1024
Ban cars from populated areas
(lemmy.nz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
1024 points (98.3% liked)
Fuck Cars
16853 readers
1154 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm sure you've thought of this, but maybe just get a motorcycle? They're not that much harder to ride than a Vespa, and while they're a bit more dangerous, most of the danger either way is getting hit by a car...
A lot of what made Vespa-type scooters historically pretty cheap was the 2-stroke motors, which are being phased out because they're unreliable and bad for the environment. But, they were cheap. Unfortunately, as you've discovered, the 4-stroke scooters are now much more expensive. And for whatever reason we're not importing a lot of electric scooters (tho where I live people love renting those Lime scooters, but you can't like, buy an equivalent vehicle).
Random thought that may not be helpful: When I lived in NYC there were lots of delivery guys with electric scooters. Maybe try to find out where they're getting them?
Huh, just found a 2000 Whizzer Motorbike for sale for $800 on craigslist. That might be my speed. Apparently they top out at 40 mph but that would probably be OK.
I get the sense that you are making your choices based on how intimidating the aesthetics are rather than the actual way they ride.
There's a reason we moved away from that design a century ago. The suspension, wide tires, frame geometry, etc on a modern bike or scooter all make it easier to control.
A small-wheel scooter with a low rake angle sacrifices stability for convenience and compactness.
Stability in this case means how much the thing wants to stay up while under power, a scooter might lean over and start trying to turn if you just reach up to adjust your glasses with 1 hand without being careful to keep the it going straight. The benefit of low stability is that you can lean the scooter over with less effort and stand it back up quicker when you want to go around turns.
Maybe ask friends if you can just try out their bikes before you make any decisions.
I just don't see any electric scooters around here anywhere. I kind of have my eye on this thing called an Aventura-X which is a vespa-style electric scooter that can go 35 mph ($3K) or 50 mph ($5K). I feel like that price kind of defeats the idea in the first place, and I still couldn't get it serviced anywhere.
I'm straight-up afraid of motorcycles; somehow the sit-down style of a vespa seems more accommodating. You're of course right about the danger of being hit, but I'm already an avid bicyclist so I assume I'm going to die that way anyway. I could just ride my bike everywhere, but of course that's slower and the logistics of getting a bike ready for a ride is the big pain in the ass.
Motorcycles occupy a weird place culturally in America. Here in Vietnam, they're as mundane and scary as cars in the US. I uploaded an entirely unremarkable drive across town from last night, maybe seeing everyone from grandmas to children on bikes will help break that perception.
omg they have a sidecar for dogs, that's hilarious. And swappable batteries? I kinda love these, TBH. But yeah gotta go with what you can get a local shop to work on. If you already ride bicycles, I'm sure you've considered the e-bike thing. I have too but they're also really expensive, the one I wanted ended up being like $8K and I was like bruh that's used car prices.
Shit, I know some people with bicycles that cost nearly $20K. Meanwhile I have a fleet of '90s hybrids that I paid $50 to $100 for on craigslist.
Some of the roads I drive on for local errands are 45 mph and I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that on an e-bike.