this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
101 points (98.1% liked)
Fuck Cars
9820 readers
43 users here now
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I like the trams. I like the trees. I like the greenery in the city. I don’t like that the tram pathway looks like a field to play in from the perspective of a young child.
Many trams don't actually drive that fast. Some googling suggests this is Helsinki. Their trams run at 14km/h. That's easily slow enough to react to a kid running onto the track.
Also this seems to have roads on either side, so I don't think there would be many children playing in that area.
From the perspective of the tram driver there are a lot of trees along the tram way. Those trees could make a blind spot for the driver if a kid was playing along the tracks.
My point is that why replace one danger cars and then write off the other dangers as irrelevant. With some effort I think we can get both dealt with. However, if this is Helsinki how has this actually performed? That can help guide risk assessment too.
or you could just teach your children not to play on the tram tracks. the world is full of pointy edges. must we bubble wrap them all?
If we cannot teach adults to drive the proper speed successfully, to not be impaired, to not play with their mobiles, and to pay attention what hope do we have for kids?
I live in america and kids play in the streets all the time and cars are a serious danger. Most of our urban streets are smaller than this and the cars are going much faster. 14kph is less than 9mph, and the lowest speed limits in my area go is 25mph. When these trams are going slow enough to run along side, the danger of hitting someone that you didn't see in time is FAR lower. Even if someone did manage to get hit by a tram at this speed (or slower because they would likely already be hitting the breaks) they are much less likely to be injured. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you that they could both be dangerous but you are talking about the danger of trams vs cars as if they are equal. Most of the necessary safety measures are already in place (ie, the 14kph speed) and I am far less worried about kids running around in a world of trams than a world of cars.
I couldn't locate this particular spot but it's suggested to be in the city center. It might be this one: https://www.google.com/maps/@60.1690393,24.9398838,1100m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
Kids aren't gonna randomly start playing there. If you look around on the linked map, there are parks all over the place. It is much more likely for kids to play there, where it's nice, than on some major road.
Google isn't spitting out any results no matter how I search for it but I'm under the impression that kids in Finland go to school on their own basically starting with kindergarten. At least there are plenty of countries where they do, so kids are obviously capable of navigating public space safely and independently. I know I did. I crossed 3 main roads on the way to kindergarten.
there’s been like 3 deaths total from tram collisions in the last 200 years 💀
That’s good! It doesn’t mean we have to ignore the bad things that can happen with the alternatives to worse options. Even at low speed there’s still a high chance of serious injury in a collision.
i'm not sure where you grew up and live, but as someone who grew up in a very large city (10m+), i can tell you that children aren't stupid, if they grow up in an environment in which they're given an appropriate amount of responsibility in the face of danger, while also explained the possibilities of danger and how to avoid it, they grow up to be pretty responsible, and certainly wouldn't be endangered (or really bothered in any way) by something as trivial as grassy tram tracks
It's not a problem in Helsinki as there are plenty of green spaces for children to play in that aren't the tramway.
The stroad this replacee is far worse, and often the only place for kids to play, and it makes space for actual parks.
I don't think they'll have a chance of being hit by these trams, as they first have to cross three lanes of traffic either side of the trees (not pictured).
Would be one hell of a game of Crossy Road.