this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
75 points (93.1% liked)

Europe

8484 readers
1 users here now

News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures

Rules

(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)

  1. Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
  2. No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
  3. No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.

Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

First of all, let's try to avoid American-bashing, and stay respectful to everyone.

I'll start: for me it's the tipping culture. Especially nowadays, with the recent post on !mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world with the 40% tip, it just seems so weird to me to have to pay extra just so that menu prices can stay low.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Rule14@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I've never understood why the drinking age is higher than the driver licence age.

And taking away voting rights from felons.

Both baffle me.

[–] Estiar@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Voting is generally handled at the state level, so preventing felons from voting is a state thing. That said, they already did time, why punish them further by disenfranchisement?

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve never understood why the drinking age is higher than the driver licence age.

Because driving is a necessity and drinking is not.

And taking away voting rights from felons.

That's an instrument of oppression. Our right-wing party wins by stopping people from voting.

[–] rurudotorg@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

With some infrastructure near your housing and a working public transport, driving isn't a necessity.

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

How? If you live in a suburb, even with working public transport, there could be dozens of stops between home and work.

[–] MilderRichter@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

why would the number of stops be a problem?

when i went to secondary school there were 13 bus stops (15 minutes) and when i went to university there were 12 train stops (30 minutes). And i wouldn't classify either of those as a long commute

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The stops, and the indirect route the bus must take to reach all of those stops, greatly increases travel time, and by “greatly increases” I mean by a factor of 2 to 3.

For example, Google Maps estimates that, to travel from the suburban apartment complex where I live to a business building in the next town, it would take 12 minutes by car or 42 minutes by bus. And yes, there are bus stops close to both the start and end points of this route; that time is actually spent riding a bus, not walking.

Outside of densely-packed cities, public transit is, by its nature, slow. Very, very slow. More public transit doesn't change that. It might decrease how long you spend waiting for a bus to arrive, but the bus still has to make the same stops along the same indirect route, so it's not going to be any faster once you're aboard.

Cars are popular for a reason. It's not just some anti-competitive car-industry conspiracy. Public transit very much exists where I live, and whenever I see a bus on the road, there's almost never more than a few people aboard. Buses are quite clearly viewed as transportation of last resort.

[–] uint8_t@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

rural areas here have buses with stop-on-demand. the bus continues on when no one is in the stop AND no one on board has pressed the stop button. very convenient.

[–] nerdovic@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

With some infrastructure near your housing and a working public transport, driving isn't a necessity.