this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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Fuck Cars
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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Yes!
Finally a nuanced take in this community.
Cars wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t so oversized
Smaller cars will continue to kill a few billion animals yearly. They will also continue to kill around a million of humans every year, or about one human every 30 seconds.
The area covered by parking lots is mostly impervious and contributes to flooding as well as heat islands. Cars and parking lots make cities hotter and are worsening climate change. They also contribute to noise pollution. And no, electric cars are not better for noise because at highway speed they are as noisy as fossil fuel cars, and at low speed, their pedestrian warning system is also louder than fossil fuel cars.
I can be nuanced and understand that some people will always need a car, but most people in the world live in a town, a suburb, or a city, and the existence of the vast majority of those cars cannot be justified, whatever their size. Of course smaller cars are desirable. Electric cars are desirable A mix of electric and smaller would be better than status quo. But fewer cars is even more desirable.
Hasn't been my experience, not that I disagree with your overall argument. Might differ by country and regulations etc.
It does vary depending on the manufacturer. Some are pretty quiet. I can't hear any Tesla "honking at low volume" when they pass by, but they probably just don't comply with new regulations. I find Hyundai to be the worst.
I live in a tower at the intersection of a busy street with traffic lights and I can hear the Hyundai EVs while sitting in my couch when the windows are open. In fact, they're open right now and I can clearly hear a Chevrolet EV decelerating before coming to a stop at the traffic light while I'm typing this. Toyota EVs are also pretty loud. Granted I can also hear loud and modified fossil fuel engines but most of them usually blend into a white noise.
When walking around the smaller streets of my neighbourhood, cars are going pretty slow and the noises of Hyundai, Chevrolet and Toyota EVs definitely stand out. It's weird because I'm a pedestrian. I don't have a car. I hate them. And I want them to be secure for pedestrians. But some of those warning systems are so loud and annoying that I wish they would just be quiet.
The ugliest urban environments were designed around older cars, long before SUVs were the norm. Like you said, it's not just the car, but also the infrastructure it requires.
I'd honestly argue the infrastructure is the bigger issue because of all the other shit it influences as well. The poor infrastructure is a massive factor in both pedestrian and occupant safety, it makes cities spread out and inefficient, which causes all the buildings to also be leff effecient (more walls exposed rather than shared with other buildings etc).
The scale and lack of established alternatives makes it very difficult for even a small city to make minor changes without extreme push back (speed cameras and bike lanes were made illegal on province wide scale in my area, making it hard for a city to make improvements to cycling and speeding).
This hasn't even touched on the environmental factors, road noise, or maintaince budgets. The infrastructure is the biggest part of the problem, it has gone on long enough to let the SUV become so wide spread.
And if there weren't so many of them.
Speaking as an American: And if there were realistic options to driving.
We suffer from decades of society built up around the assumption that Cars Are The Way, and infrastructure/systems built around supporting cars. Zoning laws that separate business from homes, funding for supporting car infrastructure but not public transit, etc.
What we have, we have because people profited from ensuring cars were the solution most people moved to, then spending that money lobbying for numerous initiatives to ensure life was extremely inconvenient if you didn't have a car.
The solution is neither "accusing anti-car people of having so sense of what's going on", nor "accusing car people of blindly feeding into a bad system". It's gonna take holding industries and lobbyists to account, and sustained action by many concerned citizens across multiple venues.
And if Americans could drive. Majority limply hold the steering wheel with one hand, more concerned with looking cool than being in control of their 5 ton truck of entitlement.
And if they didn't pollute so much
Edit: oh and the traffic accidents of course! But aside from their size, the required infrastructure, their number, the pollution, and the traffic accidents, cars are totally fine!
Edit 2: And the noise! But other than those things...
And noise
“Fuck cars”, like “ACAB”, is often a quick tagline to a problem people understand is more nuanced. I don’t think so many people here would literally like all cars in existence to be crushed in a heap.
I left reddit because I was apparently too anti car for /r/fuckcars. If this community becomes like the reddit diluted sub where people were making car apology and justifying their use, I'm going to be very disappointed.
I would really love that all cars in existence be crushed into a heap. It's a fantasy and I know it won't happen. I can compromise. But if most could be crushed in a heap, that would be very great too.
Literally most though. And I agree.
Public transport is the way to go.
Exceptions for delivery and trucks for construction, emergency services etc.
I'd like that. Take however much chaos or inefficiency you think that day would cause, now imagine centuries of climate change.
I suspect you and I are saying "fuck cars" for very different reasons
Does it involve dragons?
Sight. Unzip.
No. Fuck cars.
Cars also have become bigger because of safety standards and regulations. Like even small cars like a Volkswagen Polo have become larger than their 80’s/90’s counterparts while the interior space didn’t increase that much.
That doesn't explain ever expanding legroom and cabin space though. Why is every new generation of car an inch larger in each direction? The human body isn't on average getting taller at anywhere near the scale that cars are (though maybe we are getting a bit wider...)
Mazda MX-5/Miata current generation is about the same size (i think 5cm or so longer) as the original with modern safety features, it's possible to keep the footprint small
Still they could be smaller than they are now even with higher security requirements. Almost nobody needs a jeep, suv and van. Get some small cars that meet your requirements (besides compensating your erectile disfunction).