Nothing screams safe like a solid unibody chassis with no crumple zones, a high center of gravity, terrible visibility and an ride height that forces pedestrians under the wheels in an impact. safe

Relative to motor vehicles cyclists cause zero damage to roads. All pay taxes. Motorists are therefore subsidized by cyclists.

This is not at all in dispute.

Melbourne’s bike network is extensive and goes through many areas of the city. Not just to million dollar homes.

I don’t agree with this. The inner suburbs have good bike lanes, places like pakenham or cragieburn do not. I admit the million dollar number was a bad way of phrasing what I actually mean (and distracts because it’s a wrong claim), which is unaffordable. Yes you can safely ride from like glenroy which is well connected with bike lanes, but family homes in glenroy exceed $800k which is ludicrous for a low income family.

Many people ride bikes because they can’t afford cars.

Absolutely. Many others drive cars because they can’t afford to live close enough to the city for riding to be safe and practical. Different housing needs drive different outcomes here.

Suburbia is further subsidized by cities and North American suburbs should never have existed in the way that they do.

Absolutely agree. However they do and a conscious, deliberate effort is needed over time to correct this.

Everything about your logic is backwards and focused on car drivers and suburbanites experiencing no discomfort during a transition to sustainability while all discomfort is placed on others.

A lot of your points I unreservedly agree with, so if you feel they have anything to do with my logic then your contradicting yourself. In your whole.paragraph there’s only a single point that I don’t agree with.

Right, your statement that currently cyclists subsidized driver’s isn’t being disputed, nor is the fact that cars cost more to service associated infrastructure (as for some reason other replies are arguing).

My point is that in many places, cycling is only an option for the wealthy due to a lack of infrastructure in poorer areas. Melbourne could meet everyone’s needs if it cared to try, however it currently does not, which is to the detriment of the the less privileged and that is the point I am making.

I would argue that’s overly simplistic. In Melbourne, where I’m from, cycling infrastructure is passable in the inner city suburbs where house prices average well over a million dollars very high, and effectively only available to wealthier people. The outer suburbs, where there is no cycling infrastructure and limited public transport but affordablish housing, life is such that cars are necessary.

In cases such as this, motorists subsidizing cyclists is the rich being subsidized by the poor. I would far prefer a system where cyclists (and public transit) are subsidized by the rich, and longer term plans are implemented to remove the mandate of cars to the working poor, which in my example would mean current cyclists funding current motorists (with an intention to convert them to former motorists).

Not even that extreme, just an overcrowded train with someone who smells or is drunk is way worse than being in traffic. For plenty of women, someone who looks threatening can make a trip mega uncomfortable.

Mate if it’s going to make you happy, yeah I thought the crv was a different car.

I also made a few other errors.

It’s definitely impossible to understand what I consider to be a small SUV from the examples given, there’s no way anyone could possibly read into the context and work it out, it was wrong of me to suggest it was obvious. This oversight obviously entirely undermines the actual examples I’d given of where SUVs that have less storage than wagons, obviously a small SUV isn’t like the q3 or mid q5 like I’d suggested, it makes far more sense to start a conversation about small at the standard or full size segment with what appears to be the literal largest size vehicle from a manufacturer.

I was also wrong to suggest that, like the hundreds of thousands who raised families before the rise of the SUV, that you could have chosen a station wagon to meet your needs. I concede unreservedly, my definition of small is wrong, everyone who needs to transport 4 people needs 7 seats. Further, though I didn’t articulate it, I naively thought that things like roof storage and bike racks and other science fiction ideas could further increase storage potential of vehicles.

Thank you for so carefully dissecting my original points and teaching me to learn from my mistakes, I feel like such an idiot for spouting such nonsense. Have a great night.

Dude most people do not consider a fucking 7 seater small. I get that you don’t like people contradicting your claims but seriously, the fact that you won’t even acknowledge that a reasonable assumption for something described is 'small" is that it isn’t larger than average makes this entire conversation pointless.

Have a good one, I’m out. Enjoy your SUV, whether necessary or not you clearly have a strong emotional attachment to it, and surely you can agree with me that there is unquestionable value in having things that bring joy.

The problem with making claims like this is easily refuted they are.

I’m sure this will be entirely genuine.

A quick Google search puts cargo space in an Audi a6 wagon at 30 cubic ft. An Audi q3 (small SUV) has less than 24 and an Audi q5 has 26.

Ah, I see - a $68k car compares ~10% better to that same brand’s $37k and $44k small SUVs. This highlights an additional facet to the equation, that of cost-effectiveness. Are you willing to pay 83-55% more for 11-25% more cargo space?

Cost was not mention in your claim. You said no car could compete on cargo space. I’m not really interested engaging in a straw man about cost. There are cheaper stations wagons in production, I chose one that was easy to compare.

This trend is typical for all full sized wagons compared to compact SUVs (many share the same platform).

If you artificially restrict your comparison to same-manufacturer e.g. Audi, sure, though I’m not sure why anyone would do so.

I did that for my ease to demonstrate the point. If you want to choose to be wrong and pretend other manufacturers are radically different, by all means do so. If you think I’m wrong, you can spend your own time checking my claim that this is consistent for other manufacturers. I’m not motivated to spoon feed it to you, I think even if I did you’d invent new strawmen or move goalposts to justify your wrong claim above.

Any claim to have experienced something else is clearly misinformed as demonstrated by a quick Google search.

My Mitsubishi Outlander clocks in at 64.3ft^3 cargo space as demonstrated by a quick Google search - this seems to beat your magical A6’s 30ft^3 by double. I’m sure there are other small SUVs out there which have similar or better cargo-space. Misinformed, indeed.

Ah yes, the “small” full sized SUV (literally the largest Mitsubishi on sale in the USA) with three rows of seats. Your post claimed “small” SUV, that implies something like a crv, q3, macan etc. 64.3ft is with seats folded down, so yes a full sized SUV boot + rear seats is often bigger than a wagon boot only (you can usually fold the seats in a wagon as well). Frustratingly I was mislead by your"small SUV" comment above.

An honest comparison is the third row of seats folded down with second row up (presumably consistent with your two children being the car, no?). So 34 odd cubic feet, admittedly higher than the literal first wagon I thought of as a point of comparison for a small SUV. Compared to a full size SUV I don’t know offhand if there’s a wagon with more space, obviously if you move the goalposts that much it’s hard to present an argument.

Yes, I’ve assumed that you’ve behaved in a way consistent with the overwhelming majority of people.

I’m not quite sure how you arrived at that conclusion as you’ve demonstrated here a profound myopia regarding available options and fair comparison of those options, but hey. Thanks for re-confirming your flawed assumptions.

A Mitsubishi outlander is not a small SUV bro. If you go back and read my earlier post you should be able to follow my logic pretty easily, I thought we were talking about something similar to an Audi q3.

Unfortunately, the errors - in assuming one’s use case, in applying flawed logic, in generalizing from artificially-narrow subsets of data, and in riding one’s high-horse - are all still yours. I look forward to your correcting yourself.

Well, enjoy it. Clearly I was pointing out that a small SUV does not have more cargo space than a conventional station wagon, clearly we define small differently if you think that monster is small…

With only the third row pushed down you do have slightly more space than the audi wagon, though I am still convinced that the station wagon can accommodate kids, bikes and holiday luggage based on the many, many years I used one for exactly that. Since you’re committed to claiming that the extra 3ft of storage is make or break then I can’t objectively argue the point.

I “will get back on my high horse” and say that the original post misrepresented the vehicle you’d chosen and reaffirm that I believe your insistence that “no car or station wagon” could accommodate your needs, as described above, is based upon being influenced by others and is not based in reality. Thousands of people have used station wagons for exactly that purpose for decades.

A small or mid sized SUV usually has cargo space comparable to a hatchback, definitely less than a station wagon.

Having experience with SUVs, hatchbacks, and wagons, I’ve yet to find that to be the case.

The problem with making claims like this, without actually having checked first, is how easily refuted they are by someone who has. A quick Google search puts cargo space in an Audi a6 wagon at 30 cubic ft. An Audi q3 (small SUV) has less than 24 and an Audi q5 has 26. This trend is typical for all full sized wagons compared to compact SUVs (many share the same platform). The compact platform is comparable to the 22 cubic ft in a vw golf (small hatchback) - this makes sense as the vw gold and q3 literally share a platform (as is common for small SUVs and hatchbacks across brands). Any claim to have experienced something else is clearly misinformed as demonstrated by a quick Google search.

That guy correctly pointed out your logic is flawed

They shared a faulty conclusion they’d already drawn regarding the universal supremacy of one option and universal failing of another option even before truly understanding my use case.

Aided by a quick Google search I’ve demonstrated that your claimed experience is flat wrong. You’ve been misled (or could be knowingly lying, but that is not very likely).

if you’ve been convinced by a salesman that the cargo space is something other than what it is, reflecting on that could make you a more informed consumer in the future

And if you’ve assumed I had been convinced by a salesman rather than understanding my own use-cases and requirements and selecting a vehicle which meets those needs, not only have you erred, you’ve disregarded my highlight of having done so in my initial post.

Yes, I’ve assumed that you’ve behaved in a way consistent with the overwhelming majority of people. Your claims about cargo space are wrong, so if that’s the basis of your use case as described in your previous post and you’re honestly representing what you think, you have been misled. With the information presented, knowledge of the vehicles described and a basic knowledge of how marketing works, this seems by a huge margin to be the most likely case.

Getting annoyed at people commenting because you perceived them to have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude on it won’t benefit anyone.

My experience has been that criticizing the arrogance and assumptions of those in an ivory tower has been more enabling - indeed, more enabling of more informed discourse - than comments defending the actual arrogance and assumptions of a rando.

Well, I’ve now given some informed examples of cargo space so perhaps now that you’ve been presented with actual numbers (which I’d invite you to check yourself if you think I’ve invented them) you can now review your assumptions and reflect on how people are manipulated into believing that small/compact SUVs offer better cargo space or are somehow superior to conventional cars, when in fact they are not. To say no car measured up either means you didn’t check or you were misled.

A small or mid sized SUV usually has cargo space comparable to a hatchback, definitely less than a station wagon.

That guy correctly pointed out your logic is flawed, if you’ve been convinced by a salesman that the cargo space is something other than what it is, reflecting on that could make you a more informed consumer in the future. Getting annoyed at people commenting because you perceived them to have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude on it won’t benefit anyone.

Mid 30s Aussie living the the US. Yes I can drive a manual, yes I do drive a manual and yes I think it should be mandatory for 100% of learning drivers regardless of whether they plan to daily drive an automatic or manual when licensed.

The quality of driving here is considerably worse here than what I’ve experienced in Australia or Europe and I’m convinced requiring people to drive in a machine that forces them to consider the next ~100m leads to higher quality, more mindful drivers.

I’ve never seen or heard of this but I’m skeptical that there is any speed hump design that wouldn’t be a negative for emergency services, increase wear and tear to vehicles that cross them and that wouldn’t be less of an impact to lifted chassis vehicles. These problems are avoided by the other, better solutions so why are humps even a part of the conversation at all?

Speed bumps are the worst possible solution, they often mean if you’re in a conventional car you have to come to a near complete stop and if you’re in a large SUV you can cross at 20mph. This reinforces the trend away from conventional cars to higher ride height vehicles which is a disaster for road safety (especially pedestrian and cyclist safety).

They do successfully slow down the flow of traffic (and also cause traffic to follow alternative paths, at least until speed bumps are saturated in the area) but it fucks up emergency vehicle access and damages cars (increases wear and tear). The other road design solutions (more narrow roads, inclusion of roundabouts, addition of choke points etc) all are equally as effective as humps at reducing speeders and diverting traffic away from roads (in some cases they are better) and have none of the negative consequences, speed humps should never be used imo.

The two differences you listed improve traffic flow and safety massively!

Driver education is often more strict depending on country (I’m thinking Scandinavian countries and Germany), unsurprisingly this makes a big difference.

Traveling faster is a bit of a moot point. If people drive faster and rate of incidents and road toll are lower, surely that proves that travel speed isn’t the problem in the US.

But really, the drink driving culture in America is terrifying. The state of Texas has a similar population to Australia (where I’m from), 9,560 people died on the road in Q1 2022 in texas. Australia had just under 2000 FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! Both places have similar speed limits that are considerably slower than Europe, so I don’t think it would be honest to try and say the low speed limits cause deaths. My best guess would be that drink driving is enforced at 0.05 in Australia compared to 0.08 in Texas. On top of this, Texas only enforces if officers have a cause for lawful detainment, which is a high threshold to cross compared to random breath tests common where I’m from.

It’s incorrect to think of most road laws as being in place for safety, instead recognize that it’s largely a tax by another name. It is never safe to drive 20mph below prevailing traffic, regardless of what the sign on the side of the road instructs.

To avoid fines, pay attention and try to avoid routes where there are often cops collecting a toll, especially during quieter times when you’re one of a smaller number of commuters (and more likely to be the sucker who gets pinged). If you’re white, congratulations, you’re way less likely to be the unlucky party who gets pinged.

The reason I asked was because I think there’s a fundamental disagreement between what it actually is that people disagree about.

Your earlier post suggests that your stance on abortion is different than that of the mainstream conservative narrative. This seems normal, based on how every vote on that issue seems to be playing out, there is a disconnect between the ideology that conservative leaders are pushing and what their supporters actually think. The exact same situation is true with affirmation action on the left - voters consistently reject it regardless of party affiliation or self identified political leaning.

I’d hear people identify CRT as being closely related to affirmative action, in that it’s an actual policy that gives out some advantage (or seeks to remove some other existing advantage, if you have a different perspective) vs being some purely academic case study more like what a other response to your response described.

Where I’m going with this is that depending on what you’re describing when you say CRT, it’s very easily possible that your position of opposing it is consistent with a clear majority of people who identify as “left”. The disagreement isn’t about ideology, but about semantics that is being exploited by a political class to drive support.

Ultimately if people want to debate you, you’re not obligated to indulge them. It’s good for discourse to put out your opinion in the way that you have (eg respectfully and without throwing barbs at everyone).

That said, some of your points are hard for me to follow.

I don’t have a perfect knowledge of exactly what’s on the left and right so please forgive me if I put something in the wrong category.

If you can’t articulate the difference, how is it that you came to identify as one? IMO “left vs right” is an intentionally vague and poorly defined concept to keep people angry and identifying with a brand, more than a coherent description of ideology.

I understand that left vs right ideally shouldn’t exist. The same goes for political parties. They do exist so here’s some of my views from both sides.

I don’t agree with critical race theory…

I hear so much about this. What does it mean? Can you give a real world example where someone is trying to implement what you oppose?

Exponentially both ways though I would argue, often, the slower driver is more of a hazard to other drivers!

If someone burns past in the left lane unless someone else does something wrong (like move lanes without looking first) or causes rapid traffic slowdown in the left lane either by merging poorly or being too aggressive on the brakes, they are more or less not a risk.

If someone is driving too slow they are dangerous without anyone else making a mistake - if you or anyone behind you doesn’t have visibility (eg behind a truck, around a bend, glare from the sun etc) then there’s a hard braking event, which is always dangerous. The more slowly compared to prevailing traffic they go, the more attentive other drivers need to be, the more dangerous it becomes.

Socialism is defined by the elimination of the purely capitalist class, wherin workers own the means of production.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that capital isn’t assigned for investment based upon market demand or that “EvEryoNe gEts pAId tHE SAmE” like others claim. Socialism in a modern economy can (and likely would be) market based, it just means that shareholders would be entirely made up of employees of a company (obviously this would lead to better conditions for workers, lower wages for executives and no dividend payments to people who aren’t working). Taking a more academic definition of capitalism, it’s entirely possible to be both socialist and capitalist. Few people are arguing against capitalism in entirety.

I would say that most “MAGA” or whatever equivalent regressive movement exists anywhere is not at all conservative (MAGA supporters attempted a coupe, which is radical, the opposite of conservative), that’s just branding. In much the same way as the people’s democratic republic of Korea is not democratic, “liberals” in the USA political landscape are usually leftists (typically with a lot of illiberal positions) etc.

It isn’t that these people support capitalism (they are often ignorant of what capitalism even entails, the same way they think communism means anything they disagree with) it’s that they vaguely support existing power and class structures, though again, from what I’ve seen they can rarely coherently describe what they support and what they oppose, outside of a few tailor designed talking points like abortion or transgenderism.