This is not out in some rural town. This is in Portland, OR about 2 miles from downtown. Personal vehicles this large are simply incompatible with urban living and pressure their owners to continually break traffic law. Technically that Miata is parked as close to the stop sign as it can legally be, but as the Denali doesn’t fit in many places around here it’s owner is compelled to park across both the stop sign and the crosswalk.
Follow up: To whatever bootlicking idiot called PBOT and asked for enforcement on this block, it didn’t help. It made things worse just like I cautioned such actions do in the discussion below. They didn’t ticket the truck (Which was indeed parking in front of the stop sign this morning) but they did ticket just about every-other car parked on this street for non-street safety related things like parked wrong orientation, literal broken window, expired registration, etc. You probably cost my neighbors a few thousand dollars in combined citations for minor procedural issues, now everybody is miserable and the truck is still parked there. Please, never ever do that again. Your fantasy of calling law enforcement to fix all the problems is not what happens in real life. It doesn’t matter who they are, NEVER CALL THE COPS ON YOUR NEIGHBORS.
put a note on the windshield: “please take care to better manage your genders affirming vehicle.”
Funny enough the right front fender of the Miata has a bunch of trans rights stickers. I’d rather not make assumptions about the Denali owner but it would sure make for an even more stark contrast.
I think you’re allowed to make a bunch of assumptions about the Denali owner here. That’s kinda what they did all that for in the first place.
They’re clearly being a dick with nothing more than a parking job, so it’s far more likely they are actually dicks IRL and noticed the same thing on the miata and chose to be dicks about it.
Sometimes, the other person being an intolerable, selfish, bigoted asshole, is exactly the thing we can and should assume about people in certain situations. Situations like this one.
Funny enough the right front fender of the Miata has a bunch of trans rights stickers
Well yeah, it’s a “hairdresser’s car.” Obviously, all Miata owners are inferior girly men, so of course the trans rights sticker fits right in!
(I own a Miata myself, so I’m entitled to make that joke. BTW, other cars I’ve owned include a VW New Beetle and two minivans, so I’ll let folks draw their own conclusions about my confidence in my masculinity. But just to be clear, anybody else trying to make that joke without heavy, obvious sarcasm is gonna get banned for violating rule 2, though.)
Also, maybe there could be an ambiguity between “trans[gender] rights” and “[manual] trans[mission] rights,” LOL. “Save the manuals” is a big deal among Miata owners, after all.
That gives me an idea for a new bumper sticker, for a very specific kind of car owner. Not 100% sure where it lies on the line between funny and insensitive, though, so I’m gonna put the quick mockup I just made in a spoiler tag so folks don’t see it unless they specifically want to.
hopefully clever and not offensive
am transfem, can barely drive a stick, but you get a pass from me
Or maybe, someone who has the strength of character to choose a car on merit, without needing a tank to make them feel safe, is more likely to NOT be hostile to those who may be different from the norm, again because they’re not scaredy little fucks who are afraid of everything and have to appear intimidating all the time.
Emotional support vehicle
Where I live the speed has recently been reduced from 30 mph to 15 mph in an effort to make the area more livable. Roads have been narrowed with more room for trees, sidewalks and bike paths. As well as artificial choke points and high speed bumps, all in an effort to improve life for the people living there. This is done alongside an effort to create larger high speed roads around the area and push cars to use those, which are the long way around but since they are higher speed still faster.
However fucking idiots driving these huge trucks can just go across the speed bumps at 45 mph and they rush all the choke point no matter if they have the right of way or not. When such a huge thing comes rushing at you, you move out of the way. They also regularly cut across parts where cars aren’t supposed to go. For example tight corners where the side walk is lower so larger delivery trucks and busses can still make the corner by cutting across the side walk a bit. Regular cars are supposed to just drive around them and in a regular car the kerb will make sure people don’t normally do that. The big trucks however use them all the time as they don’t even notice the kerb.
Since car brains experience the efforts to slow everything down as obstacles to overcome, more and more choose to drive these huge trucks and drive any speed and route they want. This actually goes against all the efforts to make the area better for pets, bicycles and people.
We desperately need max weight and size limits for cars.
Get the city to install chicanes with trees planted in them. You can’t just roll over those and a landship like that is going to have to slow down a lot to maneuver through them.
But yeah, I’d love tax brackets depending on car size. Huge trucks pay more, kei cars pay less. That would make a lot of sense for city liveability and road maintenance.
But yeah, I’d love tax brackets depending on car size. Huge trucks pay more, kei cars pay less.
Ironically, that effort is what landed us in our current predicament. There was a clean air push, and the government wanted to start regulating fuel efficiency in vehicles. They were going to start requiring vehicles to hit certain efficiency minimums. But auto manufacturers lobbied to add a tiny little “efficiency can reduce as vehicle size increases” provision. They said it was because larger cars were naturally less efficient, so they needed that exception to be able to reasonably hit the efficiency targets.
In reality, what happened is the auto manufacturers started making larger and larger cars, so they didn’t have to deal with making efficient vehicles. Because the less efficient engines are cheaper to produce at scale and they can sell them for more. They started doing huge advertisement and astroturfing campaigns, to get people into the “bigger is better” mindset for cars… And it fucking worked. Americans almost universally drive massive cars now, purely because auto manufacturers didn’t want to be held to efficiency standards.
Well, yeah, if the car makers can add exceptions to the law and turn it upside down then the law becomes useless.
I explicitly wouldn’t allow that exception. If larger cars are less efficient then disincentivizing their use by means of higher taxes is clearly beneficial to society. If you want to drive that three-ton gas guzzler then you can surely afford that 30% higher vehicle tax. If you can’t, might I interest you in this comparatively efficient and tax-reduced Subaru Sambar?
Mind you, I would apply different rules to things like semi trucks that (at least in my part of the world) you can’t drive without a special license. But if you can drive it with a regular European class B license then the tax should scale progressively with size and mass because making larger and less efficient cars unattractive is specifically the point.
Holy shit, TIL about Chicanes! I’m definitely going to lobby my city for those!
Time to start hucking bricks at passing trucks
Your city is doing riiiiight! I hear you regarding the growing pains, but the successes are glorious. I’m proud of you!
Why does GMC Denali, the largest one, not simply eat the other one?
Indigestion in the form of a Mini Pooper.
If your truck is that clean, you should not have a truck.
You just spat in the face of 90% of full size truck owners, and I’m here for it. Well done good sir/ma’am. Carry on.
I have a F150 for work. Today I towed my 10K trailer for two loads with 4,750lbs and 6,500ln on it. I also drove offroad for around 20 miles. I would love to drive a smaller vehicle. I got the smallest vehicle that I could find the job. It’s stock on everything except for some all terrain tires. I still hop in my wife’s car to drive around town.
My neighbor has a truck like the one above. He got groceries in it today. He’s an pharmacist.
Your neighbor has fantasies about cowboy hats and wheat fields. You use your 1/2 ton properly.
I’m am pretty sure I’ve hauled more with my little hatchback than this person has with their truck.
To put that thing to shame, I’ve traveled internationally in a Honda Fit that was packed like a clown car.
I know a guy who got seriously mad that kids drew hearts in the dust on his f350. Sir, if you are concerned about the paint on your vehicle being scratched, sell your truck and get a car.
I’m old enough to remember when trucks were tools and not fashion statements. It’s a completely bewildering experience to go to a modern dealership and see the cheapest truck be a $70,000 luxury minivan in a trenchcoat.
See also: baseball caps
And tennis shoes
Canada Goose parkas
“B.B.BUUUT MY FRAUDULENT RURALITY”
to be fair its function is to make people in 1800s-platted, narrow downtown Portland streets afraid that they’ll be run down by this idiot who can’t see where he’s going. If he actually went out with his vehicle he’d probably own a Land Cruiser like the rest of the Portland off-road bros
Luxury pickups are such a stupid class of vehicle.
pavement princesses
The thing about America is that it’s full of loud, obnoxious assholes who do not take kindly to you if you point out the fact that they’re assholes (even subtly and without using that verbiage).
So nailed it, they get so mad for being told a simple truth that anyone can plainly see. Is it possible that inside their heads they’re the good guy? That simple reality enrages them?
Narcissists always see themselves as the hero or the victim. Either way, you’re wrong for suggesting they change a god damned thing about themselves.
I think many of them know they suck deep down somewhere as well. If anyone points it out, it confirms their innermost doubts and pisses them off immeasurably.
I’m not 100% on board with the whole “fuck cars” thing but fuck that truck’s owner sideways.
Same. I’m not fuck cars, but I am fuck lifted oversized for no reason trucks. Double fuck em if they’re plastered with a bunch of lights.
I fuck cars. What now?
Always make sure you get consent and wear protection.
don’t go overboard with the foreplay. Its tailpipe will get too hot
Have you ever been in places that weren’t designed around cars? Here in Japan its night and day between places where half the land is parking lots and roads, theres like 2 businesses within a 15 minute walk, and every hotel runs its own shuttle, and places where anyone can get basically anywhere in 15-20 minutes.
That sounds great but I don’t live there and unless my city magically grows that kind of infrastructure, I can’t stop having a car.
My point is having seen both developments is certain to make someone anti-car, because it shows how much of a blight car-centric development is. I wasnt suggesting you, personally, should sell your car and stop having a job or being able to move around would somehow be productive.
Yeah. I’ve had some friction in this community too but damn, FTS.
its owner is compelled to park across both the stop sign and the crosswalk.
To me, it’s more a case of the owner feeling entitled to do this. They have the (likely easier and much cheaper) option of buying a vehicle that’s appropriate to the primary environment they’ll be operating it in, and chose not to. This isn’t compulsion, it’s just another in a chain of selfish decisions.
Compelled to compensate for their insecurities about their masculinity
Yup! It always comes back to this
I want a japanese kei car. They make the mazda look like it’s a monster truck. Something like the Daihatsu Copen.
At this point the only way you’re ever getting me into a truck is one of those cute little fuckers
My problem is I LOVE cars. I didn’t realize this was c/fuckcars when I posted. Woops. Legitimately, I understand the consternation at huuuuuge SUVs and trucks like this. I drive to work (and I love it) - but the truck/suv to car ratio on the road is like 10:1. In the middle of the city… it’s fucking stupid - and I look inside the vehicles. Always driven by a single person with no cargo. Ideally, I want a 1-person, 1-seater car. I want the stability of 4 wheels, the cage for protection/air conditioning, etc and nothing beyond that.
My problem is I LOVE cars. I didn’t realize this was c/fuckcars when I posted. Woops.
Nah, you’re fine. Don’t tell anybody, but…
spoiler
…I’m secretly a “car guy” myself. There are dozens of us!
In all seriousness, there’s absolutely no dichotomy between being a car enthusiast and hating how cities are designed to force normies to overuse cars. You are very much welcome here and in the right place.
My problem is I LOVE cars. I didn’t realize this was c/fuckcars when I posted. Woops.
Honestly, you are still in the right community.
Making sure that there are plenty of public transit options, and making it so that a car is not the only possible form of transportation helps get people who don’t want to be a part of traffic out of traffic.
People who love to drive should really be the ones most loudly pushing for the end of car-dependency.
The slogan “fuck cars” is for grabbing attention, I think most of us understand that cars can have their place and many of us, me included, own a car. But cars as the de facto mode of transport and the de facto determining element in infrastructure design is incredibly harmful to society, especially in cities. Kei trucks are a great example of a car adapted for urban use and frustratingly, in the US there is a lot of legislation specifically against their use and they’re essentially luxury vehicles due to the high import fees levied against them (Which is just insane, they’re stripped-down utilitarian vehicles!). A lot of SUV and truck owners in cities would prefer a kei, yet they’re made unobtainable by intentional legislation that incentivizes these huge blimp trucks.
I had a smart car for a while. I wish they had caught on, but they were seriously hampered by price and the goddamn transmission was indescribably bad. 1 person car is great and all but by the time you’ve got cargo space, a second seat is reasonable.
The upcoming slate trucks are looking promising. About the size of a Kei truck, and absurdly customizable.
Hate the low default range though. 150 miles, and I have not yet researched the adoption rate of EV chargers for highway gas stops.
Check out Telo. :)
I considered them too. They got everything nearly right, and then they put the HVAC controls on the touchscreen. If they fix that before mass production, I’ll look again.
If I see Telo, Aptera, or Slate, I upvote.
150 is plenty for a truck that size. It’s a round-town car, not a highway cruiser.
However, if you charge to 80% and keep 20% in reserve, you’ll get 90 miles out of that 150mile battery. You’d be stopping about every hour and a half to charge for 15 minutes or so if you were doing a long trip.
80% of 150 is 120 which is much more reasonable for an around the town car
Yes. Don’t forget about a 20% reserve. Deep discharge is bad for the battery too.
Also the affiliation with Amazon sucks =\
Not as effective but an easy temp fix is to put a small rock under the cap and screw it back on. Most effective if two tires are done so they can’t just swap a spare, not that this chud knows how to change a tire or has a 5’ tall jack to lift the truck 6" to do the work.
“failed to load media”
tiny drill
Assuming they’re just regular schrader valves, you don’t need a special tool. You can even just use a pencil or ballpoint if you just want to let out the air. It’s less risky for you than taking out the valve.
Call the police. Get their ass ticketed. That shit is illegal for a reason. Going to get someone killed.
I’m a vendor who works at a local jail, and I can almost park my Japanese import under the officer’s stupidly oversized maga trucks. But that doesn’t blow my mind. You know what does? A sworn officer whose civic duty is to serve and protect the public, badging his car on all sides with giant Decepticon emblems…so yeah, before you call the popo about big bad trucks parking illegally, find out what they drive!
Desceoticon emblems?
I am also interested in the connection to far right. Just did a search and didn’t find anything.
Here’s a reddit thread with some possible leads. Basically the Deception logo is commonly found along Trump and Qanon enthusiasts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/uhmo2m/whats_the_deal_with_decepticon_logos_on/
But even before all the recent political correlations, the Deception logo stood for oppression, enslavement, extreme violence and cruelty. Not exactly the most desirable qualities one would look for in law enforcement officers.
I may be a bit biased though. Both my cars have Autobot emblems 🤖
I’m 48 and that’s more cars than I’ve owned in my entire life.
I hate needing them. I live in an area with virtually no mass transportation, no cycling lanes, and everything is so spread out you could easily perish from dehydration just walking to the market. Previously I lived in L.A. for 20 years and never owned a car there, I biked and bussed everywhere. No matter where in L.A. you are, it only took 3 busses or less to get to a trailhead in the Angeles National Forest. Man I miss those days!
Ticketed and towed.
Towed especially, ticket is just icing on the shit cake.
Wow, crazy. I’m not sure that would be allowed on the road here in the UK. How do you see where you’re going when you’re driving? How do you get in?
I was sitting outside a restaurant eating breakfast the other day, a man was there with a small but rotund elderly woman who seemed to be his mother. They got up to leave and lo and behold, they head for the lifted Denali parked in the nearby handicap spot. Dude opens the passenger door and pulls out a legit, three step ladder and helps his mother climb up with great difficulty for both parties involved. I would have expected some cursing and complaining from the lady, about what a stupid truck that was and how she cannot possibly be expected climb into this absurd vehicle. But she looked fine. Used to it.
Appreciate you answering my unasked question
In most of Europe you’d need a truck license before even attempting to get it road legal.
In the UK, at least a while back, the Mazda wasn’t actually that small a car but it’s made to look tiny in comparison.
I wonder what an original mini would look like
The original mini had a wheelbase of just over 3m, width just under 1.5m, and a height of 1.3m.
The original Miata had a wheelbase of just under 4m, 1.6m width, and a height of like 1.6m (with the hard top, which adds like 16in)
Edit: the original mini had a curb weight of just shy of 1300lbs and mad 76hp, while the Miata was like 2000lbs and made 116hp
Wow, I had no idea that the Mazda was taller than the mini, fascinating
Well, with the soft top the Miata was ever so slightly shorter. The Miata is ~123cm tall, while the mini was ~135mm tall
most of the wankers literally climb up a step
Innocent until proven guilty.
Denali is a trim level not a model, that’s a Sierra 2500 HD.
The Denali badge is just an extra “fuck you, look at my money” on top of the everything else going on here.
You mean “look at my massive truck payment”. People like this are the reason those of us who do use trucks for what they’re made for aka work, have an ever shrinking used market and a non existent new market for normal trim trucks to pick from. These idiots have shown the manufacturers that people buy these pavement princess’s for no reason other than to show off.
GMC will not stop until the Miata can drive right under it.
I think parking your Miata under someone’s truck would be a hilarious prank.
…my elise could clear delivery trailers parked at the grocery store; my MX-5 could not…
Compelled? Compelled??
