such as disability or not knowing how to drive. People should be allowed to choose what kind of transportation they want to use. It can be riding in a bus or driving a car.
The problem is that in many developed countries (especially the USA) car culture has driven public transport out and screwed over the poor and those who don't like driving. I think that public transport is the best option for commuting, and cars should be relegated to the status of occasional use items and tools of trade.
I respect your thoughts on this car topic. I am aware there are people who can't afford to drive, don't know how to drive, or don't like driving. I think both car and public transport opinions should be available to everyone. lol That's one of the funniest statements I've heard on this thread =D
Honestly, I think that public transport should be the backbone of commuting. It doesn't place an undue burden on the poor, it does not require any special skills, it is enviromentally sustainable, and it doesn't require the fitness cycling or long-distance walking does.
Shotgun Chuck, Here's a few questions for you. 1. How fast is a modern Chevy truck with a 4 cylinder engine? 2. What do you think the old cars with V8s and their fuel mileage? 3. What do you think of modern semi trucks?
What I can say about those is that they are an attempt to greenwash America's keeping-up-with-the-Joneses truck fetish, one of the reasons for Americans swimming in debt and being the #1 per-capita CO2 emitters.
I know you didn't ask me but I'd be willing to bet I have more experience with trucks than Chuck. Modern semis are unreliable fuel hogs. There is a reason older trucks are getting more popular, and more expensive. Most fleets have to keep extra trucks for when one inevitably breaks down. Most owner operators either buy an older truck or "delete" a newer one, which is very illegal, but when your livelihood depends on your truck I can't say I blame them. Plus when you delete a truck it usually gets slightly better fuel economy. Even if it's only a mile per gallon that can make a big difference when you drive for a living. It seems like the engineers are finally getting things figured out and the trucks are getting more reliable, but that probably means the EPA will tighten regulations again and start the cycle over again.
If tools of the trade are getting screwed over, but people who barely need a compact keep buying sub-20 MPG trucks, then something is wrong in America.
I say we continue on our current course, let the glaciers melt and flood the world, then live on sailboats and floating cities happily ever after. We start a new society and teach the children that the world has always been that way. Boom, checkmate enviornmentalists.
Or, we could invent ice blasters to make the planet cooler =P --- Post Updated--- Oh, alright then. I wonder what you think of modern cars.
I dislike the angry face styling trend that most manufacturers apply boring to cars that don't deserve an angry face. Other than that I don't really have a positive or negative opinion on most modern cars. I was being somewhat sarcastic with my post, poking fun at people who rarely, if ever, use their pickup for it's intended purpose.
Or maybe trying to remove all the risk from life will ruin life long before it succeeds? All I see when I look at the climate narrative, is more questions than answers - questions that people deliberately ignore for reasons I don't even pretend to understand. If they're right (please do note that while the exact number depends on what you count as a unique prediction, the number of failed predictions of doom is deep into the double digits by now), then there may be consequences for failing to listen to them. Just blindly following them, however, will have consequences, far more than you seem to think there will be. A "green" future won't just mean a few minor inconveniences, it will mean drastically reduced standards of living, to the point of genuine poverty, for everyone who isn't already rich and/or connected enough to sneak around the regulations. I propose that we exercise some caution with a movement that just gave up on trying to convince people logically and started holding up an angry child to make people feel bad instead. We passed the point of diminishing returns a long time ago - and at the same time, we could be doing a lot better if safety regulations weren't also getting tougher too. First, you'd be surprised. Maybe you could ask some of them instead of just assuming that every pickup truck driver is a poser. Second, if they are, it's none of your business. Even setting aside the fact that some people - quite a lot of people, in fact - live outside of major metropolitan areas where serving them with public transit would be completely impractical, what part of this sounds like a good idea when we have a highly contagious escaped bioweapon trying to spread? Nor does the fact that something has been arbitrarily declared dangerous make it any more so than it was before. That cuts both ways. Thank you for perfectly capturing this odious mentality in a single sentence. I absolutely cannot stand this idea that people, places, and things being different from one another is a bad thing somehow and that individuality must be brought to heel (with a few exceptions for things which are incredibly annoying) in pursuit of Maximum Efficiency. And once it's fixed, then what? Will that finally be good enough? No. No it won't. Someone will find something else that could theoretically be "safer" or "more efficient" than it is, and it will become the new "egregious" for everyone to freak out about. And then once that's fixed, something else will become the new "egregious". I honestly don't remember, I just know it's several different flavors of wrong on principle. I love 'em. Not sure I could afford to run one right now (though that's slowly changing), but if you can afford to, then more power to you. There's no sound on earth like that of a carbureted crossplane V8! Not being a trucker, I will have to defer to MT02 on this one. I do know that they're probably a lot harder to mod than the old ones, whether by design or by regulation. Oh yeah, that's another thing you probably won't hear around here. Souping-up big rigs used to be a thing too. I never saw it personally, but some of the stories I've heard from old-school truckers on other sites... they'd probably make most of this forum's hair stand on end, but to me they're like sweet music! This jives with what I've heard about industrial equipment in general. Every new wave of pollution controls makes a given piece of equipment about $10,000 more expensive per each, significantly less reliable, and significantly more prone to spending days out of action waiting for a "certified technician" who knows how to make the stupid thing work again without voiding the warranty. This is a big part of why farmers have started keeping old tractors alive longer and longer - the new ones, between the expense, the complication, and the manufacturer/dealer trying to own your soul (John Deere is especially bad for that last one), are just more trouble than they're worth. Need, need, need, need, need. Is there ever a time when you'd be OK with someone having more than the bare minimum that they "need"? And who are you to decide for everyone what they "need" anyway? What must someone do to "need a compact"?
