Captive Driver
@captivedriver.bsky.social
Car culture, bikes and bike infrastructure. Boston centric.
A story of cause and effect: Last November, Ontario banned cities from using speed safety cameras to issue tickets. Reckless speeding immediately surged in Toronto, Ottawa, Guelph, and cities throughout the province. A 🧵 about my latest in Bloomberg (gift link)
What Happens When Speed Cameras Get Shut Off
In 2025, Ontario banned automated traffic enforcement. Now the number of drivers exceeding the speed limit has surged, according to traffic data.
bloomberg.com
US automakers will be back asking for yet another public bailout in a few years. One of many depressingly predictable recurring cycles in US politics.
The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry With It?
The largest U.S. automakers have backed away from electric vehicles, even as global sales are booming. The decision may make them obsolete.
nytimes.com
"Zoning powers... should not be left unchecked, but should be subject to sensible controls & restrictions; & that the towns have misused their zoning powers in trying to prevent residential development through large lot zoning.” 📰 Boston Globe 📅 February 14, 1960
This IMO is the best ongoing study of NYC congestion pricing. An update w/data thru 6/26 is encouraging: "The toll raised cordon-area speeds by 11%, with little effect on air quality, consumer spending, or foot traffic. Speeds also rose outside the cordon." shoshanavasserman.com/papers/the_n...
Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.
General Motors streetcar conspiracy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Car-blindness is real! Psychologists or sociologists should study this. Giant two-ton boxes flying all around us, piloted by people who have been rendered psychopaths, regularly injuring & killing our neighbors, and many/most people just ... don't register it. It's just background noise.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 4d agoI was talking to my neighbor when a group of cyclists came by at maybe 25 mph. “That’s so dangerous,” she exclaimed. In the meantime, quite a few drivers came by at 40 mph, and she’s completely unfazed. 🤦🏻♂️
According to anti-cyclist replies, here's evidence that cars and bikes are equally dangerous: 🚗: They kill ~40000 people in the US annually 🚲: I saw a cyclist run a red light 30 years ago
Agreed! It's all about the Hierarchy of Controls. There's a reason the top of the inverted pyramid is "Elimination."
Enrico🐀@redbassett.com · 3d agoI'm not being facetious, this is a sincere take, but after spending many many hours over the years mulling solutions to distracted drivers, I've firmly landed on not removing the distracted part but rather the driver part. We need solutions to reduce phone use driving, but also driving.
"They spent middle age reinforcing the car-dependent America and then fled to the polar opposite, a dense, constantly growing, transportation alternative community." Watch it, share it 👇
I went to America’s baby boomer "utopia"
YouTube video by Phil Edwards
youtu.be
This has been a problem with Boston media (and some politicians) when they cover complete streets “controversies.” Zero due diligence on who the people are that are vocally opposed to projects. The bigger story is often which shady right wing group is behind the “local opposition” to bike lanes.
Streetsblog Chicago@chi.streetsblog.org · 4d ago"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its [bike] shoes.” - Mark Twain We made WSJ fix a factual error in their Archer piece, and debunked their claim that weekly protests were a "rebellion" rather than a political ploy. chi.streetsblog.org/2026/07/31/j...
After living in Europe for a while, it really is appalling how few bus shelters there are in the US or Canada. Most stops are just a pole, how sad
Lifted pickups are extremely dangerous. Their blind zones are enormous, and they can crush anyone or anything in their path. Keep in mind: Lift kits fall under state jurisdiction. State legislators and regulators can restrict them, or even ban them completely.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 5d agoI stopped at a red light on a road with no bike lanes, typical in Honolulu. A driver in a lifted pickup pulled up behind me, leaned out the window, and yelled, "Hey buddy, get the fuck out of my way." I promptly got on the sidewalk and waited for the green light. Cars turn people into sociopaths.
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. “I ride 10 to 15 buses some days. … I’m an activist for folks who don’t have a car. … Transportation should be for all the people.” — Marie Hoggs (1922-2018), 2005.
Great thing about living in a walkable neighborhood is that if I’m working from home and want to socialize I can just sit out on my front steps with my laptop.
In an employee town hall, Ford CEO Jim Farley reportedly said that Chinese EVs could hit U.S. soil in as little as five years.
Ford CEO Thinks Chinese EVs Could Hit The U.S. Within 5 To 10 Years: Report
Ford's CEO and other executives reportedly said its employees that Chinese EVs are headed to the U.S. within the next five to 10 years.
insideevs.com
In Q2, total global car sales fell, but EV sales *rose* -- to historic highs in at least 50 countries. The evident dangers of dependence on oil are making an impression.
Oil crisis speeds up global transition to electric cars
With the oil price soaring amid the Iran war, drivers increasingly chose electric cars over internal combustion engines from April to June this year
climatechangenews.com
A while back a driver yelled at me to “get off the sidewalk” while I was riding on the southwest corridor bike path. … oh - he was going the wrong way on gordon onto armory near the green street T station.
Gravel Influencer@gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 5d agoMy favorite thing is when drivers yell at me to "get in the bike lane" on a road that has no bike lane
They need something permanent there that doesn’t constantly get removed for the BAA 5K, Marathon, and 10K.
Peter Cheung@bostonaruban.bsky.social · 5d agoFlexposts are back on Arlington street along the Public Garden.
I often hear that it would be "too expensive" to add bicyclist detection to new vehicles in the US - where new vehicles already average ~$50k But here's a $8,350 kei car in Japan that pulls it off because New Car Assessment has made it effectively standard www.automotiveworld.com/topics/softw...
Daihatsu Smart Assist adds cyclist detection to kei cars | Automotive World
Daihatsu Smart Assist now covers turning scenarios, on a car that costs less than a mid-range family hatchback
automotiveworld.com
Whether older people are biking at all is a very clear marker of whether our streets are designed well.
Gravel Influencer@gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 6d agoWe've had a number of older pedestrians and cyclists killed by drivers recently in Massachusetts, and something I've noticed is how those deaths are treated even more dismissively than usual because of ageism and ableism. People of *all* ages and abilities deserve safe mobility.
This is TREMENDOUSLY GOOD NEWS. 1. The streets cabinet is going to heal. These are talented, experienced people. 2. The BHA center running bus lane is a go, along with a protected bike path along the Ave. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/31/m...
Wu names longtime City Hall veteran as interim chief of streets, announces next steps for Blue Hill Ave. redesign project - The Boston Globe
The personnel changes came with separate announcements that the city and the MBTA will also begin to host a series of community meetings to gather feedback on an updated design for the overhaul of Blu...
bostonglobe.com
“Cars are the most absurd means of transport in a city,” [says Jean-Louis Missika, Paris’s deputy mayor for urbanisation]. “They are parked 95% of the time. It takes two tonnes to move someone who weighs 70kg. And the denser the city, the more absurd it is.” www.ft.com/content/882e...
How Paris beat the car
Though chaotic, the city’s transition has become a global role model
ft.com
As a US bike policy guy seeing his worst fears about solving the bike safety crisis by discouraging biking, I know exactly where this is headed.
Lloyd Alter@lloydalter.bsky.social · 6d agoDemographics being what they are, “walking while old” is going to be a growing problem. I have been banging on about this for years www.treehugger.com/complaining-...
Active modes are quiet modes. Car dependency is loud. David Rojas-Rueda: “Transportation noise causes a quantifiable and unevenly distributed health burden in the United States that remains invisible to federal health surveillance.”
Reminder to politicians and their staffers to always do a bit of background on the kinds of people who are against bike lanes:
Sam@samd.bsky.social · 6d agothis guy (doomloop dispatch) literally killed a biker with his car… and he’s posting on twitter how it just made him even more anti-bike lane. The NIMBYs are not OK.
What is often overlooked is that AOC won her seat partly because her opponent opposed bike lanes and she fully supported them.
Streetsblog NYC@nyc.streetsblog.org · 2w agoWe went on a bike ride with @aoc.bsky.social youtu.be/s1-jM1SuZR0?...
We've had a number of older pedestrians and cyclists killed by drivers recently in Massachusetts, and something I've noticed is how those deaths are treated even more dismissively than usual because of ageism and ableism. People of *all* ages and abilities deserve safe mobility.
I've shared this story before, but it's a great example of how deep down, drivers aren't really mad about bikes "slowing them down." They just fundamentally hate bikes and what they view as threats to car supremacy. They simply want to assert their dominance on the roads.
Gravel Influencer@gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · last yr.I was riding on a back road in in New Hampshire in a small group when some asshole in a pickup hit my friend with his mirror. He got out and started yelling at us for slowing him down, then he got back in his car drove a bit, and stopped again to film us. Dude, you cost yourself more time being mad.
