i was gonna say, my favorite vehicles i’ve owned goes in order: my etrike, the hot red turbocharged 90s sportscar i drove in college, the late 80s nissan convertible with the popup headlights i learned to drive in, the hybrid we got right now, all the rest, and then that piece of shit barely worked had a door held on with duct tape and those awful automatic seatbelts but these made a RUHRUHRUH sound because they didn’t retract all the way when you got out and it had a leaky radiator that the dude who owned it before me thought you could fix by cracking an egg into it fucking garbage 94 Ford Tempo. It was Blue.
which is to say i’m a big fan of the motorcycle idea or just ebikes
Come to vietnam. Outside of HCMC and Hanoi, where there are so many bikes they recreate the issues with cars, the freedom and flexibility of 90%+ of the population using motorbikes is good for your soul. The emissions of 8 million 10 year old bikes is bad for your lungs tho.
China is kinda ahead in that they have both bikes, ebikes/scooters, and public transit, but theres way more cars.
I miss the Saigon of 2007, when I first moved there. There were hardly any cars other than taxis. Over the 6 years before I stopped living there, the change was immense. And last time I went back, in 2022, it was overrun with cars. And worse: it’s cars driven by people clearly trying to drive like they’re on motorbikes. All over the place, not sticking to lanes. It was absolute chaos. Especially down some of the narrow laneways clearly not built for cars.
The average car driver has gotten a bit better, I’ve only been hit by 1 driver not understanding how big their vehicle was (and 1 driver not hitting the ebrake/engaging the clutch and rolling back into my bike before I could get out of the way). But yeah, even 1 car for every 20 bikes fucks up traffic for everyone, especially when they have to stop to crawl by a parked car or something. I have some hope things will improve as Hanoi bans ICE engines inside the city and other cities take notice.
Even so, I will take riding in the worst HCMC traffic over America’s psychotic, egotistical drivers.
oh, i don’t need to visit vietnam for that, i live near (and used to live in) a college town with about three times as many bicycles as cars. only time we got in the car was to leave town.
The important part isn’t that you have the bike, its that very few people use cars, so there streets have the capacity to transport hundreds a minute, a dozen people can park in front of a 15 foot wide shop.
that sounds like the main bike corridor of this town, yeah. only place in the state i know of where police take the laws around bikes like helmets and lights at night seriously.
i was gonna say, my favorite vehicles i’ve owned goes in order: my etrike, the hot red turbocharged 90s sportscar i drove in college, the late 80s nissan convertible with the popup headlights i learned to drive in, the hybrid we got right now, all the rest, and then that piece of shit barely worked had a door held on with duct tape and those awful automatic seatbelts but these made a RUHRUHRUH sound because they didn’t retract all the way when you got out and it had a leaky radiator that the dude who owned it before me thought you could fix by cracking an egg into it fucking garbage 94 Ford Tempo. It was Blue.
which is to say i’m a big fan of the motorcycle idea or just ebikes
Come to vietnam. Outside of HCMC and Hanoi, where there are so many bikes they recreate the issues with cars, the freedom and flexibility of 90%+ of the population using motorbikes is good for your soul. The emissions of 8 million 10 year old bikes is bad for your lungs tho.
China is kinda ahead in that they have both bikes, ebikes/scooters, and public transit, but theres way more cars.
I miss the Saigon of 2007, when I first moved there. There were hardly any cars other than taxis. Over the 6 years before I stopped living there, the change was immense. And last time I went back, in 2022, it was overrun with cars. And worse: it’s cars driven by people clearly trying to drive like they’re on motorbikes. All over the place, not sticking to lanes. It was absolute chaos. Especially down some of the narrow laneways clearly not built for cars.
The average car driver has gotten a bit better, I’ve only been hit by 1 driver not understanding how big their vehicle was (and 1 driver not hitting the ebrake/engaging the clutch and rolling back into my bike before I could get out of the way). But yeah, even 1 car for every 20 bikes fucks up traffic for everyone, especially when they have to stop to crawl by a parked car or something. I have some hope things will improve as Hanoi bans ICE engines inside the city and other cities take notice.
Even so, I will take riding in the worst HCMC traffic over America’s psychotic, egotistical drivers.
oh, i don’t need to visit vietnam for that, i live near (and used to live in) a college town with about three times as many bicycles as cars. only time we got in the car was to leave town.
I’m not exaggerating about seeing 10+ bikes for every car in some locations. https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/1690616/only-nine-per-cent-of-households-in-viet-nam-own-a-car.html
The important part isn’t that you have the bike, its that very few people use cars, so there streets have the capacity to transport hundreds a minute, a dozen people can park in front of a 15 foot wide shop.
that sounds like the main bike corridor of this town, yeah. only place in the state i know of where police take the laws around bikes like helmets and lights at night seriously.