Not 50 minutes of human life; 50 minutes of carbrain life. There's a difference
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
182 points (98.9% liked)
Fuck Cars
16453 readers
275 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I definitely don’t want my life in the hands of someone that can’t afford to be 30 seconds late to wherever they are going.
I press the button every time, and if there's a break in the traffic, I cross before it changes.
I also recline my seat on the plane as far as it goes. I don't have any problem with others doing the same.
I have become convinced that people get addicted to speed. One of the fastest ways to make some people's blood boil is simply making them drive a little slower; even if it's so marginal that it can't actually possibly affect when they arrive at their destination they become furious.
The US loves to have wide, straight roads with great visibility and no obstacles on which cars could easily, safely do 80MPH (in the absence of other drivers of course) but with artificial limits of 30-40 miles per hour that everybody obviously ignores because - hey, just look at the road, it's begging for people to go faster. The Netherlands by comparison generally does a great job of managing drivers' expectations by adding artificial curves, places where cars have to gently swerve, setting trees along the roads that give a feeling of constraint and not "wide open place to floor it", etc. Of course you still see people here losing their minds because they have to wait for pedestrians to cross once the light turns green, but it's not as bad as my experiences in the US.
I have become convinced that people get addicted to speed.
While that part is certainly true, the modern homo sapiens automobilis seems more addicted to crawling along in slow moving traffic while hating everyone moving faster or able to escape in any way.
I have a more metaphysical take on it: One's level of suffering is proportional to the distance between where one's body is located, and where one's mind is. It applies in a lot of different scenarios, and I think is kind of the secret behind the mindfulness movement. (If your mind and body are in the same place, you are much happier.)
The way that this applies to cars is in two ways: 1) The driver's body is physically located in a torture chamber, essentially. Sure, they put in a cushy recliner, and an entertainment system, but those can only do so much to mitigate how awful it is to drive. 2) The speed of the car promises a quick trip, so the driver's mind is already at their destination, and the separation makes them miserable and furious.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty woo-woo. It's just a metaphor for the impatience drivers feel because, in their minds, they're already walking in the door, they're already ordering food at the restaurant, they're already kissing their spouse, they're already answering work emails, or whatever it is they have at the destination. And you, pedestrian, you are directly responsible for keeping them from it.
But I notice the real effects myself. Last weekend, I went up north to my vacation spot, where I've found that riding my bicycle to the beach is subjectively much faster than driving. It's almost like teleporting! Objectively, it takes longer, but when I'm riding my bicycle, I'm mentally on the road riding my bicycle, so the trip doesn't even register as part of the beach experience the way driving does.
Often their mind is already at a destination that they hate (work), making it even worse.
Addiction to speed is a part of it. I think being trapped in a car actually creates a lot of psychological issues. Another one that doesn't get mentioned enough IMO is claustrophobia. All these psychological issues are probably big contributors to road rage.
Car gave people power, the larger it is, the greater the power felt. It is a great way to see if people will addicted to power and abuse it.
I'm surprised that such buttons even exist in the US.
They exist in my city but the only use they have is to turn on the speaker to help the visually-impaired
They often do nothing.
I had one that did nothing in my town. I wrote to the state DOT and they fixed it for me. It’s been about 10 years since then and it still works.
There's one on my bike ride home that's wired backwards. You need to hit the one that controls the perpendicular flow to go straight.
I sent in a service request to the city, but they said it was the state's responsibility and forwarded it.
and forwarded it.
I'm sure they did.
My city surprisingly set ones up at certain intersections, where the walk lights won’t change UNLESS you hit the button. Had to get back in the habit of pressing them again
Fun fact, those are dangerous as fuck! Drivers just straight up don't see lights that don't regularly change.
I think the lights change (for cars) but the walk signals specifically don’t activate unless someone pushes the button.
I hate those so so much.
Sometimes they make clicky sounds when you press them
Just like the "close" buttons on elevators. They make you feel better. Often, the buttons don't actually exist, and the "walk" light is on the same system that allows cars to go the same way.
I agree...
but not in the way the Twitter OP expects.
For the majority of intersections, if you don't press the button (or more often, don't press it in time), you don't get the walk light. Doesn't matter if the parallel car traffic has a green and all cross traffic is blocked, if you didn't press it beforehand, it stays on the red hand and skips your turn.
I say the buttons should not be there to "beg" for crossing permission. They should be used to say, "Hey I'm in a wheelchair or carrying a heavy can you give me 15 extra seconds?" And it should not need to be pressed beforehand.
Ah, so like in Europe
Europe's a big place. I don't have anything resembling that here in Romania. You mean like in the Netherlands?
France too, in cities the buttons is mostly just switching on a speaker to announce when it's green for pedestrians for the visually impaired or if you like "ding ding" sounds
Everyone knows that europe is js the nederlands
Yeh
Honestly fuck the button entirely, we live in the modern era, you can use human detection technology to detect people waiting to cross
There's plenty of places that have that
the length of the pedestrian's signal may be adjusted longer as well, especially for crossing wide multi-lane and divided roadways.
It may be, but it isn’t.
The sense of entitlement of people inside cars is staggering
Fuck Jeremy Kauffman.
Just one more lane, bro 🙏
Hint of misandry too, implying it's not manly to follow traffic safety laws. Dude probably has personal hygiene too and Mr. Jeremy Kauffman would point out washing one's butt is gay.
But they stop anyway for the other traffic
How dare we let the elderly, children, and disabled cross streets! They’ll get away!!!
Genuinely hilarious!