Comments on Why I Really Hate Cars?

Like I always say, few bicyclists have any idea what the law is about anything (no parking on sidewalks, running red lights not allowed, murder in the first degree not lawful, etc.), and those few that do have a vague notion of what is and isn't kosher (I call them the Matlocks and Perry Masons of the pedal power set), don't care. Even when they rack up hundreds of dollars in fines, they just can't bring themselves to color within the lines.

It's like genetic or something.

Except of course when said law governs the behavior of a car in the vicinity of the bicyclist. Then all of a sudden they turn into some kind of like Clarence Thomas-esque legal scholar.

ECB may serve as exhibit A of this phenomenon.

Not that I expect any bicyclist to appreciate my point. Try this instead: from a motorcyclist's point of view, you people on bicycles suck just as much as the ones in cars! Stop thinking you're any better than them. You're not.

So you hate cars because you didn't use yours much. Fine. Most people in Seattle do. If you only need a car now and then, there is a thing called Flexcar, or a friend who lets you use theirs. Gripe-a-rooney-doo.

When a bicyclist breaks a law, no one is going to get killed except themself. The moral distinction is quite clear.

That 72 hour rule is the major reason i sold my car too. When i went on vacation for a week and returned to find my car had been towed from in front of my own house, enough was enough. The overzealous neighborhood parking nazis were getting no more money from me.

I gave mine up years ago in Vegas because it was broken down and useless half the time anyway, yet costed me money even when I wasn't using it. Oh yeah, and it cost SO MUCH just to have available, the insurance and gas and tags and smog checks and maintenance and repairs. And the bus, even Vegas' crappy bus system, got me from A to B in reasonable time, or I could get from A to B on my bike.

And of course, once I moved to Seattle and started using the bus here, there was almost no need whatsoever.

@3

Gee, thanks, Dr. Morality.

But in the moral universe I live in, being the instrument of another person's death is something to be avoided, to say the least.

If you want to die, go shoot yourself at home where your family can clean up the mess. Just because I think bicyclists suck doesn't mean I want to be there to watch you die.

Oh, and since I ride a motorcycle, not a cage, chances are pretty good that one of those spandex-clad assholes will take me out too when he blithely swerves into my path.

I hate to be so rude, but fuck you. The moral distinction you make is bullshit.

Erica is so righteous about her planet-saving lifestyle choices. Fine, she gave up a car. Maybe she recycles toilet paper and composts kitty litter.

But seriously, tone down the righteousness about how everyone else must live. For many, the car is the right choice. Some commuter from one suburb to another. Some have kids and errands.

Erica can afford to give up her car. Big whoop. Try telling that to the people begging to get their cars out of impound so they can get to work.

Maybe Steinbrueck can help you with those tickets.

Wow, so I'm not the only one. The only thing that has prevented me from selling my car is the rather lax enforcement of the 72-hour rule these days. (I've been in the same space for a week, as of right now.)

There was an article about street parking in the NY Times a while back - when free street parking is around and non-street parking costs a decent penny, congestion increases as people spend more time circling neighborhoods to pounce upon the available freebies. Economists would say that street parking is probably too cheap in Seattle, on the whole.

Oh and @3: bullshit. A car frantically swerving to avoid hitting a bicyclist breaking the law, for example, is a serious danger to others on the road, and it's not all the gas-guzzler's fault.

You hate cars because you've never had the love of a good one.

Jesus, this is supposed to be a defense?

When Erica owned a car, she thought the taxpayers should provide her with free, unlimited parking.

When Erica, confronted with the fact that the car came with financial responsibilities, decided she'd rather not have it, she thought the taxpayers should foot the bill to dispose of it.

And now that the car is gone, she feels no obligation to make good on the debts to the taxpayers she acrued while she owned it.

If that isn't slam-dunk proof of an overgrown sense of entitlement, I don't know what is.

Here's an Idea ECB.

Act like a fucking adult and either buy a home where you actually own a place to park your car or rent a parking spot.

wow! that web site is incredible! i can't believe they put this information out for the public. most of the stranger staff (dan savage, charles mudude, etc) have no record whatsoever but some have shady pasts:

* christopher frizzelle parked in a handicap spot!
* david schmader drove without a driver's license!

and one enemy:

* joel connelly (if it's the right one) got fined for something called "false alarms" -- 7 times!! how fitting is that?

i'm addicted to this. i haven't found anything too juicy yet but i'm sure some seattle notable has some dark secrets.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!

With that many tickets you could be the green party candidate for senate!

I was feeling a little bit guilty for linking to the paper noose's parking ticket exposé until I saw that you mentioned it here, too. Congrats on ridding yourself of the car and the entailed dead weight. Did you find out whether the city recouped its expenses at auction?

thank you for standing up for us...this e.c.b is a menace. Her egregious crimes have hurt me so profoundly that I feel sad, and hurt as a taxpayer. You David Wright should stand up and point @ yourself and run for leader of this great city/county/state/country/continent/hemisphere...

because David you represent us, not those car losing to the city slobs.
like you said:

"If that isn't slam-dunk proof of an overgrown sense of entitlement, I don't know what is."

oh yeah forgot the sarcasm/on /off tags..

It's interesting how similar experiences can cause such different reactions in people.

Erica, your story (minus the tickets and the shirking of responsibility for them) echoes my own=I once owned a car when I lived on Capitol Hill without an off-street parking space to put it until it became such a hassle to keep it legally on the street...and then I sold it to go car-less for awhile. AND, I've owned an Italian scooter as a short-range replacement for a car.

What *I* got out of that experience was a definite sense that new apartment and condo builders should build MORE parking than they have tenants--certainly not LESS.

And far from socially engineering me into fully committing to becoming a vehicle-less city dweller, it pushed me further out of town where I now happily reside in a two person FOUR vehicle household (Subaru Outback to haul things, Ford Focus hatchback to zip around town, motorcycle for her, scooter for me) and enough available street parking to accommodate us and the friends that we invite over.

Of course, we all have to drive much further than if we could have found similar accommodations closer to the city...so, really the "eliminate parking"-brand of social engineering has just increased the amount of gas we use...

pg

PS--I've always paid to park my scooter in a lot...knowing that you can't park them on a sidewalk...and, when I lived on the Hill, I somehow managed not to get ticketed for leaving a car under a pile of leaves on Bellevue Avenue E for what had to have been nearly a year before we finally sold it for $25.

But, unlike some of my fellow SLOGgers, I ain't mad at you ECB... I know where you're comin' from... It's just that we've learned very different lessons, I guess.

taxpayer4davidwright, go suck an egg. Every point David Wright made is accurate and, I notice, not a single one was refuted by your left-field attempt at sarcasm/hyperbole.

Wright on, David Wright.

I was refereing to his populist shit talk: like invoking taxpayer this and taxpayer that every paragraph, I mean we are all taxpayers, so thats too easy of a target...
he should have said "I pay, income tax, sales tax, social security" and then added "gas tax, car tabs, license fees, state mandated insurance, as well as upkeep and maintenance of a vehicle"....
I mean thats your choice buddy... but don't put that shit on me, I dont drive , it's fine if you do ...but hey thats not all of us...

Feel good on both the class warfare and car-hating fronts: vote yes in November.

The RTID is paid for by a car tab tax!

Make BUFFY from BELLEVUE pay through her nosejob every year for that beemer! And that HUMMER her husband BIFF drives - that'll cost him a pretty penny when he pulls out the plastic to pay for tabs!!!!

David Wright is 100% correct; Erica is apparently bragging about being a scofflaw? "Why should I pay?" indeed; because you owe it. Those tickets -- 25 of them! -- are all perfectly reasonable. Your refusal to pay, and your decision to just walk away, are not.

Here's a weird one, though: I looked myself up in that database, and I'm in there with two tickets, one for speeding and one for driving without a valid license, both issued in 1990 -- a year in which I did not set foot outside of the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The birthdate and employer are wrong, but the first, middle, and last names are mine, and while that's not impossible, it's just rare enough to be very unlikely. I've run across quite a few other Steve Thorntons, but never with my middle name. I think someone was stealing my identity.

Josh @ No. 18: Yes, the city recouped its expenses. That's what I meant when I said "no more car, no more tickets." I lost my car, but I paid my tickets.

Josh @ No. 18: Yes, the city recouped its expenses. That's what I meant when I said "no more car, no more tickets." I lost my car, but I paid my tickets.

Erica writes:

I had left it parked out on the street in Capitol Hill for a week or so, and SPD had it towed away. I didn’t realize it had been towed for another week.

This is quite astonishing! I would think that any mature responsible person with a major possession like a car (no matter what shape it’s in) would at least check on it every other day. Geeeeeezus!!!
What if it was leaking oil, got bashed, broken into with Erica’s pumps, tube top, lip gloss, yogurt, and CDs strewn about the street?

@6

If you go down on your motorcycle, what do you think the chances are that a bicycle will have anything to do with it? Probably about the same probability as the Pope being struck by lightning during a lunar eclipse. Cars are a bazillion times bigger threat to you than bikes. So why do you have your panties in such a wad over bikes? (Not that you're the only one.)

Erica might be a whining hypocrite. But people who actually live in Seattle and drive everywhere in the city are still either a) morons, b) lazy, c) apathetic assholes.

@29

You're exactly right. Meeting one bicycle while I ride sucks precisely one tenth as much as meeting ten cars, and one twentieth as much as twenty cars, and so forth.

All I'm saying is that one (1) typical bicyclist is precisely the same size asshole as one (1) typical car/SUV driver. And therefore, I have to take issue with bicyclists who think their shit stinks less.

A professional truck driver, believe it or not, is not a bad thing at all to share the road with. They mostly pay attention and have a clue or two about what the rules of the road are.

And most motorcyclists are just better. They studied harder for their license, they took a harder test to get a license, they got a higher score on the test, and most of them take some pride in the quality of what they do on the road. When they violate a law or convention, the do it on purpose and don't make pussy excuses like "Uhh...? I like forgot to check on my parked car? For like I think a week or whatever? Dude it's unfair?"

I don't mean that frat boy on the GSXR wearing a Corona t-shirt and flip-flops with a bimbo hanging on the back of his bike. That guy is a total dick. But can you imagine the bloodbath we would see if anybody on a motorcycle rode as badly as an ordinary bicyclist? CNN would send a camera crew if even one motorcycle did half the shit bicyclists do thousands of times a day.

Want to get cars off the road? Make the certification (license) as hard to get as any for any other piece of heavy equipment. How about a four hour class every four years, with an 80% minimum rate for passing? How about an actual physical driving test every ten years, regardless of age? The closer one gets to Downtown, especially Belltown, or Capitol Hill on a weekend, the worse the drivers get. Visitors to the city+beer buzz=really bad driving. That says nothing of the indecisive nature of Seattle drivers generally. If people cannot operate the equipment, put them on buses or trains, and take away their licenses. The streets would be safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and other drivers. No ideological bent, no more more-eco-then-thou; just good common sense.

People don't have the human right to drive, just because they can acquire a vehicle.

So when will the condescending and arrogant social engineering progressives put the brakes on their car bashing? When traffic is 50% less, 75% less, or 100% less?

ECB -"One was a case in which I got hit by a car on my bike and was cited (in my hospital bed, no less) for “passing on the right.” That was later overturned and settled in my favor."

According to the ticket record the violation was dismissed because the cop didn't show up.

SMC 11.44.080 Overtaking and passing on right.
The operator of a bicycle may overtake and pass a vehicle or a bicycle upon the right only under conditions permitting such movement in
safety.

From WA bicycle safety tips -

Don’t pass on the right - Motorists may not look for or see a bicycle passing on the right.

#33: Bingo! That's exactly what I would like to see. 100% Pie in the sky? Oh yeah. Utopian? You had better believe it. But ask me if I care?

Cars basically stink. From civic engineering, transportation, environmental, and urban planning angles, cars have been nothing short of an utter catastrophe. Cars should clean up or die. Cars are actually one of the primary causes of unaffordable cities and out of control suburban growth. The reason you suburbanites have to drive is because car centered transportation planning basically underlies the very existence of where you live. The whole fucking I-5 corridore wouldn't even exist if the federal government hadn't fucked up and created a cumbersome and retarded highway system that favors cars. Cars basically caused the problems they purportedly solve for you on an individual basis.

Jay,

News flash - the Seattle city limits encompass lots of neighborhoods where public transit is essentially useless or at best incredibly inefficient. Try getting from West Seattle to the U-District, Lake City to Beacon Hill or the Central Area, or even Laurelhurst to Crown Hill (let alone - gasp - Blue Ridge or Broadview) in a reasonable amount of time. Did I mention that NONE of those areas (except the U-District) are scheduled to be served by anything but buses for at least the next 40 years?

Let's not forget that about as many people commute out of Seattle to the Eastside/Kent Valley/South Snohomish County areas to work as come into the City from the suburbs.

I'm all for moving toward zero emission vehicles, but get you had better get used to the car - it's gonna be with us for a long time to come.

Mr. X, thats not really true. The CD and Beacon hill are getting light rail both through ST1 an ST2.

There also growing talk of a Seattle Street Car/Light Rail network to connect West Seattle and other neighborhoods with downtown.

Plus the King County Council just created a County wide ferry district that is going to begin developing a plan for a significant amount of passenger only ferry service around town.

38: I know cars are going to be with us for a while. That's sort of my point. The urban and suburban areas were stupidly designed around the car. I'm talking about an ideal, not an actuality.

where is the CD going to get Link?

dija see that south lake union trolley is already 1/2 million short on operating funds?

there is no plan for anything to WS - just BS around voting time.

ever looked at the per passenger costs of the water taxi?

To Jay @ #30 who said people who actually live in Seattle and drive everywhere in the city are still either a) morons, b) lazy, c) apathetic assholes.

Oh yeah?

Why should I listen to you, anyway? You're a virgin who can't drive.

Sound Transit's light rail was a good idea in 1996. What will be running in 2006 is a pale shadow of what was promised, and what could have been. Transit is important, and we must make more investments in it. But this November do not vote to throw a FORTUNE from the people of this region down the ST rathole.

A more progressive, responsible, and accountable transit agency will succeed ST, in short order, if that upcomimg measure fails.

Fnarf, there's another one of me as well. He lives in Des Moines WA, and doesn't pay his Bon Marche bill. That almost bought the closing on my first house to a screeching halt.

He's also involved in some sort of shady dealings involving senior citizens and/or jewelry. I only know that because I occassionally get phone calls from angry children of old people who think I'm him.

raindrop @33: So when will the condescending and arrogant social engineering progressives put the brakes on their car bashing? When traffic is 50% less, 75% less, or 100% less?

Thanks for talking truth to power, raindrop. The arrogant, elitist, social-engineering anti-car Nazis will not stop until Seattle is an Orwellian socialist utopia where automobiles have been completely banned. If we give them an inch, they will take a mile.

I hold this truth to be self-evident: that any attempt to reduce our dependence on automobiles and make transit more desirable is an unabashed attack on our American democracy, even if accomplished through democratic means. Hey, Hitler was democratically elected. The transit Nazis should remember that, as Americans, it is our God-given, inalienable right to:

• A. Cheap gas.
• B. Unlimited use of our freeways.

And if God didn't want this, He wouldn't have blessed us with being born Americans and He wouldn't have blessed the earth with unlimited amounts of oil.

Giffy @ 39 -

You are correct, but you won't be able to get from Beacon Hill or the CD to any of the other neighborhoods off of the I-5 axis by light rail, which was my larger point (and technically, the CD really won't be served by light rail at all - the nearest station will be close to a mile away. For that matter, 3/4 of Beacon Hill won't be within reasonable walking distance from their station either).

Regarding a West Seattle street car - talk is cheap, and ain't getting anyone anywhere soon.

@31

All hail the motorcyclists, the only non-assholes on the road! Elenchos, clearly you are the biggest self-righteous fuck-tard of them all.

@47

Moi? Au contraire. Let me assure you that I am not an asshole of any kind. That is a proven scientific fact.

People like me. They really like me.

The I-90 line has a station slated for the rainier area somewhere by the freeway. While not in the middle of the Cd it will serve the CD communities of Judkins Park and others.

Light rail is not supposed to operate like a net covering every area. Instead it is designed to move people along corridors. Other means of transit supplement. For example Light rail will get you to King street station were ideally street cars and bus will take you the rest of the way.

It would be impossible and impractical to build light rail that would put everyone within walking distance of a station. Now you can get most people within walking distance to a street car of bus stop that will take them to a light rail station.

42: Hohoho, you so funny!

Ya'll are very ornery.

Pretend you're speaking in person, and then you might not sound like a jerk.

Hey, guess what, former Nos. 15 and 35? Your comments have been stricken because you made nasty, personal attacks on me, which I won't tolerate! Behold the power of the Internet! BWAHHAHAHAHAH!

It IS Seattle's only newspaper.

Christ. You regular slog readers commenters ... You guys are bigger whiners and bitches then the snotty writers on this thing. Give it a rest, already.

Bill O'Reilly on Fox News likes to talk over his guests and even cuts off their mikes so no one can hear what they have to say when they don't agree with him.

ECB gets comments removed from the SLOG forum that she doesn't agree with.

Let's think about that for a moment. Sweet, liberal ECB behaves exactly like Right-wing Tool Bill O'Reilly. I guess there are two sides on the same coin.

Hey, troll:

I don't agree with a majority of the comments on this thread. You'll note that the only ones I've removed are the irrelevant personal attacks.

Whee,
Erica

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