[David9694]

Strange, isn’t it Germans, Remainers and cyclists looking on grimly at the last few days of driver hysteria. 

The oddest thing is how badly affected London and the south-east are – the best connected area, ranking high among those having most public transport and other travel options. 

As a cyclist, this doesn’t seem like much of an attitude or behaviour changer.  It does reveal to a wider audience a bit about the weird attachment some people have to their cars; how desperation, violence and abuse lurk just below the surface. 

In the short term, fuel shortages mean more frustrated drivers  scratting around for their precious supplies; more danger, more disruption when they find it. 

Unsurprisingly, the anti-LTN voices purporting to be concerned about emergency ambulances remain silent throughout. 

I take no pleasure in any of the chaos as I have elderly relatives who are highly reliant on twice-daily carers. What if it gets so bad that they can’t do their job? Brexiters seem to suggest this is just a patch of turbulence,  a necessary temporary sacrifice on the way to the sunny uplands. I guess we’ve all got to tighten our belts and believe a bit more strongly. 

As a remainer, petrolgate feels highly potent – whether we on here like it or not, as a politician, you upset the driver lobby at your peril.  Brexit, in the form of not enough drivers is hitting a lot of people in a place it really hurts. “Sort it” will be the terse message from local MPs to the PM. 

Yes I know, it’s an area that had issues before – but one of several where Brexit has been randomly chucked in with no plan.  I get a sense of some parts of industry being inert and saying to the govt – “your mess…”

Sarah Everard  – It’s not the time to highlight this more broadly, but there are parallels at so many levels with road violence and the fight against both. 

The car as a facilitator of the patriarchy might sound a bit far fetched, but a car was a vital tool in perpetrating this terrible crime.  And countless others perpetrated by men against women and girls at a range of levels.  Yes, Against me when I’m cycling – that’s a parallel, a shared interest in countering bullying and worse.

The issue is evderday-ised, trivialised so it goes largely unnoticed.  Victims need to take greater care, more precautions.  Flag down a bus  – how very London.  I haven’t yet heard anyone say “what was she doing out on her own at that hour – silly girl” but you can bet plenty are thinking it.  The police response in the news, despite their having months to think about it, is so far bumbling and inappropriate.  Any “I know my rights” miscreant now has an ideal excuse to evade arrest. 

There are so many things that, as brought home by the e-scooters, could be done to make cars less dangerous, but drivers’ freedoms and privileges matter more than any safety or even crime reduction argument.  We could have black boxes that mean a car won’t go if it is abused in any way, that can’t exceed the speed limit – but we invest instead in ever more roads. 

I’m not qualified to say what needs to change as regards women’s safety and freedom: I’m not going to try and mansplain that one, although men have a major part to play in effecting change. It’s a time to listen, listen to women.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Victorian women did wear

Victorian women did wear trousers though. It’s a completely fake story. And not only is it a completely fake story, it couldn’t possibly be classed as either an “invention” or “innovation” in any case if women simply wore the same attire as men.

[Rendel Harris]

And? It’s not a list of the

And? It’s not a list of the top five inventions in the history of the world, as surely you are capable of reading, it’s a list of “Innovations that have advanced women’s rights.” In that context, the acceptance of women’s rights to wear trousers rather than being expected to wear skirts all the time has made a very significant difference to women’s lives, as the relevant section explains. Bicycling, incidentally, was one of the primary drivers of making it acceptable for women to wear trousers.

[Anonymous]

OK, so I click on your top

OK, so I click on your top link and its top 5 inventions in the history of the world include “pants for women”.

[Tom_77]

Quote:

As a cyclist, this doesn’t seem like much of an attitude or behaviour changer.  It does reveal to a wider audience a bit about the weird attachment some people have to their cars; how desperation, violence and abuse lurk just below the surface.

My local Facebook and Nextdoor has been full of anxious people apparently unable to get to work or take their kids to school without a car.

I’m not sure if the current fuel supply issues will cause anyone to rethink how utterly dependent they are on a car. I think it would take a prolonged crisis to do that, and this one is likely to be quite short.

[Steve K]

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Well I was taking a slight liberty with my wording, but to be clear the internal combustion engine (so broader than automobiles) is the absolute pinnacle of human achievement. And you can quote one person in history (who I’ve never heard of, at a time when women couldn’t even vote) all you like, but the facts are clear: without cars, women’s lib would be decades behind where it is today and society as a whole would be far less safe. We are so fortunate to live at this time in history, standing on the shoulders of the men and women to whom we owe so much, but people’s self-entitlement blinds them to the fact.

Funny, no mention of cars or the internal combustion engine here https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/multimedia/2019/3/photo-innovations-womens-rights 

Or here https://www.bustle.com/p/badass-inventions-that-changed-the-world-for-women-50643

Or here https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/online/sciencepanorama/inventions-helped-women-soar

 

 

[Sniffer]

…. and Remain voting

…. and Remain voting Scotland is just fine for petrol and diesel.

[Jetmans Dad]

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Finally a note on petrol – note the churlish “remain” nonsense, but where are the panic-stricken selfish areas? Oh surprise! London. The Brexit heartlands have kept calm and carried on, and look forward to decent wages for hauliers instead of a reliance on low-income immigration. Will there be gaps in the meantime? Yes, but frankly we don’t care!

Funny that. I live in Hull which voted heavily for Brexit and there has been little sign of keeping calm and carrying on where petrol was concerned over the last week. And the city is literally small enough to walk across the entire city centre in less than 15 minutes. 

And what I am finding most infuriating about the “Brexit” thing at the moment is the basic lack of any acknowledgement that it has caused or exacerbated any of the issues currently affecting people.

We voted to change the way we do a whole load of important things at national level, which is inevitably going to cause issues of one sort or another regardless of any long term benefits. And yet Brexit supporting politicians seem incapable (or unwilling) to acknowledge those issues, even though it is perfectly valid to acknowledge that problems are caused/exacerbated by exiting the EU and still believe that it was the right thing to do. 

It is almost as if they are convinced that Brexit supporters in the country will only remain [sic] so as long as they are convinced that there are NO downsides or shortterm issues at all. 

[Rendel Harris]

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

And you can quote one person in history (who I’ve never heard of, at a time when women couldn’t even vote) all you like

Well allow me, or rather Wikipedia, to enlighten you; Susan B.Anthony was the primary cause of women in America getting the vote:

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting in her hometown of Rochester, New York, and convicted in a widely publicized trial. Although she refused to pay the fine, the authorities declined to take further action. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Sen. Aaron A. Sargent (R-CA), it later became known colloquially as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. It was eventually ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

[Rendel Harris]

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Finally a note on petrol – note the churlish “remain” nonsense, but where are the panic-stricken selfish areas? Oh surprise! London. The Brexit heartlands have kept calm and carried on, and look forward to decent wages for hauliers instead of a reliance on low-income immigration. Will there be gaps in the meantime? Yes, but frankly we don’t care!

Which county voted most in favour of Brexit? Lincolnshire. From The Lincolnite news website:

Large queues have been reported at filling stations across Lincolnshire on Thursday as people try to get petrol or diesel for their car, with some being accused of panic buying.

The HGV driver shortage has prompted many to ‘panic buy’ and stock up on fuel. 

ASDA and Sainsbury’s petrol forecourts in Grantham both had big congestion as people were waiting to fill up on Thursday afternoon, as well as multiple sites in Lincoln, too.

and:

Fuel stations in Lincoln, Grantham and across the county are experiencing gridlock queues, prompting Lincolnshire Police to appeal to motorists to stop panic buying, as there is no fuel shortage overall — though some local garages are experiencing low supplies.

“If you impede emergency services and cause unnecessary delays, you are putting lives at risk,” was the message from Lincolnshire Police.

Keeping calm and carrying on, eh?

[Anonymous]

Well I was taking a slight
Well I was taking a slight liberty with my wording, but to be clear the internal combustion engine (so broader than automobiles) is the absolute pinnacle of human achievement.

And you can quote one person in history (who I’ve never heard of, at a time when women couldn’t even vote) all you like, but the facts are clear: without cars, women’s lib would be decades behind where it is today and society as a whole would be far less safe. We are so fortunate to live at this time in history, standing on the shoulders of the men and women to whom we owe so much, but people’s self-entitlement blinds them to the fact.

[mdavidford]

Maybe, but I’m not sure you

Maybe, but I’m not sure you can call that ‘feudal anarchy’ – it’s more some feudal areas and some areas of anarchy. Otherwise, you have to, for instance, say that Afghanistan before the US pull-out had a system of ‘liberal totalitarianism’, which doesn’t seem to make much sense.

[Rendel Harris]

Well not necessarily, if you

Well not necessarily, if you look at The Anarchy in England and Normandy 1135-1153 it was still a highly feudal society with the barons holding sway but a complete breakdown of law and order outside their strongholds. 

[Rendel Harris]

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Nigel Garrage wrote:

humankind’s greatest invention

Not the printing press, or music, or vaccines and cures for numerous diseases, or electric light or computing, but something that kills over a million people globally every year, seriously injures fifty million and sends countless more to an early grave with pollution related diseases…what a depressing worldview.

Incidentally, if you’d care to research some history you’d find that the bicycle has done far more for female liberation than the automobile ever has. As the suffragist and anti-slaver Susan B.Anthony said in 1896, “”Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel.”

 

[mdavidford]

kil0ran wrote:

…feudal anarchy…

Surely that’s oxymoronic?

[Anonymous]

Did you really just claim
Did you really just claim that cars are the enabler of violence against women? ?

Which type of car did Jack the Ripper drive?

On the contrary, cars are a great tool of equality (unless you live in Saudi Arabia). As is frequently pointed out, men outnumber women vastly in cycling, yet women and men are equally represented in driving. This should surprise no one.

Women living in a car-less dystopia would be far worse off than today, as they wouldn’t have the safety, autonomy, independence or self-reliance afforded to them by humankind’s greatest invention.

Finally a note on petrol – note the churlish “remain” nonsense, but where are the panic-stricken selfish areas? Oh surprise! London. The Brexit heartlands have kept calm and carried on, and look forward to decent wages for hauliers instead of a reliance on low-income immigration. Will there be gaps in the meantime? Yes, but frankly we don’t care!

[Author]

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