Fla. 8-Year-Old Gets Traffic Ticket For Bike Mishap (irresponsible idiot parents refuse to pay)

Rick Onanian wrote:

On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 16:42:31 -0800, Zoot Katz
wrote:

Consider that there are more cars than licensed drivers.


That's because some people have a truck for when they need to truck
stuff, and a car for when they don't...

Apparently, some people have never heard of utility trailers.


--
Frank Krygowski

On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 01:05:50 -0600, Kevan Smith
wrote:

On 06 Nov 2003 05:36:44 GMT, (Hunrobe) from AOL
http://www.aol.com wrote:

So you would trash the concept of the presumption of innocence and deny
people's civil liberties to reap the benefits of fewer cars on the roads and
increased public transportation ridership. Either you *really* like public
transportation or you're only willing to defend those civil liberties that you
happen to enjoy.

Driving a car is not a right. It is not a civil liberty. As it stands, it is a
privilege granted by the state. If you have a problem with that, write your
legislator, not me.

Well if bicycles and cars can not safely co-exist on public roads I am
guessing the privilege of riding a bicycle on public roads will be
gone. Do you have a problem with the state telling you that?

On 9 Nov 2003 16:14:56 -0600, Steve R. wrote:


Well if bicycles and cars can not safely co-exist on public roads I am
guessing the privilege of riding a bicycle on public roads will be
gone. Do you have a problem with the state telling you that?

Years ago, there was a serial rapist loose in Tel Aviv. Alarmed by
the growing list of victims, a member of Parliament suggested that
perhaps there should be a curfew such that young women would be off
the streets and safe indoors by a certain hour.

Golda Meir, who was the Prime Minister at the time, retorted that if
there were to be a curfew, it ought to affect only men.

I don't know why, but your statement above brought that particular
anecdote to mind.

Rick Onanian wrote:

wrote:

Lots more people could qualify for mortgages and end up getting real
equity if they weren't supporting a car. Housing would be more

Wrong. Buying a car is about the best way to get credit. You can't
get a mortgage without a lot of credit; but if you've never bought
anything big, you don't have enough credit. You can buy a car with
terrible credit. There are some programs for no-credit people to
get mortgages, but mostly they just end up paying through the nose.

affordable if it weren't necessarily so large to facilitate also
housing the car required to get there. By 'owning' a stake in the

What? Do you have any idea how much space it takes to keep a car at
your house? None, on most streets; you're welcome to park in the
street, and parking in the street doesn't suck. If you want to park
on your lawn or cut a driveway in it, you can;

I wish! No overnight parking, no parking between 7-9 and 4-6, and you
can get in all kinds of trouble by parking your car on your front lawn,
and a few other kinds for having more cars than The City Fathers think
you should have. And what's really crappy is that I live in the next
best thing to a slum.

and a garage is so
inexpensive. You spend $100,000 to build a house on a lot you own,
and $3,000 of that builds a garage. It's a concrete slab, four
walls (with no interior finish), two doors, and a roof. Three walls
if it's attached to the house.

Garage space, unless you're really rich, is much too valuable to waste
on car storage. The damn things have waterproof paint, why do they need
their own rooms?

community, people take more care of what happens there.

Not by owning a stake in the community, just by being limited to a
much smaller radius. Most people are not built to ride bikes as far
or as fast as we do; if they were, then cars never would have become
popular -- everybody would have bought bikes instead. I'm sure
bikes were cheaper when cars became popular by the same ratio (or
even more so, if we talk about good bikes) as they are now.

Cars became a necessity for many people when the road gang pulled up
the trolley tracks and started shuffling populations to the new
suburbs served solely by the roads they lobbied to get.

Why didn't they ride bikes instead? Why did they move to the
suburbs where they would then need to buy a car? Nobody shuffles
me, I live where I want to live.

It's a totally contrived and manipulated way to live.

I don't want to live in an apartment. I've lived in one and I hated
it. I want to live as far away from my neighbors as possible, even if
our yards are 50x150, and every once in a while I want to grow some
flower. If everyone feels like I do, the automobile is pretty
essential. So be it. Rather than whining because people like to drive
cars, wouldn't it make more sense to devise a system where it didn't
hurt?

Still, I've paid my dues. I ride my bike as much as, maybe even more
than, I drive my truck.

--
Cheers,
Bev

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look
of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs
think humans are nuts." -- John Steinbeck

frkrygowHALTSPAM wrote:

Rick Onanian wrote:

On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 16:42:31 -0800, Zoot Katz
wrote:

Consider that there are more cars than licensed drivers.

That's because some people have a truck for when they need to truck
stuff, and a car for when they don't...

Apparently, some people have never heard of utility trailers.

1. How big a trailer can a Honda Civic pull?

2. Owning a truck for occasional usage is socially conscious -- it
keeps it out of the hands of somebody who would drive it every day.

--
Cheers,
Bev
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I remember when everybody posted to Usenet with their real, deliverable
e-mail address. Of all the sins committed by the spammers, destroying
the viability of the open Internet was the worst.
(Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, news.admin.net-abuse.email)

Kevan Smith

wrote in part:

If driving is not a right, it doesn't need due process. You can lose your
license in my state for failng to blow on a DWI test. I'm sure it's similar
where you are. Where's the "due process" in that?


Read your State's statute and you will find that prior to any summary
suspension taking effect a judge must hear the facts surrounding that
suspension and either allow it to take effect or rescind it.
That's due process. I don't know the cite for your State but here in Illinois
it's 625 ILCS 5/11-501.1 (g)
And now I'll bow out of our discussion because it's boring to continue
repeating facts to you when your only response is the equivalent of a petulant
child saying with great conviction, "Huh uh! Is not!".

Regards,
Bob Hunt

The Real Bev wrote:

frkrygowHALTSPAM wrote:

Apparently, some people have never heard of utility trailers.


1. How big a trailer can a Honda Civic pull?

I don't know what the limit is. I know our 1985 Honda Civic wagon
pulled a (roughly) 850 pound camping trailer coast to coast. The car
also had three bikes on it, three people inside it, and was stuffed full
of travel gear. It was a little slow in the mountains, but not terribly
so. Otherwise it did fine.

2. Owning a truck for occasional usage is socially conscious -- it
keeps it out of the hands of somebody who would drive it every day.

Whew! For a minute I thought you were serious!

--
Frank Krygowski

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 16:49:13 -0800, ,
The Real Bev wrote:
\szip

I don't want to live in an apartment. I've lived in one and I hated
it. I want to live as far away from my neighbors as possible, even if
our yards are 50x150, and every once in a while I want to grow some
flower.

The land that created your garden was the left over space between
garages after the streets were laid out. If housing were designed to
enhance our gardens rather than accomodate everybody's cars, our
houses would be more beautiful. The flowers growing there would be
more beautiful. The whole community would be more beautiful.

If everyone feels like I do, the automobile is pretty
essential. So be it.

Were the automobile designed to be essential, we wouldn't have plushy
macho-toy trucks and boombox low-riders. No, automobiles are designed
to be consumable tokens of ones social standing and promoted as ones
ticket to instant freedom and assured breeding success.

Rather than whining because people like to drive
cars, wouldn't it make more sense to devise a system where it didn't
hurt?

I hear a lot of whining from drivers, mostly about traffic, the roads,
parking, the expense and other drivers behaviour. Sounds to me, that
they like to complain more than they like driving. I've yet to hear
one say how much they enjoy driving in rush hour except that it's a
place to get away from the kids.

Put the kids in the garage and the car through a shredder.

Painless.
--
zk

Zoot Katz wrote:

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 16:49:13 -0800, ,
The Real Bev wrote:
\szip

I don't want to live in an apartment. I've lived in one and I hated
it. I want to live as far away from my neighbors as possible, even if
our yards are 50x150, and every once in a while I want to grow some
flower.

The land that created your garden was the left over space between
garages after the streets were laid out. If housing were designed to
enhance our gardens rather than accomodate everybody's cars, our
houses would be more beautiful. The flowers growing there would be
more beautiful. The whole community would be more beautiful.

My yard is a dump. I find it extremely pleasant to ride my bike on the
streets where the houses start at $1Million. If there were no cars
there would be no roads and I would have to look at my pitiful
weed-infested yard instead of the gardener-groomed acres of the wealthy.

If everyone feels like I do, the automobile is pretty
essential. So be it.

Were the automobile designed to be essential, we wouldn't have plushy
macho-toy trucks and boombox low-riders.

Hey, EVERYTHING is designed in a spectrum from Spartan to Sybaritic.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. Some buy Huffies, some
buy Kleins. I bought a KHS for 10 cents on the dollar at a yard sale.
It's the American way.

No, automobiles are designed
to be consumable tokens of ones social standing and promoted as ones
ticket to instant freedom and assured breeding success.

Who cares what it was designed for, I use it for what I choose. The
only thing you have right here is "instant freedom." That's exactly
what a car is, much moreso than a bicycle. If I want to go where I
choose, when I choose, I can (1) have a car, (2) live in the crowded
conditions required for public transportation, and/or (3) just never
want to go anywhere. It's about maximizing choices, son. I can choose
a car or a bike. Public transportation doesn't go anywhere taking a car
isn't more efficient, but I guess I could choose that too. Or walking,
which is of limited utility.

Rather than whining because people like to drive
cars, wouldn't it make more sense to devise a system where it didn't
hurt?

I hear a lot of whining from drivers, mostly about traffic, the roads,
parking, the expense and other drivers behaviour. Sounds to me, that
they like to complain more than they like driving. I've yet to hear
one say how much they enjoy driving in rush hour except that it's a
place to get away from the kids.

We all like to complain about everything. You're having fun complaining
about cars, and I suppose you don't have one and wouldn't drive one
unless somebody's life depended on it.

Put the kids in the garage and the car through a shredder.

Or the other way around. I saw Fargo and I don't think a car would fit
in that shredder, although children would.

How many times has this argument been performed? Has anybody ever
changed his/her mind or are we all just circle-jerking?

--
Cheers, Bev
================================================== ============
"Arguing on the internet is like running a race in the Special
Olympics: even if you win, you're still retarded."

Sun, 09 Nov 2003 23:16:06 -0800, ,
The Real Bev wrote:

How many times has this argument been performed? Has anybody ever
changed his/her mind or are we all just circle-jerking?

We've been jerked into a vicious circle.

This "argument" has only come into human habitat discussions during
the past 60 years. Our building heritage, history and culture was
hijacked. Now our ability to even create "beautiful" cities has been
stolen by the orchestrated need for car-centric surroundings.

Devoting so much space to the car spreads the city out further and
makes car ownership even more necessary and inevitable. As we spend
more on roads, bridges and overpasses, we have less to spend on public
transit infrastructure to nodes of higher density mixed use
developments. There could have been more pumpkin patches in green
belts between population nodes instead of strip mall parking lots.


What seems to have been missed by earlier is that banks look at
present debt load, as well as credit history, before deciding to loan
money for a house. When the houses are all spread out to make room for
streets and driveways, the land requirements are greater, therefore
more expensive. Because the building lots and houses are larger to
accommodate the cars, they're more expensive too.

Spending on vehicles erodes wealth while spending on housing can build
wealth. Over a decade, spending $6000/year on car ownership creates
$5500 in equity. The same amount spent on home ownership creates
$28,000 in equity.

When the first household expenditure surveys were conducted in 1901,
(cycling's heyday) transportation accounted for less than 2 percent of
the family budget – now it is 18 percent and rising. With
transportation costs eating up a bigger percentage of household
budgets, saving for a home becomes increasingly difficult.

Backslide into serfdom.
--
zk