I love driving a stickshift. The novelty has not worn off for me.
I'm a firm proponent of stick over automatic unless you either a) do a hell of a lot of stop-and-go driving or b) get a dual-clutch Audi or VW. My car's been in for service the past couple of days and I've been driving an automatic loaner; it's boring as hell, plus the shift points are all sorts of wrong.
Driving a stick is a zen thing, Stanley. It's just you and the transmission.
Only people I've ever heard regretting a stick are people who spend a lot of time in stop and go traffic (and not all of them -- my parents stayed manual through twenty-odd years of NYC driving) and my father-in-law who has bad knees and finds that shifting pedals to clutch hurts. Other than that, they're pure fun.
I love driving a stickshift. The novelty has not worn off for me.
But arent you like 24 or something?!?! Hardly enough time to get bored with it.
Stickshift is the default in most of the world, and people seem quite happy with it. HOWEVER, if you have any tendency to RSI, it will find you out if you drive long distances regularly. I know plenty of people who reluctantly bought automatics for that reason.
I did not get bored of driving a stickshift.
Driving stick does make it harder to text.
In my experience it's harder to drive a stick shift while simultaneously receiving oral sex and doing blow. YMMV.
In a way, it's the person giving the blowjob who's driving stick.
I need to start trying to sell my car soon. Your Platonic Form of Car wouldn't happen to be only three years old, black, not so many miles, and small-ish, would it?
10. If the person driving the car is male.
10. If the person driving the car is male.
Can you give a blowjob to someone who isn't male?
1-3 are correct. Also, you can have more fun (and get better mileage) with a car with a smaller engine if it has a manual transmission and thoughtful (which is to say close and fairly evenly spaced) gear ratios.
Stop-and-go traffic in a manual has never bothered me. More than it would otherwise, anyhow. Stop-and-go traffic sucks no matter what car you're in.
ffs, man up Stanley. It's wiggling a stick, not rocket science. Get the manual.
Although, if it is a macho thing - my stick is definitely bigger than yours.
Driving stick is great; less boring, you feel more like you're actually in control and less like you're giving vague instructions that the car might or might not decide to do anything about.
The fact that our household car (mostly driven by me) is an automatic, and that my wife is uninterested in learning to drive a manual and thus this is unlikely to change, is an occasional point of sadness in my life.
Oh, and on a practical level - I have swapped back and forth between manual and automatic, and when we got our current van, we'd had an automatic for about 4 years. Not a problem after about the second day.
Learning to drive a manual as an adult (particularly when one doesn't have all that many reasons/opportunities to drive somewhere) has turned out to be more stressful (for the learner) than I (who learned as a teen) anticipated.
I kind of feel bad about 12. essear, your comment 11 describes almost to a T the car I'm looking at.
Not to mention: I haven't actually driven a manual in at least a year.
This means you already know how to drive one? Then FFS, get the manual.
As someone who took up learning to drive stick 10 months ago, I might be less sure of my recommendation if you didn't already know how. I can drive our car now, but I am still quite uncomfortable with it.
What kind of car is it?
I have, sadly, an automatic tap-shifter, which allows one to pretend to be in a manual without really being in one. In the most horrendous LA traffic, I guess I slightly prefer an automatic, because it allows me to text and comment while driving, but at all other times a manual is superior.
This means you already know how to drive one?
Yeah, I know how. I did sheepishly ask a cow-orker who has a stickshift if I can take his truck for a spin around the parking lot, in hopes of avoiding stalling during the forthcoming test drive.
What kind of car is it?
An '04 Civic with outrageously low mileage.
Yeah, get the manual. An automatic '04 Civic or Civic equivalent will be painfully boring.
23: The Audi/VW tap-shifter transmissions are so much better than the BMW ones it's not even funny.
I can't drive for shit, but unless you'll be in stop and go traffic on a huge-ass steep hill (i.e. You live in SF), everyone seems to prefer manual. you can slow down without braking, and feel all superior and shit! I learned as a 15 year old but don't plan ever to take it up again even in my hypothetical future driving days. unlesss someone offers me a 1977 dark green sting-ray corvette or something.
But aren't the Audi/VW ones genuinely dual clutch? Mine (not a BMW! a product of Michigan!) is just a more or less standard automatic transmission (although a good and well geared and largely satisfying one) with a tap shifter.
and feel all superior and shit!
Fuck it. It's settled. I'm gonna go full-bore and get a fixed-gear car.
I drove a manual in SF for years and it didn't bother me. Well, it was annoying when I had to replace the clutch.
Our current car has something called "Hill Assist", that will keep it from rolling backwards for two seconds after you release the brake on an incline. Kinda seems like cheating.
It also has a "sport" button which changes the throttle response and steering characteristics, which also seems like cheating, and makes the whole "you're connected to the car, man" thing about a standard a shade more tenuous.
27: wouldn't a '77 corvette be much more likely to be an automatic? Also, I don't think they had the "Stingray" name that year.
31 cont'd: and beware of the dark green; that wasn't a factory color, so be sure they didn't repaint it because of fiberglass damage.
Regarding classic cars, I found out only yesterday that a Firebird and a Trans Am can be the same thing.
[This comment to be filed among all the other reasons my father will never give me the '68 GTO collecting dust in his garage.]
'04 Civic automatic will, in fact, be a bit boring. The aforementioned household car is a '98 Civic automatic, and while it serves us quite well, it is not exciting.
I'm gonna go full-bore and get a fixed-gear car.
Ha! You see Stanley, you *can* be funny without punning!
It is my impression that automatic transmissions cost more to fix when they break than do manual ones. So, there is that.
My '03 Civic has a stick, and I quite enjoy it. Makes up for the underpoweredness of the hybrid drive. It would indeed be painfully boring without one.
Sadly, I now drive an automatic, and I still haven't gotten used to the damn downshift pause when I step on the gas.
I'd definitely buy a stick, if I had the option. (I've never really gotten to select a car to purchase, since every car I've ever owned (both of them) has been a hand-me-down of sorts purchased below market from friends or family who were upgrading.)
Or, at least, I'd always assumed I'd buy a stick, but since I've been driving automatics all my life now, I bet I'd be terrible at driving a manual, at least at first. I learned to drive on a manual when I was 16, but I haven't driven one since.
Also, I believe WRY CTR is available as a vanity license plate.
38.2: if you've learned before, I bet you'd figure it out quickly enough. I didn't drive a manual for probably seven years before I bought my first one. I stalled a couple of times, but it basically came right back to me.
39: Ooh! I'm greatly tempted to go for a blog-related pun based on my initials. Alternatively, CVC DTY would be, um, something.
You should get one of those glued on emblems that shows a Miss America contestant eating a fish with small legs.
28: Yeah, BMW's got a dual-clutch transmission, but SFAIK they've only put it in the M cars for now.
And as for your parenthetical, ironically BMW actually uses a GM transmission for its non-dual-clutch automatics.
I was all set to buy a manual transmission Forte, but I didn't like the feel of the clutch when I test drove one. So I got the automatic. Our other car (VW Jetta wagon) is a stick shift and it's okay, but the real joy of a manual transmission is mostly when it's in a small car. Also, I'm led to believe that stick shifts no longer offer much of an MPG advantage over modern automatic transmissions.
Like most British people I drive a manual car. I can't say I've ever found it annoying. I don't think I even notice it, except very occasionally, as when stuck in very slow moving traffic, when it gets a bit tedious. On the other hand, I can think of a few times [snow, for example] when I've been positively grateful for manual transmission. I can't imagine [unless I come down with some serious joint problems] ever not driving a manual, and I do a lot of miles [30K+ a year].
My car is small, mind, so I also get the advantages of boy-racing it about on quiet winding roads, at night. As you do when commuting through bits of Oxfordshire.
Also [touch wood], I've found that sage prognostications by friends about the supposed reliability [or lack thereof] of French cars seems to have been proved largely false.
I'm led to believe that stick shifts no longer offer much of an MPG advantage over modern automatic transmissions.
I'm lead to believe the same.
On the other hand, I can think of a few times [snow, for example] when I've been positively grateful for manual transmission.
I must be unaware of something that makes this sentiment make sense. You can drop an automatic into first or second gear. What am I missing?
49 relating specifically to snow. The sentence makes perfect sense to me without that bracketed clause.
re: 49
You can't control it with the clutch, basically.
Friends with automatics had really bad experiences in the snow last year. Put the foot down to slowly accelerate. Car spins furiously. Rinse and repeat.
e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutch_control#Adverse_road_conditions
Learning to drive a manual as an adult (particularly when one doesn't have all that many reasons/opportunities to drive somewhere) has turned out to be more stressful (for the learner) than I (who learned as a teen) anticipated.
I learned to drive a manual several years after first learning to drive. I was profoundly grateful I didn't have to learn those simultaneously. I remember being overwhelmed when I first learned to drive even without all the additional stuff to do.
I find that computer controlled AWD is brilliant in snow.
53: Informative! Although, that link makes me fear I didn't learn to drive a manual as well as I thought I did. I could make it stop and go. I didn't realize there was much more to learn.
This sort of reinforces 38.2.
Front wheel drive with an automatic shouldn't be much worse than front wheel drive manual for most situations.
re: 58
Maybe. All the automatics I've driven have been rear-wheel so I've never driven a front-wheel drive automatic in snow.
Being able to apply fine control over traction with the clutch, starting off and feeling for the loss of traction, then moving slowly in a higher gear, and so on, is handy, though. Hill-starting in snow is made easier, I think, with a clutch [if you don't have 4wd or traction control].
Excepting pickups, rear wheel drive is now rare in the U.S.
Front wheel drive with an automatic shouldn't be much worse than front wheel drive manual for most situations.
If it were snowing heavily and you had your right hand cut off (or your left hand in the UK and the other silly countries) and you were being chased by zombies adept at cross-country skiing, then I bet a manual transmission wouldn't be much help at all.
Actually, the zombie thing is all played-out. Let's go with garden-variety cross-country-skiing murderous lunatics. No help at all, the stickshift!
re: 60
Really? BMWs? Jags? Mercedes? Rear wheel drive is still common on bigger cars and sporty cars in Europe.
61: My dad insisted on driving his manual car about four months after a stroke paralyzed his left side. He didn't do bad on steering with a mostly immobile arm, but the shifting was kind of scary. He couldn't ease into gear.
re: 65
Ubiquitous here. Driving a lot on motorways it seems like every 3rd car is a BMW. Googling it seems like they have about 6% market share [bigger than any Japanese maker] and Mercedes about 5%, but I'd guess I see much more of them because of where I live and work.
It is remarkable that BMW would have greater market share in Britain than any Japanese maker. A testimony to the power of Ford, Fiat, and VW over there, I guess.
In the garage of my office building, it feels like every third car is a Maserati; a mere 5-series or E-class is distinctly proletarian, as is my car. This is not really typical of the entire USA, however.
In the US, Bavaria is better known for its custard than its automobiles. Mmm, donuts.
I drive a friction shift: less boring, you feel more like you're actually in control and less like you're giving vague instructions that the bike might or might not decide to do anything about.
Then again it might be because I've had the same bike for over twenty years.
There's probably a joke to be made about the audit-the-Fed people and a national currency based entirely on Fiat cars, but I'm not coming up with anything.
60: I think most cabs (Crown Vics etc) are real wheel drive, so that got interesting in last winter's snow.
but I'm not coming up with anything.
Škoda
Fiat don't have a bigger market share than BMW, either. Ford, Vauxhall, and VW are the big 3. Then BMW, Audi and Peugeot. Closely followed by the big Japanese makers. Although it changes about a bit year on year. There's several on roughly 5% share. Ford and Vauxhall are by far the biggest.
When I read articles/posts/comments about the superiority, moral and otherwise,* I reach for any of the many articles about the human tendency to evaluate one's abilities (e.g., driving) overfavorably. No reason, really.
* One of the endlessly-reproducing attributes of Ronald Reagan's sainthood, per the National Review several years ago, was his (alleged) ability to drive a Jeep with a manual transmission on his ranch, in (alleged) contrast to the members of his Secret Service retinue.
OT: The best job interviews are the ones where one guy clearly just wants a pair of room-temperature-or-above hands to ease his burdens and another guy keeps musing that your experience might be too exotic for the work that he has in mind.
"the superiority, moral and otherwise,* of manual transmissions"
Goddamned Mac pinwheel.
No reason, really.
Oh. Because I was trying to come up with a reason, and I was stumped, so if there was a reason, and you told it to us, I would be less confused.
77: Why do you hate Ronald Reagan?
I should say that I definitely don't think there's any moral superiority to manual transmissions. They can be more fun, but you know, we are talking about cars, here. Bringing morality into it can't end well.
re: 75
Driving a manual car isn't hard, so gaining much sense of self-worth out of doing it would be stupid. The idea that it might be praise-worthy only applies in places where it's not the norm. If everyone you know drives a manual car, trying to take credit for it will just make people laugh.
Also, they aren't always fun! I test-drove a Ford Fiesta with a manual and it was really irritating (they fucked with the gear spacing for some reason. 2 was a giant gear, which made it impossible to keep the revs up).
re: 77
I think the 'no reason' really meant, 'I have a snide insinuation to make, but won't make it'.
83: I suspected! But I can't for the life of me figure out what the snide insinuation is supposed to be.
Ha! You see Stanley, you *can* be funny without punning!
Stanley was just making the joke I made in 3 more explicit.
83: Very snide. A little of a piece with my recollection that none of my college classmates admitted having learned to speak after the age of 9 months or read after the terrible one-and-a-halves.
I would say one reason not to get a manual is if you just don't like driving. If you find it a fundamentally irritating activity, making it more complicated is likely to just add extra irritation.
At any rate, that's how I feel about it. I learned on a manual--and spent hours learning how to balance on the clutch, going up and down the driveway--and my attitude towards the whole thing is just "meh."
Re 88
I think the implication is that people who drive manual cars believe this reflects their superior skill as drivers and this is delusional arrogance on their part.
90: oh!
I see.
Well, sure, if somebody thought that, it would be pretty silly. Driving a manual car reflects the fact that you drive a manual car.
Re 91
Indeed. My mum drives a manual. I wonder if that's because believes it reflects her superior skills and one-ness with her machine; Fangio of the back-roads?
81: The idea that it might be praise-worthy only applies in places where it's not the norm.
Or in places where the view is that it should be the norm, so that if you don't drive one, you're silly. I'm thinking of snowy, hilly regions in New England, where having a manual is considered obvious, if you expect to get around responsibly at all during the winter.
Coming across a person stuck or disabled in the snow there is likely to get a silent fine-I'll-help-you-out-but-it's-your-fault-for-driving-this-thing-and-I-won't-say-more. That's not exactly a sense of superiority over driving a manual, but it's close.
But all the stuff about it being (plausibly, sometimes) more fun still applies.
Actually, I thought there was data that manual cars were involved in few accidents. Something about being forced to pay more attention. Of course, I can't be bothered to google this.
How many of you drive unassisted steering and breaks, just for that extra fun of really feeling in control of your car?
95: Is it that Gl/adw/ell article about SUVs? Probably available at his or the NYer site.
I would say one reason not to get a manual is if you just don't like driving. If you find it a fundamentally irritating activity, making it more complicated is likely to just add extra irritation.
Ah, that would be the category in which I belong.
96: clever use of the hipster spelling of "brakes".
Actually the car with which I learned to drive stick had neither power steering nor brakes. That was fine, but I also once drove an early '70s 911, which (obviously) also lacked those features, and holy shit that was a terrifying variety of fun.
I'm with x.trapnel. Or maybe if we could adapt Smearcase's phrase from the other thread, I want a unicorn transmission. For me, driving is not and will not be fun.
This isn't why I enjoy driving (I drove all the time when I lived in LA and it still never got old), but the fact that I basically only drive when I want to doesn't hurt my enjoyment of it.
It's because your car sucks. Seriously. I suggest Essear and Trapnel repeat Tweety's experiment in 100 and report back.
(I drove all the time when I lived in LA and it still never got old)
Er, "it" here refers to driving windy, traffic-free roads or the like. Sitting in traffic on the 10 was always already old, and if I could trade a manual transmission for an underpowered, poorly geared automatic transmission vehicle with self-drive, I would probably strongly consider it even now.
103 to 101. And I'm not saying that there's not variance in how much people enjoy driving (I mostly enjoy it consistently, except in the heavy traffic I'm stuck in like all the time and wait this parenthetical doesn't make sense) but I challenge anyone to not find driving a proper sports car on the right kind of road good fun.
It's so much easier to peel out with a standard transmission; how could that not be better?
The other consideration here, if you're ambivalent about the automatic vs. manual, is whether anybody else who might have reason or need to drive your car (say if theirs breaks down, or you want to do a long road trip in which you trade off driving) can drive a manual.
If they can't, that can get in the way sometimes.
104: Self-drive doesn't work as well after 30.
If they can't, that can get in the way sometimes.
Didn't stop us from getting one! Of course, I very much wanted to learn. And have since then many times cursed that desire as naïve and stupid.
driving is not and will not be fun
This makes approximately as much sense to me "sex is not and will not be fun".
UR DOING IT WRONG, ESSEAR.
I find driving way less annoying when I'm driving a manual* than an automatic. This includes periods of time when I lived in LA and drove in rush hour (with a manual) and lived in St Paul and did not (automatic). I was a lot grumpier about driving in St Paul than in LA, and so I thought I just hated driving. Then I moved to DC with no car, for a while. Now I have a manual and I like driving again. Conclusion: 89 is not necessarily true for everyone.
Another thing that makes driving fun is if you paint things all over your car so people all wave and smile and yell "hey! nice truck!" at you. I'd be happy to help you out with this, Stanley.
*assuming, I guess, that it's a manual that is not itself irritating, by having weird gears like Sifu's or being a Hum V or whatever.
I want to commute to work in what they call a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV). You could, if more colloquially inclined, call it a golf cart. It's legal, technically.
It makes me sad that the next car i will probably buy will be some chip-shifted hybrid or electric thing. stick shifts are pretty much the only thing i like about cars.
if you expect to get around responsibly
I'm imagining ways of getting around irresponsibly. Like, in ways involving moral turpitude.
by having weird gears like Sifu's
Nono, our car is fine. (Great, actually. Six speed!) It's that stupid Ford Fiesta over there at the dealership that has the problem.
114: A carriage drawn by a dozen Indonesian orphans.
Ivory orphans are very delicate.
I think a golf cart would be both environmentally sound and fun, as long as you don't use the clubs for anything but swinging at people who yell at you to get off the road.
109: Of course, I very much wanted to learn. And have since then many times cursed that desire as naïve and stupid.
I didn't learn to drive a standard until my mid 20s, after I'd moved in with my then-boyfriend, then my own car (a '78 Olds Cutlass Supreme, lime green, woo!) crapped out, he drove a 5-speed manual, and it took me a while, yeah. But it does eventually become second nature, to the point where 3 years later, I got one of my own. It's just a give it time, practice, practice thing, I think.
119: Driving around in a golf cart, you'd fit in great with all the grey hairs in Key Biscayne. It's totally the "in" thing there.
"For me, driving is not and will not be fun" : "It's because your car sucks" :: "sex is not and will not be fun" : "[_____________________]"
121: That's where I got the idea. I'm not going to wait til I get old before I stop giving a fuck.
This makes approximately as much sense to me "sex is not and will not be fun".
Dude, you would love running code.
Modesty compels me to note that 75 does not arise out of any Paul Frère-inspired delusions of adroit drivemanship. To wit, I recently drove about 15 miles in a rental car, reaching my hotel before discovering that I'd had the thing in first gear the whole way. Hence the loud grinding noise drowning out the trucks I was trying to dodge on the twelve-lane highway.
"It's because your car sucks" :: "sex is not and will not be fun" : "[It's because your partner doesn't suck ]"
Didn't Ogged (pbuh) declare once that sex is not fun? Parses his words differently, that guy.
||
My cilantro plant is growing like mad. Recipe suggestions other than cilantro pesto?
|>
Driving a stick is a zen thing, Stanley.
A cow-orker today tells me she went on a retreat to "get more Zen." Makes this hand gesture like both hands plucking something out of the air. I ask: what kind of retreat? "Oh, a church thing."
My Dad is old and creaky, and the stick he has was causing him pain at one point. He thought that he wouldn't be able to drive, but he should not have bought that car (a clunker in his price range) and he's really sick.
I'd had the thing in first gear the whole way
I had a rental Kia Rio last weekend in Connecticut. I'm pretty sure it had gears above first, but I'm not 100% sure. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
122: Still because your car sucks.
Recipe suggestions other than cilantro pesto?
Fresh salsa: tomatoes, chopped fresh cilantro, chopped fresh onions (preferably red), chopped garlic, chopped fresh jalapeno peppers. Lime juice.
After finely chopping the tomatoes, drain in a colander for a time, even toss a few times, so that the fresh salsa -- properly this would be pico de gallo -- isn't utterly drowning in tomato water.
Serve just with chips, or with tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc. Or use to top toasted rounds of crusty bread: there's a name for that.
Secondarily: you could save that drained fresh tomato water and use toward gazpacho, which can also use cilantro.
Or use to top toasted rounds of crusty bread: there's a name for that.
Bruschetta mexicana?
Or maybe if we could adapt Smearcase's phrase from the other thread, I want a unicorn transmission.
I 100% cannot remember what I said about unicorns.
Learning to drive manual led to a big emotional confrontation between me and my folks but maybe I already told that one here and anyway it is a little bit quintadollarian.
138: I tried to teach my sisters to drive a manual. Only one really hated me for it.
137: Yes. Bruschetta in general, man! You could put a little sprinkled feta on there, and you would see desire in people's eyes.
Regarding vanity plates, I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed you guys didn't run that ball down the field. There's simply no topping this guy.
115: What's so great about six speeds?!
I 100% cannot remember what I said about unicorns.
Shy? Reclusive? Most comfortable around virgins? Computer science/applied math concentrator? Horn variously described as opalescent, pearly, crystalline and indigo (the last, C.S. Lewis)?*
4
Only people I've ever heard regretting a stick are people who spend a lot of time in stop and go traffic (and not all of them -- my parents stayed manual through twenty-odd years of NYC driving) and my father-in-law who has bad knees and finds that shifting pedals to clutch hurts. Other than that, they're pure fun.
I owned stick shift cars until my most recent but I found I don't miss shifting gears much.
There's a Nigella Lawson salad with watermelon, feta, olives and red onions which has mint and parsley in it. Somehow, II was convinced that it had cilantro.
There some prok and pineapple cilantro taco I saw once.
27
... you can slow down without braking, ...
I find this a bit confusing, my automatic starts slowing down if I take my foot off the gas, is this unusual?
There's simply no topping this guy.
And this turns out not to have even *been* a vanity plate, but just state-generated unintentional awesome.
OT: Terminator 2 is 20 years old?
God damn it.
147: That depends. Do you drive a Toyota?
147: Some Toyotas will speed up when you do that.
Didn't Ogged (pbuh) declare once that sex is not fun?
Is it just me, or is the hoohole getting worse? I tried to find that post and had no luck, and earlier in the week I was searching for an old comment of mine and had no luck with that either.
153: I hadn't intended to search, but here.
Google search string: Posted by: Ogged sex is not fun site:unfogged.com
I hadn't intended to search, but here.
Ah, thanks, I had thought it was in a post, not a comment, but that does look like the exchange that I was thinking of.
Perhaps I'll try again to see if I can find the other comment I was looking for.
As far as I've seen yahoo works better than google for searching here.
Well of course Ogged sex is not fun.
What would make you think that? In the referenced comment, "fun" is quotation marks. It's something to do with hippie "fun" apparently.
Coffins are cars with cheap upholstery and poor horsepower.
Click or Clack: So you can drive around town without stalling at stop lights and can start on hills and stuff like that.
Clutch-issue-can't-possibly-be-my-driving-caller: Yes, of course. (dismissively)
Clack and Click: Then you need a new clutch!
If this car's a coffin, get it tuned up more often.
My car is now old enough to get a drivers license except that it was made in Kenya so it doesn't have a valid birth certificate.
It's just a give it time, practice, practice thing, I think.
Yeah. We don't drive much in general, so it's taking an extra long time. And I can't take it out for a spin by myself, because we have street parking, which can be pretty tight. I don't have the fine control yet for that kind of parallel parking.
a national currency based entirely on Fiat cars
i.e. Fiat Bux
it is a little bit quintadollarian
Were I a patron of the arts I would commission a Ricercar a 5 so it could be panned in just this way.
Heebie summed it up in 1, so I don't need to read the rest of the comments. WTG, Heebs!
Good heavens. Standpipe.
No one has mentioned the greatest thing about the manual transmission: the act of pulling the stick shift into fourth and stepping on the gas. It's so race-car. Vroom!
Our Prius has a variable transmission (same as automatic, for the purposes of this discussion), so it's a bore, driving-wise, but the smug satisfaction the car gives me when gas goes north of five bucks a gallon more than makes up for it. I still have this reflex of reaching for the shift lever sometimes, though.
166 - parking, on the other hand, I can do, and do think of this as a sign that I am a better person. Even though I never bother doing any parking that requires effort in the dark. I'd rather just walk further down the road. So, better person by day, crap as the rest of you by night, I suppose.
re: 172
Yeah, I get pretty judgemental about poor parking. Not that I'm amazing at it in the sense of rapidly, and smoothly parallel parking in tiny spaces -- I've lost the knack a bit now that I no longer live on densely packed Glasgow tennement streets, so it takes a bit longer than it used to -- but that I won't park badly and then just piss off and leave the car. We have a neighbour who regularly parks badly enough that they take up not one but two of the 4 parking spaces in front of the building. I can't help thinking this makes them a bad person.*
* basically because it does make them a bad person, of course.
You probably want to get them one of these.
re: 174
It's not so much that they need to parallel park, it's more that they choose to drive in front-end first, and then leave it diagonally across two spaces. I'm thinking a 'thank you for parking like a dick' notices. Maybe I'll add: 'Polite Notice' in big letters across the top [as is now standard for impolite notices].
75: The best job interviews are the ones where one guy clearly just wants a pair of room-temperature-or-above hands to ease his burdens
Oh, come on. The fruit's supposed to hang a little higher than that.
I spend a lot of time working with (mostly) 20-something (mostly) UMC Americans in places where automatic transmission rental cars are scarce. IME, they all have to be taught to drive a manual transmission. They put manual transmissions in a mental category along with televisions without remote control -- about the same way someone of my generation thinks of an iron that you have to heat up on a stovetop.
Not long after college, I was in Russia with my then-GF. Her boss had offered us the use of his dacha and his car for the weekend (at a time when owning a car was a *really* big deal). She couldn't drive a stick shift, so she wanted me to drive. I pointed out that I wouldn't be able to read the road signs, and suggested that she should drive and I would shift gears for her. She somehow found this idea more ridiculous than her suggestion that I drive while she read the road signs for me.
It is more ridiculous, baring very light traffic.
I have to admit I'm on moby's side here. Road vehicles are designed to be driven by one person. This reminds me of a time we poured ourselves out of a pub and into a car in the remoter parts of Ireland at 3:00 in the morning. Somebody raised the question of whether anybody was OK to drive, and the guy behind the wheel said, "'sOkay, I'll drive and Oliver can steer".
This may be normal practice in Russia for all I know.
So she would depress the clutch and say "Ok, shift! Shift!" and you would coordinate the gear shifter? That sounds herky-jerky.
I've switched drivers on the highway. But it was not my idea, and I didn't approve, and it scared me. As in, I declined, and the driver got out of the seat anyway and said "Look! No one's driving the car!" (leaning over and guiding the steering wheel with one finger.)
182. How would that even work? If you were in the passenger seat where did the driver go to get out of their seat? If they sat on your knee, it would be a bit tricky for you to move across. Did they propel themselves backwards over the headrest? Crouch in the floor well?
So she would depress the clutch and say "Ok, shift! Shift!" and you would coordinate the gear shifter?
Yes, exactly. I saw it as a way of teaching her to drive a manual, which would have been a valuable life skill for her, but no-ooooo...
(It occurs to me that there is a non-trivial chance that she is an unfogged reader, and a small, but non-zero probability that she is reading this very thread, in which case I have effectively outed myself.)
181: One of my kids liked to shift and we had it worked out pretty well, I'd put in the clutch and tell him the target gear. Of course I could grab it in a pinch and did not do it in traffic. T he problem with KR's scheme is that the tricky part is the clutch.
183: I did switched driver's on an RV once. And now that I think of it I cannot recall the mechanics other than youngness, suppleness and stupidness.
I did switch drivers. Christ almighty.
The problem with KR's scheme is that the tricky part is the clutch.
That was my thought, except that I've driven a couple of small Japanese cars where the clutch was absurdly easy. I'm guessing those cars weren't what Russians has back then.
185. I can understand it working if you're both up for it, but we're given a picture of the driver getting up while Heebie stayed firmly planted in her seat telling them not to be an asshole.
I did switch drivers.
Have also done. God. So stupid.
I once put a van into the ditch. I was 16 and the whole family, even grandma, was riding. At least I didn't tip it.
#184: you might want to take a few courses before comitting everything to a new career in driving instruction.
See also: cars being driven by little kids, one standing on the seat steering, and one sitting and working the pedals. I sort of hope this is an urban myth
But, I've never switched drivers on a moving vehicle or let somebody else drive the car at the same time as me.
If I ever had trouble working the shifter, I'd do the responsible thing and ask if the front seat passenger would mind holding my beer until we got out of traffic.
How would that even work? If you were in the passenger seat where did the driver go to get out of their seat? If they sat on your knee, it would be a bit tricky for you to move across. Did they propel themselves backwards over the headrest? Crouch in the floor well?
He let go over the steering wheel and said "Look! No one's driving!" so I leaned over and grabbed it, and then he climbed into the backseat, and I said "Get back! Get back!" and he wouldn't, so I said, "Well, hold the wheel while I get unbuckled and get over there" and he did.
This was not an isolated incident with that particular boyfriend, who I'm SO DAMN GLAD I didn't marry.
See also: cars being driven by little kids, one standing on the seat steering, and one sitting and working the pedals.
One of my long-term ambitions is to somehow acquire a convertible roadster with right hand drive, and outfit the left hand passenger seat with one of those toy steering wheels that they make for children. I will then lower the real steering wheel as far into my lap as possible, and let a young child -- or, better yet, a dog -- sit in the passenger seat with hands on the toy wheel, pretending to steer. Thus will I drive down the highway, nonchalant as can be.
I have to say that if it had been my boyfriend it would have been the last incident.
196: That would be great. YouTube it, please.
197: I found the recklessness exciting for a while. Until it became predictably a pain in the ass.
Did he ever say, "I don't play by their rules" and wear a leather jacket with buckles?
He wore a yarmulke and said "I keep getting fired from entry level Wall Street type jobs."
93
Or in places where the view is that it should be the norm, so that if you don't drive one, you're silly. I'm thinking of snowy, hilly regions in New England, where having a manual is considered obvious, if you expect to get around responsibly at all during the winter.
I'd say it doesn't really matter that much. I'm sure 53 is accurate, but I grew up in snowy, hilly regions in New England, drove both manual and automatic cars at various times, and never knew those tricks. I can't claim a perfect driving record, but hey, what 16-21 guy can?
If things have already gone wrong - you're already in a ditch or out later than you planned or got caught by surprise by a freak blizzard - then sure, a manual is better than an automatic. But driving carefully, knowing which roads to take, and not going out in bad weather at all are all much bigger parts of driving responsibly than choosing a car with a manual transmission.
149: I'm sorry. Does this help?
And re: the fun of driving, put me in the "none" camp. I mean, OK, sure, it can be fun, like a medium-length trip on a summer afternoon on a rural road or something. Anything can be fun in moderation and the right conditions. I'm sure ditch-digging would be fun, if the weather was in the low 60s and sunny and the soil was some kind of loamy stuff and there was no deadline and the ditch was for something I cared about and so on. But in general? Like, back to the case of driving, for commuting or running errands or making long trips? Hell no. It's a tool at best, and more stressful and demanding than most alternatives.
He wore a yarmulke and said "I keep getting fired from entry level Wall Street type jobs."
Well if he would keep trying to swap desks with the CEO without warning...
I'm sure ditch-digging would be fun...
My brother and a friend dug a hole deeper than our heads (dad stopped us at that point because he was afraid the sides would fall in). It was going to be the basement for a fort. I hope some archeologist digs up my old backyard some day. I would enjoy watching scientists trying to explain why somebody dug a six foot deep ten by ten hole to bury a single cocker spaniel.
You left your dog behind in the fort?
Or just opportunistic about filling a giant hole with dirt?
No, but we left the hole and five years later the dog died, poor girl, we decided there was no reason to dig another hole when we had a perfectly good hole right there.
By that time you'd think your dad would have agreed that the walls weren't going to cave in, and you guys could get started again.
207: Especially since the dog died by falling in the hole so it was the bottom already.
209: Just fill the hole with water and he'll float to the top.
208: By that time, we all had driver's licenses and couldn't be bothered.
209: We found her hiding in the yard after she didn't come for dinner. I suppose some kind of instinct lead her to hide? Dad cleaned her up, but she died that night.
210: Probably couldn't fill the hole with water. The bottom was sand and it probably drained into the aquifer quicker than a hose could fill it.
202: if the weather was in the low 60s and sunny and the soil was some kind of loamy stuff
As an occasional digger of holes, I must say that hole-digging (especially by mobster types) is one of those things that Hollywood almost always gets laughably wrong in terms of effort, neatness of results and resulting cleanliness of the diggers. Try driving an hour outside of New York and Boston and digging a grave ... at night.
Especially since mobsters usually bury other mobsters and mobsters aren't noted for being svelte.
213: You know, unlike the fidelity with which they represent all other human activities (like how long it takes to turn decrepit old houses into showcases--some paint, an afternoon and a few plucky young people and Bob's your uncle).
212: Well, not with that attitude. You're going to have to line the bottom first.
If lined, it wouldn't have been a green burial.
217: So in other words, you chose to pollute the aquifer with decaying dog meat.
I'm fairly certain lots of stuff has died on top of the aquifer and just kind of been decayed away.
No, you line the pit to float the dog up to the top, so you can remove the corpse and put it in the freezer.
Sometimes it seems like I really have to explain every last little detail.
Do I have to tile it or can I use plastic sheeting?
re: 215
Heh. I _did_ once decorate a house in a day.* There were about 8 of us, one of whom was a pro painter/decorator and had all the gear.** We stripped wallpaper, re-papered, painted rooms, painted all the woodwork, laid new carpets, fitted a new cooker, and washing machine, built furniture; the lot. Bloody hard work. End result: adequate, but a long way from show house.
* a friend got married. The council flat he got given was a dump, and his Dad dragooned all his mates into helping him do it up as a wedding present.
** turns out having all the fancy pads and brushes and extendible things, and really good quality paint/paper/tools, and one person who has been doing it for years, really helps. Who knew? He just told everyone what to do and we acted as zombie-labour.
Putting that much work into a rental seems, to someone who isn't entirely sure that he is correct in equating "council flat" with "public housing as he knows it," seems absurd. Do you get to keep council flats until you don't want them? Do they have space to bury pets?
223: If you gotta ask, you ain't never gonna know.
Do you get to keep council flats until you don't want them? Do they have space to bury pets?
1. Yes, unless you're selling ice out of the back door.
2. No, they're flats.
re: 225
You can keep them indefinitely, yeah. Although our current government are planning/hoping to change that. People think of them as homes. Not like transitory private rental properties. Anyway, in this case the place was pretty run down, and it was his and his briefly-wife's first place.
228.last: The walls?
Also, how do you know the rent isn't going to get too high?
You could fit a lot of flattened pets in a six foot hole.
Try driving an hour outside of New York and Boston and digging a grave ... at night.
"Sheriff, do you have an old cemetery in town, off the beaten path, the creepier the better?"
Also, how do you know the rent isn't going to get too high?
How do you know your mortgage isn't going to be foreclosed? People can always fuck you over with money, but the point is that they're supposed to be no-frills affordable housing you can raise your kids in if you're poor. They're not built for profit. (You can, since Thatcher, buy your council house if you've lived in it long enough.)
How do you know your mortgage isn't going to be foreclosed?
It's worth more than the mortgage on it.
It just seems strange to me to improve something you don't own or have a long lease with fixed rent for. They public flats around here have been blown-up, mostly, and replaced with townhouse-y things (or not replaced at all).
But you have a lifetime lease on it, and rent is indexed to inflation (until another right wing government changes the rules). Why not improve it, you're planning to leave in your coffin?
Nobody had mentioned "rent is indexed to inflation." That's different.
Also, 160 to 236.last.
You do have a long lease. The lease is indefinite and you have strong rights as a tennant. Rent is usually substantially less than private rental, and most people on lower incomes (or higher incomes now, for that matter) can't buy.
Actually, I'd say over half of the houses in my area don't have covered parking. When they were built, everybody used the bus or a walked to the street car or just sat on their ass toking all day.
Council flats in various states of repair. You can get Council houses too, in case you need to bury your dog. There are some in the pictures on the first page.
They're fine. Rooms are a bit small, yards are postage stamps, soundproofing could probably be better, but there's nothing wrong with them. There's a strong tradition of good social housing in this country that the Tories have been trying to destroy for 30 years. They haven't quite won yet.
yards are postage stamps
It's a dog, not a horse.
One of the times I was on tour with two bands, we did the driver-switch thing. It seemed somewhat safer since we had a short bus and the subbing-in person could stand off to the side and grab the wheel first. Also, it wasn't even close to being the stuipdest thing we did on that trip.
The council houses I grew up in were fine. Perhaps a little small, although they were both three bedroom places, but they had reasonable sized gardens and there was larger outside space for kids to play in nearby. It varies a lot, but lots of council schemes are/were perfectly OK places to grow up.
My grandparents, on the other hand, lived in the Red Road estate, which wasn't quite so good.
http://www.redroadflats.org.uk/?page_id=142
To be fair, the council there put a lot of effort into regenerating those blocks in the 80s and early 90s but that was too late for them.
Also, it wasn't even close to being the stuipdest thing we did on that trip.
Given that you were on a short bus this stands to reason.
I spend a lot of time working with (mostly) 20-something (mostly) UMC Americans in places where automatic transmission rental cars are scarce. IME, they all have to be taught to drive a manual transmission. They put manual transmissions in a mental category along with televisions without remote control -- about the same way someone of my generation thinks of an iron that you have to heat up on a stovetop.
Well, yeah. The obvious question for all three things is "Why would you want one?" The answer from the stick-shift fan is either the sort of "you're not really doing it if you're not doing it my way" smugness that we also hear from people who get angry that their friends are stupid enough to use knives that aren't sharp, or "You can speed up faster". The increased safety from being able to speed up faster seems like it would be offset by the decreased safety of rolling backwards at a stoplight while trying to go up a hill, as far as I can tell.
249: I had started to write a long comment attempt to help you understand the arguments in favor of stick shift, but I can't really figure out how you got to the interpretation you're working with, so I guess I'll just let you remain confused. You drive what you want, you. And be proud!
You can't push start an automatic. They say you can't push start a manual without ruining the catalytic converter, but if you live in a state without emission tests it isn't like anyone will know.
The thing is, that if British 17 year olds can learn how to use a clutch and not roll backwards down hills, then perhaps it's not actually that difficult, and anyone who wanted to can do it?
252: part of my since-deleted comment was that you actually don't roll backwards down hills if you know how to drive stick, but I deleted it, because the hell, ned?
253: because it's more fun, and you get (slightly) better gas mileage?
I used to intentionally roll backward down hills at people who annoyed me by having a nice car and driving behind me.
Also, is it sort of impressive to stick your foot out the door and Flintstone the car into a slow roll down the hill and then pop the clutch to start the car.
My son turns 15 next month and is already looking forward to getting a learner's permit. I'm counting on the facts that our cars have manual transmissions and our house is surrounded by hills to preserve at least occasional access to may own car another couple of years.
If he keeps his grades above a B, I think insurance is cheaper.
If he keeps his grades above some bees, then it would harder to get a look at his grades without getting stung. On the other hand, free honey.
Twice I've been driving stick-shift when the gearstick came off: both times driving my mum's car, once about 20 years ago, the other about four years ago. The first time it just kind of fell over in a cheeky way, as if to say "haha what are you going to do NOW?" -- but luckily I was alone on the road and not driving fast (don't know why these were simultaneously true, they wouldn't normally be), and about 40 yards down the road from the garage she always got the same car fixed. The second time was as I was negotiating the passage from the M6, full of fast traffic, as it merges with the M1, full of ditto: and that time the stick really just came off in my hand.
Why do it? To prove to myself I am apparently a fucking awesome driver in unexpected and perilous situations. I got off the road in one piece, without even being peeped at, and later got told off by the motorway police for stopping the car on the shoulder just beyond a bend to close to the motorway mergepoint; and also for not having a blanket or anything in the car as it was an extremely cold evening, and I had wait hours for police or pickup truck to arrive.
I much prefer stick, but I'm just used to it, I guess.
262: should only give you pause if you're thinking of buying my mum's car, incidentally.
The thing is, that if British 17 year olds can learn how to use a clutch and not roll backwards down hills, then perhaps it's not actually that difficult, and anyone who wanted to can do it?
Depending on the national or subnational jurisdiction, there is vast diversity in how much effort is considered normal to get a driver's license. In my case - automatics, and the state waived the driving test if you passed the course at the driving school - driving never felt on a different level of technical complexity from pushing a toy car around. If it was something I actually had to apply myself on, I imagine learning stick would have been pretty straightforward.
One of my kids liked to shift and we had it worked out pretty well
Did this with both my baby siblings. A good time was had by all.
Yeah, I think it just depends how you were taught. As I learned to use a manual shift at the time as I learned to drive I was never aware of it being difficult. It's just part of learning to drive. On the other hand, I've never been on a skid pan, or learned proper ice/snow driving, which is, I gather, a prerequisite if you are learning in Scandinavia, and Finland, in particular. Different countries adopt different approaches.
My Dad was an ambulance driver [and drove APCs and courier-bikes in the army], so I've had various pearls of 'advanced' driving wisdom passed on [e.g. the higher gear plus clutch control in the snow thing] but never formally taught. I'd guess those things _are_ formally taught as routine in other places.
The US seems, at second hand, at least, to be towards the minimal end of things, and Finland towards the maximal end of things, with the UK somewhere in the middle.
My grandparents, on the other hand, lived in the Red Road estate, which wasn't quite so good.
I really liked the movie, though.
As I learned to use a manual shift at the time as I learned to drive I was never aware of it being difficult.
I started learning on a manual shift, and it seemed very difficult to me. Then our car died and my parents got an automatic, and it just seemed so much easier after that. Granted, the move from manual to automatic might have occurred just at that point where I was finally figuring things out, so that I associated "yay! I can actually do this" with the automatic.
But I tend to doubt that, actually. I'm a lazy North American driver, basically (but I do know how to steer my way out of a skid, because winter driving was part of basic driver's ed for me).
I got a thirty minute lesson on how to drive a manual and then my dad drove back home leaving me on my own to actually master the car I bought.
re: 267
Yeah, the movie is post- the improvement work. An ex-g/friend of mine did a teaching rotation in one of the nurseries on the Red Road, and they had a tour of the CCTV suites and spent some time talking to the operators. I remember her telling me about it [CCTV used in that way wasn't common at the time].
But why would they want to?
There are in fact situations where the additional acceleration provided by stick can help you respond to situations better and more safely than the unresponsiveness of an automatic. Mrs y went automatic for reasons explained at 6 above, and discovered these situations which as a long term stick driver she hadn't even been aware of. Many of them involve irresponsible cyclists.
Also, what ttaM says about bad weather. Basically stick gives you more control and more options. If your instinct is to drive completely passively, it probably doesn't help you. Otherwise, it does.
Nevada is now legalizing driverless cars, so I think those of you switching drivers while under way should know that it may very well be legal in Nevada if the law is written broadly.
Prediction: after first driverless car crash, Nevadan legislature reverses itself, passes draconian law (probably named after victim; Leroy's Law? Kaitlynnn's Law? Montgomery Bassingbourne III's Law?) banning driverless cars, hastily-written law later found to mean that all cars in Nevada must have a driver in them at all times whether they are moving or not.
Many of them involve irresponsible cyclists.
Hey, I hit a pedestrian yesterday! At a very low speed. It was also 100% her fault, and it sucked.
Actually, that's not fair. It was about 95% her fault, and 5% the fault of the other 15 pedestrians who walked out in directly in front of me, neither looking nor being able to see the road in the direction from which I was approaching.
If it had been your fault, you would have been a responsible cyclist.
They may have popped out faster than you could stop, but you don't need to keep the studded tires on all year.
You know, studded to slash the feet and legs of helpless pedestrians.
Who walked out directly in front of me into the road, as I proceeded through a green light, I should say.
I actually sorta knew this was going to happen (people jaywalk like crazy at that intersection), so I had swung out way into the middle of the road, but another dude (again, with an umbrella that blocked his view of the road in the direction from which I came) strode purposefully out across the road, forcing me to swing back into my (marked bike) lane. At this point, the crowd of people on the sidewalk saw him crossing (but, because of the umbrellas and because they didn't fucking try to look, not me) and headed out into the intersection en masse just as I reached the crosswalk.
The lesson? People should fucking learn to walk if they're going to leave the house.
What's genuinely infuriating is that I'm 100% sure that some portion of the stupid, death-wish-having pedestrians that I narrowly avoided by sheer skill (but not, I should note, the woman who couldn't figure out how to continue walking, who I bumped very lightly into, so not to worry) chalked the whole thing up to "oh, those crazy irresponsible cyclists".
On the other hand, I almost got hit by a dude on a bike going the wrong way down my street the other day.
I hate people.
284: That happened to me once. He yelled at me.
285 was me. I should maybe clear out the form memory.
So you're saying, not that it was a blind corner, but that the pedestrians couldn't be arsed to move their umbrellas to see what was coming?
I should maybe clear out the form memory.
If you think you're Michael Jackson you should clear out a lot more than that.
287: correct. And they were crossing against the light.
You should get a bell that you can right cheerfully when someone is in the street.
In fact my solution was to say "heads up!" in a clear, stentorian voice, and slam on my brakes (as well as locking up my fixed drivetrain).
I almost got hit by a dude on a bike going the wrong way down my street the other day.
To be fair, when this happened to MJ he may have been going the wrong way, but he was facing the right way. Confusing.
correct. And they were crossing against the light.
Good thing you weren't a 40 ton truck, then. Those buggers take forever to stop.
Well, I assume in that case they would have heard me.
292: That would work also. My personal pedestrian peeve against cyclists is the ones that fly past me on sidewalk of the bridge. I can't hear them because of the traffic. They are clearly assuming that I'm going to keep walking in a more or less straight line and that is a very stupid assumption to make as I don't play by the rules of society. I don't care how old I am, I'm going to step on a bug if I see one.
?In fact my solution was to say "heads up!" in a clear, stentorian voice,
I've tried this but I just get ignored. So I've decided to ditch the polite warning in favour of a good, loud, lungbusting scream. Depending on how hungover/bronchial I am, this varies between "Nazgul", "rollercoaster customer" and "Private Joker's first, less successful war face".
when this happened to MJ he may have been going the wrong way, but he was facing the right way. Confusing.
He was cycling backwards? That's impressive.
Just to be sure the joke is made very clearly and unfunnily.
You should get a bell
Big-ass airhorn. Look at 'em jumping!
You should get a bullroarer and twirl it continuously as you cycle.
My girlfriend used to complain about crazy bikers on city streets all the time. Running red lights, weaving between people on the sidewalk, weaving between cars on the street... Then I started biking, and you know what? She's right, we're crazy.
I usually don't run red lights or stop signs, and only when it's really, really safe. (I'm going straight or making a right turn, and it's an intersection with good visibility, and it's a relatively low-traffic neighborhood, and...) I wear helmets 90 percent of the time. (There have been at least two occasions when I didn't, which would make it better than 95 percent.) I try to follow traffic laws about biking on the street, and on the rare occasions I bike on the sidewalk, I'm not zipping around people or anything. I rarely change lanes in any traffic.
But you know, you can't bike on the street without changing lanes sometimes. It seems genuinely unclear to me whether I'm supposed to bike on the street everywhere, or just in a certain downtown area. And while following the rules of a car every single minute might be safer, there are just so many times when it's so much easier not to (and probably some times that it's genuinely safer not to) that doing so would be ridiculous. Especially during rush hour. Put it all together and I squeeze behind and between cars sometimes, I run red lights, I switch between acting like a car and like a pedestrian... and I think I'm really conservative compared to most bikers on the road with me. I'm crazy from the point of view of either a driver or a pedestrian, lots of people are worse than me, and realistically it's inevitable.
Sorry for the relatively serious talk. This is just stuff I think about a fair amount these days.
I wear helmets 90 percent of the time.
10% of the time, you just wear one helmet.
I should bring home the bike my father-in-law fixed up for me. I'm afraid to bike to my office (traffic, hills, death), but I live right near a flat street with a wide bike lane on each side. It doesn't go near my office, but it does go to the park.
Put it all together and I squeeze behind and between cars sometimes
Squeezing between a car and the parked cars on the right is perfectly legal, incidentally. And taking a traffic lane and waiting behind a car (especially if you're turning) is also perfectly legal.
Nothing you're doing sounds remotely crazy (you know, running red lights is tacky), especially if you signal, and if people read those things as crazy, then they're the problem.
You should probably ride on the street, though. I basically never ride on the sidewalk ("basically", because there are a couple of places where the dedicated bike routes run on sidewalks or at pedestrian grade, which strikes me as idiotic and dangerous, but I'm pretty law-abiding).
307: you don't need me to say "hell yeah you should", but hell yeah you should!
10% of the time, you just wear one helmet.
I wear three bike helmets - one on my head, obviously, and one on each knee so I look like Judge Dredd.
I sit on my bike helmet so I don't get my balls blown off.
Essential reading for urban cyclists.
312: eh. Not wrong, and I would be lying if I said those things didn't bother me when people did them, but the majority of accidents involving a bicycle are not the fault of the cyclist, so why do they take all the heat?
I know I'm neurotic about cars, but I'm scared about Jammies pulling the kids in one of those bike-trailer things. It just feels like putting the president, vice-president, and secretary-of-state in the same plane: A SINGLE CAR COULD WIPE OUT MY FAMILY. There's no reason to believe they're actually dangerous, right?
I mean, every day I see cyclists do things that are illegal, annoying, and in extreme cases potentially life-threatening to the cyclists who do them.
On the other hand, every day I see drivers do things (casually open doors into the bike lane, turn without signalling, suddenly veer right to get around turning cars, pull past the line of a stop sign and into the bike lane to look for oncoming traffic before turning) that would be life-threatening to a completely law-abiding cyclist (but not generally to me, because I'm willing to bend the law for my own safety if I have to). So remind me again why every single fucking time this comes up, the conversation turns to how cyclists really need to abide by the law?
Remember how this conversation started? My story about how -- as a law-abiding cyclist -- a horde of fucking dumbass pedestrians walked directly in front of me. What's the required reading for pedestrians? Pedestrians are a menace. So are drivers.
314: You need several Jammies impersonators, each with their own bike-trailers. They won't know which one to hit!
No heebie. They're no more dangerous than being out in public in any formation. Of course it feels like your whole heart is in one vulnerable place. But that's not because of the bike or bike trailer.
Trust Jesus to keep them safe that the universe guides them your karma low odds.
t just feels like putting the president, vice-president, and secretary-of-state in the same plane
Funny you should mention that, because it turns out that such a situation, while obviously foolhardy, isn't quite as fraught as one might think.
315: I'd really like a revamp of traffic laws rationalized for cyclists -- I think part of the problem is that some sorts of car-like behavior really don't make sense for bikes, and so competent bikers develop a tendency to disregard the law where safety requires, which turns into a general willingness to ignore the law among cyclists. If the legal thing was more reliably also the safe thing, that'd be a big help.
Actually, looking back at that, I'm not sure I have any basis for it. It fits with stuff I've heard people say, but personally, while I break the law sometimes, it's never been in the service of staying safer that I recall.
I'll just sit here and argue with the rest of my personalities now.
I am a big proponent of Idaho's Stop-as-Yield law. As an advocate, I am being the change I want to see in the world.
Well, I don't think cyclists break the law in service of keeping themselves safer. They break the law in service of maintaining their momentum (mostly) when it is otherwise safe to do so. Which I think is fine.
320: there are definitely some times when the safer thing to do is not legal, and I think that the attitude of long-time bikers (who started riding in an era where obeying the law was genuinely very dangerous, as nobody ever expected a bike on the road, and would react poorly/uncomprehendingly to a cyclist taking a lane, for instance) may have interacted in an unfortunate way with the flood of new bikers (who had previously experienced cyclists as pedestrians/drivers, and thus had misconceptions about the level/nature of lawlessness) who now believe that you really don't have to obey rules on bikes.
I think more common than instances where the illegal things is safer are instances where the illegal thing is just self-evidently not dangerous, and obviously not a law that was created with bikes in mind. Getting rid of those seems like it would help.
Anyhow, I'm not sure if this is really a shift or if I'm just seeing effects of my own changing perception as driven by societal trends, but it does seem like "more serious" cyclists tend to be much more judgmental of things like light-running (and shoaling, and riding on sidewalks) than they used to be (even the fixie-ridin'-hipster species of more serious cyclist).
casually open doors into the bike lane
That's why I wear a suit whenever I park.
I can think of plenty of times, incidentally, when running red lights is safer; when you're stuck in a "race" with a bus (that keeps passing you and then veering in to make stops) the best thing to do is get far clear of it, either ahead or behind. Also, at busy multi-lane intersections (especially ones with a dedicated walk phase), starting at the same time as cars can lead to a situation where you're jockeying for position with cars who are jockeying for position with each other, which can lead to dangerous squeeze-out scenarios. More generally, on roads with timed lights it's probably generally safer for bicycles to be offset from the mass of traffic that's moving in sync with the lights.
That said, I don't run lights anymore (except for rights-on-red, because really, the idea that it's ever unsafe for a cyclist to go right on red after looking/stopping is pretty silly), because my whole scheme is to make friends with drivers, so we all get along.
Man, I've had a streak of nearly getting doored recently, even though I ride wide. Three recent times, I got a door opened close enough to make me shriek. Two of those made the driver also shriek. I figure that made an impression. They look for the next few times, until it wears off.
when you're stuck in a "race" with a bus
Having watched those from inside the bus, I think those are annoying for everyone involved.
when you're stuck in a "race" with a bus (that keeps passing you and then veering in to make stops) the best thing to do is get far clear of it, either ahead or behind.
This is exactly why I stopped biking into grad school. It was a straight downhill stretch with very frequent buses and very frequent bus stops.
This is a subject that I have also been thinking about more lately because the trail on which I commute has gotten busier over the last couple of years.
It is still clear enough that there are long patches with no pedestrians where you can get up speed, but busy enough that you will end up passing pedestrians multiple times (the stretch of trail I ride is just under 2 miles).
So I've been thinking about my procedure for passing people and I'm confident both that (1) I occasionally pass people going fast enough that it startles them a bit (heck, I get startled when I'm passed by a fast moving bike, it's natural) (2) I err strongly on the side of safety; I slow down to pass and I will either say something to alert the pedestrian or pass with at least 4 feet of clearance between us) (3) I dislike people who jog while listening to music.
The combination of (1) and (2) makes me think that bike/pedestrian interactions are always going to be a little bit touchy because the comfort zone for the two groups is pretty different.
Anyhow, I'm not sure if this is really a shift or if I'm just seeing effects of my own changing perception as driven by societal trends, but it does seem like "more serious" cyclists tend to be much more judgmental of things like light-running (and shoaling, and riding on sidewalks) than they used to be (even the fixie-ridin'-hipster species of more serious cyclist).
I'm really glad to hear that. It always annoys me when I see other cyclists riding in a way which makes clear that they can't be bothered to think about what it means to share the space.
Having just googled shoaling, I feel comfortable pronouncing anyone who does that a sociopath.
328: it sucks, it really does! Do not want to race you, Mr. Bus. And there's really not a good solution.
I have seen several cyclists being pulled over by policemen on bicycles after they ignored red lights. This is a good thing. (In a way, it's like we cyclists are policing ourselves.)
I also had to google shoaling, because cyclists use their own lingo. Looking at bikes on Craigslist, apparently "vintage" means "junk."
Somebody wants $300 for a used Schwinn adult tricycle. Apparently, it has never been rained on. I maybe see if I can get them down to $150 because that would be a faster way to lose my dignity than my golf cart idea.
What's the thinking on the obnoxiousness of ringing your bell at people? I do a fair amount when I want to make sure they're aware of me -- I start ringing steadily if I'm approaching an intersection where I've got the light but I'm afraid pedestrians will step out in front of me, I'll ding if I'm coming up behind a pedestrian who looks as if they might make a sudden move into my path, anything where I want someone who isn't looking in my direction to see me. I don't think of it like honking a car horn, just as making myself more visible.
But maybe I'm being obnoxious. Should I lay off the bell and rely on yelling "On your left" as I pass people? Or just work on dodging silently in all but real emergencies?
I never ring a bell, but I do like to give pedestrians a friendly pat on the ass as I zoom by.
A polite ding is nicer than "on your left" I think. I ding and slow a bit unless they're purposefully keeping to the right edge of the path.
The issues are speed and reaction time-- if the cyclist (me) is moving at any kind of clip, the pedestrians are going to be alarmed. Even if you're on top of them, the serene dogwalker, the two old ladies talking as if this was their living room, the jogger with headphones, are going to take about thirty seconds to register that a sound means they should move or pay attention. A little wave after passing them to acknowledge shared humanity and no hard feelings on my part is the best that I can come up with.
I think dinging the bell is more similar to honking the horn and therefore more likely to be interpreted as rude.
When saying "On your left" you have to be aware of the possiblity that this is the first time the pedestrian has ever heard the phrase "On your left" uttered by a mysterious voice from an unknown location behind him, and the natural response, as it was for me in that situation, might be to suddenly turn left to see what it is, on his left, that a stranger is trying to draw his attention to.
So what you're saying is that each of the two options is much worse than the other. Helpful.
I'm getting all my information about urban biking from this brochure. I don't know why, but I kept expecting to read that my body will begin going through changes and that I shouldn't worry because it only means I'm becoming an adult a cyclist.
That's why you should use my technique, LB.
As a pedestrian (who deals with this a lot), I think the bell is preferable. It's a pretty recognizable sound, definitely not as obnoxious as a car horn.
I agree with 344. A bell is a friendly heads up.
I think you should just clip the pedestrians and then yell, "watch where you're going, asshole!" after the fact.
On the larger issue, I've become a lot more sympathetic to people who bike on the sidewalk in the time that I've lived in NJ. The distances around here are such that it makes a lot of sense to bike, but there's literally no bike infrastructure on the roads at all (no bike lanes, nothing), and people drive super-aggressively. Biking on the street would be insanely dangerous, so everyone bikes on the sidewalks. This does lead to a lot of bike-pedestrian interaction, but cyclists are typically pretty good about slowing down and ringing the bell (or otherwise signaling their presence) when passing.
Having just googled shoaling, I feel comfortable pronouncing anyone who does that a sociopath.
That seems a bit unfair to sardines.
344, 345: Oh, good. That's been my thinking, and the bike path has some very pedestrian-heavy areas (where I do slow down, but not as much as I would if I were somewhere that wasn't a bike path. Except for the toddler-heavy stretch in Washington Heights, where I slow to a crawl if necessary.)
So what you're saying is that each of the two options is much worse than the other. Helpful.
I'm just saying that there's a learning curve, albeit a short one, associated with pedestrians recognizing the cryptic phrase "On your left".
344: I tend to agree. "On your left", always manages to confuse me, although it seems like I should have figured it out by now. I suppose it has something to do with always have to look for the freckle in the middle of my right hand to be certain which side is right.
351 proves 350 is wrong at least in one case.
definitely not as obnoxious as a car horn.
In certain parts of the world, it's considered normal for an automobile driver approaching a cyclist (or oxcart, or whatever) from behind to beep the car horn as a warning signal. Until I figured out that this was more or less a courtesy, I grew ever more outraged at all these rude drivers honking at me, a law-abiding cyclist equally entitled to be on the road.
On a related note, google's bike map feature is looking more useful than the last time I tried it. At least it isn't deliberately trying to find the biggest hills this time.
I think part of the problem is that some sorts of car-like behavior really don't make sense for bikes, and so competent bikers develop a tendency to disregard the law where safety requires
Yes, this. I think about cycling strategy a lot, and am constantly doing things differently. When stopped at a light before making a left turn, do I wait behind all the cars, or do I treat the intersection like there's a bike box? I get yelled at no matter how I'm cycling, so it's not like I can use that as an indicator.
It's an area for bikes in front of where the cars are required to stop at an intersection.
Thanks. Google gave me a bunch of boxes for bikes, but I suppose I could have tried "bike box street".
Just the other day, I bought sardines packed in morals. Or maybe that was olive oil.
A polite ding is nicer than "on your left" I think.
This is going to vary by city to city, but here are my feelings:
1) I don't have a bell, I'll shout something when it's appropriate. When I'm a pedestrian I don't like the bell because it doesn't give me much information. Compared to a shout, you can't judge speed, and it's hard to tell the difference between, "you're good, just letting you know that I'm coming" and "I need you to move" which can be conveyed by tone of voice.
2) I'll say "on your left" if the person is already walking on the right side. If the person is walking in the center of the path I say "behind you" and slow down enough for them to make a decision about which way they want to go.
3) Around here people are mostly used to hearing, "on your left" but there's an art to knowing how close to get before saying something. I like to say something far enough in advance that they have a window to process it.
4) As I alluded to in my previous comment, many times I won't say anything if the situation is such that I can pass safely without getting to close to them. That more or less matches up with my preferences for how I would hope that bikes treat me when I'm a pedestrian, but it's a judgement call.
If it really seems like you're going to hit me, what would probably work is to yell, "HEY! MORON! Get out of my way!"
That would make me think I was in the grocery store.
Topically, I just had a truck driver honk at me because, apparently, he was concerned was going to clip me with his mirror. To my mind, who could have alleviated this concern by not driving so close to the sidewalk I was standing on (indeed, using the handy line delineating the bike lane as an outer bound for where his vehicle should have been would have worked swimmingly. Apparently he didn't think so, though, since after honking (and almost clipping me) he flipped me off.
Stupid cyclists.
||
Is the capture of Whitey Bulger in Santa Monica, CA being covered in news outlets outside of Boston? What about L.A.?
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365 could use another close-parenthesis.
367 -- Yes. There's a good chance that I saw him a few times at a local farmers' market, apparently. As I joked on another blog, apparently, LA is where the most loathsome and despicable elements of Irish Boston end up (see also Frank McCourt).
News outlets all over the country have web presences.
As I joked on another blog, apparently, LA is where the most loathsome and despicable elements of Irish Boston end up (see also Frank McCourt).
So, what's with this thing with people from LA where they refer to people from Southie as "Southies"? That is not a thing that anybody in Boston would do, and it sounds dementedly strange to my ears. An example can be read here, but I had a friend do the same thing recently.
What about L.A.?
I believe the LA Times broke the story. Every article I've read about it mentions that.
Shouldn't you just be happy that anyone outside Boston has even a vague idea what Southie is? I chalk it up to the "white Irish guys from New England are the only authentic remaining white working class" cultural theme of the last 10 years or so.
Shouldn't you just be happy that anyone outside Boston has even a vague idea what Southie is?
No? Why?
324.2 is right. But also,
320
I think part of the problem is that some sorts of car-like behavior really don't make sense for bikes, and so competent bikers develop a tendency to disregard the law where safety requires, which turns into a general willingness to ignore the law among cyclists.
I think part of the problem is that what makes sense for bikes doesn't correspond well to either what makes sense for cars or is legal. (I'm not sure how much this has to do with what I'm quoting, but it's what got me thinking about it, at least.) There are a string of half a dozen intersections on my commute home where a biker really, obviously shouldn't run a red light. I don't. I'd estimate about a third of other bikers do it anyway, just by watching for a break in the traffic. There are at least two more intersections where it is pretty much harmless to run the red light or stop sign due to low traffic and good visibility, plus a few gray area intersections. And finally, there's one traffic circle with roughly six lights if you simply want to go straight through it, and traffic is always stopped dead in it during rush hour, so the best thing bikers can do is just ignore lights except for when traffic is actually moving. In fact, it would be dangerous not to, because you CAN zig-zag between cars but when they finally move they will be impatient. So: three situations, which a driver (or at least, a driver following the rules) should treat the same, but bikers should treat each one differently. Not that hard to manage once you're familiar with the area, but there's no good rule for them.
Also, I've never heard the term "shoaling" before, but now that I Google it, I agree, it sucks.
How often would the average person in Los Angeles refer casually to people from South Boston? 0.001 times per lifetime?
If anything, I'm entirely tired of Boston being identified with the shitty, parochial political infighting and racism that is closely identified with "southie" as a tribal marker (and with the career of Whitey Bulger). And I'm not alone, although god knows you won't see the Herald writing an op-ed like that.
377: including the article and my friend, I've heard or read that usage twice in the past two weeks. Beats me, man. Halford also seems sort of obsessed with it.
It's on TV and radio everywhere here. They had a reporter on location describing the ordinary neighborhood that he lived in in Santa Monica. That was on the local NPR affiliate, but not the national network.
In 1971, Killeen's younger brother allegedly bit off the nose of Michael Dwyer, a member of the rival Mullen Gang.
From the wikipedia page on Whitey.
379 -- Nah, I just hate Frank McCourt. I am kinda obsessed with that hatred right now. 378 makes sense; it's interesting that pretty much just at the moment when that world ceased to exist it became a recurrent staple of Hollywood movies and the like.
382: The Town was particularly hilarious in that regard, in that it depended on Charlestown being a hotbed of crime. Really? Do the down-on-their-luck bank robbers own the million dollar brownstones sandwiched between four-star restaurants and the residences of professional athletes, or do they rent?
They even said that his apartment was rent-controlled. $1100 or $1500 per month for a 2 bedroom. The reporter thought that that would mean that he had lived there for a while.
The Town was particularly hilarious in that regard
That movie was ridiculous in every respect. Ben Affleck wanted to be like Robert Mitchum in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, but then couldn't bear to really be a bad guy. So we're supposed to believe this hardened thug was basically a decent guy underneath it all... Just an embarrassingly bad movie.
I thought Good Will Hunting was the recent origin of people outside of Boston thinking they know something about Boston. I can't believe I liked that movie the first time I watched it (which is why it wasn't the only time I watched it - not sure I've ever seen a movie become so terrible so quickly on re-watching).
I know six things about Boston and I've never seen Good Will Hunting.
Everything I know about Pittsburgh I learned from Flashdance and Wonder Boys.
To wit: that town is just full of pervy dudes who abuse their positions of power over ingenues.
386: Matt Damon's appealing -- not so much that he's attractive, but he's pleasant to watch. And I like Minnie Driver as well. Which means that although I recognized it as a terrible movie as I was watching it, I enjoyed it anyway.
389: You should also watch Striking Distance and Sudden Impact to get an idea of what law enforcement and crime issues are like.
390: But the Robin Williams character alone was eleventy zillion billion times more negative that their pleasantness to watch was positive.
If you watch Love and Other Drugs and don't just skip to the parts where you can see Anne Hathaway naked, you'll eventually see the exterior of the building across the street from where I am right now.
I was actually going to include the fact that while Robin Williams was in the movie, he doesn't get much screen time, as a positive.
I regard Blown Away (Tommy Lee Jones 1994) as a nearly pure form of Irish Boston what-the-fuckedness. It is, of course, now an idea completely detached from any discernible reality.
But as follows from one of the proofs Matt Damon solved while janitorializing, that density of suckiness per minute creates a narrative black hole from which nothing good can escape. (I actually enjoyed parts of it while watching as well--but the seed of darkness planted by RW has since grown to dominate my view of the thing.)
When saying "On your left" you have to be aware of the possiblity that this is the first time the pedestrian has ever heard the phrase
Or that they're deaf. People ride bikes on the sidewalk around here all the time and get super shitty at me when they yell or ring a bell or whatever and I fail to clear the path so they don't have to slow down. They stop and lecture me about it occasionally, scowling and being generally bratty. I don't like it. Boo.
This sort of happens in skiing too but there I am all prepared to be more attentive and keep track of what's behind me in a way that I don't really feel like doing, walking on a sidewalk.
I caught some TV news last night where, IIRC, Brian Williams said "anyone who has ever been in Boston knows who Whitey Bulger is." I didn't.
397: You should get a fly swatter embossed with "I Can't Hear You" in mirror writing. Then smack people with it on the forehead and they'll see the point when they get to the bathroom next.
397: yeah, that really sounds like another excellent reason not to ride on the sidewalk (or, for that matter, bike path, which is to say "extra fun sidewalk for walking three-to-five abreast").
391: Also Innocent Blood, starring Anthony LaPaglia, Robert Loggia, Chazz Palminteri, Don Rickles, Angela Bassett, and Anne Parillaud as the fastidious vampire.
This sort of happens in skiing too but there I am all prepared to be more attentive and keep track of what's behind me in a way that I don't really feel like doing, walking on a sidewalk.
I reluctantly accept the fact that people ride bikes on sidewalks, but I firmly believe in the rule that, "if you're riding on a sidewalk behave like a pedestrian" don't go faster than a fast walk, and expect to slow to a crawl to weave around people.
I do think it's slightly less clear cut on a bike trail, but the reminder is still a good one. I will try to keep that in mind if I feel like I'm being ignored by somebody walking on the trail.
They stop and lecture me about it occasionally, scowling and being generally bratty. I don't like it. Boo.
What? You should start signing to them and act incensed and self-righteous. Not act, be.
essear: I wasn't really aware of him when he ran. The thing is that for many years, his brother was the president of the Senate and then President of the University of Massachusetts. His name was in the news often enough that the Bulger name was hard to forget.
I firmly believe in the rule that, "if you're riding on a sidewalk behave like a pedestrian" don't go faster than a fast walk, and expect to slow to a crawl to weave around people.
This is a good rule for sidewalks (although really, just staying off them is better). On the bikepath I use, though, I figure I'm responsible for passing at a safe distance, but I don't really worry much about being slow enough not to startle people -- there's enough traffic that they should be expecting bikes whizzing by.
(Getting pissy with people for not leaping out of the way, whatever their reasons, is just wrong. Except for the type of idiot who thinks that running in the dead center of a narrow bike path, on the yellow line separating traffic in opposite directions, is a good idea. Him I will ring my little bell at repeatedly in a pissy fashion.)
I reluctantly accept the fact that people ride bikes on sidewalks, but I firmly believe in the rule that, "if you're riding on a sidewalk behave like a pedestrian" don't go faster than a fast walk, and expect to slow to a crawl to weave around people.
Yep.
I was being a little snippy about bikepaths, because it frustrates me that they're always brought up as these great investments in bike infrastructure, but useful ones (especially if they're at pedestrian grade, which they always are) will inevitably get taken over by walkers/rollerbladers/triple-wide strollers and become soon enough nigh-impassable by bikes moving at greater than walking pace.
will inevitably get taken over by walkers/rollerbladers/triple-wide strollers and become soon enough nigh-impassable by bikes moving at greater than walking pace.
Yeah, that is a problem.
I believe it's legal to bike on the sidewalk in LA, but it's generally more difficult -- obviously so in places with lots of pedestrian traffic, but also even in areas without pedestrians -- so it's not really clear why people do it.
My theory is that the level of bicycle obnoxiousness tracks directly with the class status of the biker, with the BMXicans at the bottom and spandex-clad Westside hedge fund guys at the top and most obnoxious. This perception may not be entirely unbiased, however.
They stop and lecture me about it occasionally, scowling and being generally bratty.
Pedestrians actually do this too, to some extent. People seem to be really infuriated by a failure to respond to "excuse me". Like the only conceivable explanation is that I am deliberately ignoring them as an insult.* Don't hearing people walk around with headphones on all the time? How do you stay out of fights?
*Some lady once tracked me through several aisles of a bookstore to chastise me for having ignored her "excuse me" and then walked away after making brief, passing, eye contact. After she found out I was deaf, she wrote me a long note about how it seemed like I had rolled my eyes at her, AFTER ignoring her, and she felt like it was important that I realize that she didn't appreciate being treated so rudely.
This sort of happens in skiing too
Occasionally in Vermont (and probably elsewhere, I suppose) you see skiiers on the slope wearing a hi-viz vest that says "Blind Skiier". You could get one that says "Deaf Skiier". Or "Reminder: the downhill skiier has the right of way."
it's only really a problem on CAT tracks, where there's not much room to pass and people move at widely varying speeds. On a normal hill, I'm probably more likely to be the one speeding recklessly past other people.
I have thought about getting a helmet with one of those bike mirrors attached. But I'm not sure I could handle the blow to my stylish ski outfits.
How about a "Deaf, Armed, and Dangerous" t-shirt?
Blind skiiers usually have sighted buddies with whistles to tell them when they need to turn etc. I guess I could get a hearing buddy to ski backwards, in front of me, and keep me informed about everything uphill. That seems like it might slow me down though.
I used to teach adaptive skiing in Oregon and Minnesota and I spent a lot of time yelling at people for trying cross between me and the student I had tethered 15 feet below me. The tethers are bright orange! And there's not enough space there to go through anyway! And now we are all tangled up. And all our $5 are scattered all over the bunny hill.
or a helmet-mounted announcement on repeat. I AM DEAF DO NOT YELL ON YOUR LEFT. I AM DEAF DO NOT YELL ON YOUR LEFT.
I do try to stay over to the right, just in case.
"On your left" actually doesn't work worth a damn with me, either, as I'm deaf in my left ear. I just try to ride faster than everybody else so it doesn't come up.
.. and stay over to the right if I'm walking on a commonly used bike route.
After she found out I was deaf, she wrote me a long note about how it seemed like I had rolled my eyes at her, AFTER ignoring her, and she felt like it was important that I realize that she didn't appreciate being treated so rudely.
That is a person who finds it really, really important to always be right.
There was abike that I'd looked at in the window of the bike shop a couple of times. It was $1,400.
And if I'd remembered the name of the bike I could convey information.
There was abike that I'd looked at in the window of the bike shop a couple of times. It was $1,400.
A potentially nice bike for someone in Philadelphia.
Not that I know anything about that bike specifically, it's just an example of the fact that it's sometimes possible to find really good deals on ebay for high-end bikes in good condition, but a couple of years old.
Obligatory disclaimer: If you're going to buy a bike on ebay there's a big difference between "good used" condition and "mostly sat in a garage" condition. That said, I got my current bike last summer and even though I ended up having to get on of the wheels rebuilt, it's been money well spent.
I remember no biking on the sidewalk rules being fairly strictly enforced in non-residential areas of the east bay where I grew up. But it may have been a subset of aggressive policing of teenagers.
Found it. It seems to have been either a Globe Live 3 on sale or a Globe Live 2 with a healthy mark-up.
424: 1400 seems kinda steep for that to me.
423: rules vary widely; it's legal in Massachusetts (outside of central business districts) if you go walking pace.
425: I have a car that isn't worth $1,400. On the one hand, the car costs a bunch to drive and park. On the other hand, it is harder to steal.
Also, the car goes up the hill with much less effort.
Does this bike look good for tooling around town, including hills? Somebody is selling the single speed one Craigslist for $300, but that seems a bit absurd for somebody who can remember Jimmy Carter as president to ride up a hill. Also, a bit pricey for used.
429: the gearing looks pretty good for hills. It probably isn't terribly light, but I think it'd be nice. You should go test ride one.
Do they keep my license or a credit card so I don't steal it?
|| Reuben Diaz is a fucking dumbass motherfucking asshole.|>
431: yes.
432: I have had a terrible time finding online news about that.
Is the name spelled Ruben? And is it junior or senior if it is?
Now I want a sandwich and full equality.
I was just out this evening with my friend whose great-uncle invented that sandwich.
The Omaha guy or the other guy who is a liar?
So, do you now own "the vehicle that rather nicely fits my Platonic Form of The Car I'd Like to Buy"? Or does TVTRNFMPFOTCILTB still sit sadly on the lot, or--heaven forfend--is it in the possession of another because you felt the need to give your imaginary Internet friends yet another opportunity to wank about driving a stick before purchasing it?
443: I have a test drive scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I will, of course, report back.
I will, of course, report backliveblog.
Also, on the pedestrian sub-thread: this week, I was running in the afternoon wearing a practically phosphorescent green jacket (because it was threatening to rain but never did). As I approached an intersection where I had both a green light and "Walk" signal, I noticed a car waiting to turn left across the intersection (and through the crosswalk where I was about to be).
I made eye contact with the driver a few steps before the crosswalk. She turned anyway, such that, if I didn't break stride, I would run right into the side of her car.
While I did break stride, I confess I was very, very tempted to slam into the side of her car. Which would have been really dumb of me, but I'm dumb sometimes.
You should have shouted and chased the car.
Or made an obscene hand gesture!
In other news, I am completely fascinated by this human-powered hydrofoil. I think I want one.
Good, you've done your civic duty.
448: Dude, that is the Shake Weight of human-powered water vehicle videos.
Update: first commute in the new manual-transmission vehicle. I stalled only once, and that was in front of a dude with a Ron Paul sticker on his car, which, you know, serves him right for being out on those socialist roadways.
You should practice with a Shake Weight until you get better at a stick.
