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It's not just a plain prisoner's dilemma or tragedy of the commons either - the authorities (heavily lobbied by the various industries and businesses concerned - which is apparently everyone down to shop owners) are not neutral. So it's not just "change society by changing a serious of individuals".

Again, I'd have written this off as like drying to drain the sea (given the feedback loops) BUT there are examples of not just "how it could be different" (NL) but also "you can get there from motornormativity and no cycling" (Seville).

I'd be interested in hearing more on this book. We're in Drivers and their Problems territory here.

You had to create the narrative that car mishaps were all "accidents" and treat accordingly, and always trivialise driving offences. It helps if traffic law enforcement is ridiculed for this reason. 

Queues of cars forming have to become a state problem for the state to solve - editing the environment is framed as improvement and progress.  The framing of public transport as old, slow, humdrum and inefficient must be a useful underpinning.

I wonder if it's just luck that air pollution made by ICEs is odourless and generally invisible, or if they had to work at that - if cars generated a smell of rotten eggs, it might have made a difference.  You have to work to suppress ideas around a link between air pollution from ICE and respiratory disease. 

I wonder things like the so-called Blade Runners are the result of an experiment gone wrong? 

People's Stockholm Syndrome becomes apparent in things like "don't live near a main road then; don't live near a school".

Part of the tragedy of the commons story is the passage of time, and lack of memory - I pass village bus shelters that stand as a memorial to a long gone services; you have to find timetables from the 1970s on EBay to see what has been lost. 

Old photographs (often put about by the "wasn't Britain great before it got invaded?" crowd), Post war Buildings (e.g. schools) with hardly any parking provision, "50 years ago" local newspaper features of a village fete sack race and childhood obesity practically absent.  Life was happily lived before mass car ownership.

David9694 wrote:

I'd be interested in hearing more on this book. We're in Drivers and their Problems territory here.

https://road.cc/content/review/134705-roads-were-not-built-cars-carlton-...

https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/

Thanks. At 340 pages, I assume this is a bit more broad-ranging than the title might immediately suggest? ("Roads are for cars"/ "roads were built for cars", etc is of course a so what? / non-argument.)

Looks like there's some copies floating around, but I've just used my last 10s chain : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roads-Were-Not-Built-Cars/dp/1610916891

He's quite big on detail!  You can get some of his work for free - for example his latest endeavor covering "when the UK's infra was (first) the envy of the Dutch" and what happened after that - the history of the 1930s cycle tracks, now online.

David9694 wrote:

Two men from the Council are booking into it 

Must be a very big sinkhole. How long are they staying?

mdavidford wrote:

David9694 wrote:

Two men from the Council are booking into it 

Must be a very big sinkhole. How long are they staying?

A whole week. 

This doesn't look right - there should be a lot more overlaps here.

Agreed, also if my visual estimate is correct this suggests only 10% of "professional" drivers have an irrational hate of cyclists which definitely does not accord with my experience.

(I'm sure the knowledgeable readers of this website don't need to be told but just in case the odd one doesn't know, the Wright Brothers funded their early experiments in aviation from the profits of their bicycle repair business)

...and some cyclists have been obsessing over "aero" ever since?

Rendel Harris wrote:

(I'm sure the knowledgeable readers of this website don't need to be told but just in case the odd one doesn't know, the Wright Brothers funded their early experiments in aviation from the profits of their bicycle repair business)

Back when bicycles were primarily rich people's toys, so there was significant money to be made in repairing them. First flight was less than 20 years after invention of the safety bicycle.

The other bit of useless information stuck in my head is that the Wright Brothers were responsible for introducing left hand threads on BBs and pedals.

The Wright brothers were also rather forward thinking for the time in supporting women's rights and also rights for black people. They were 'woke' before it was even invented. 

Or this story from the same website (it's about running, but holds true for cycling IMO):

https://dumbrunner.com/news-blog/2024/6/4/local-motorist-fuming-at-marat...

Hey, no arrow pointing to the seat post or saddle rails...