Rant About Street Legal Transportation

Why are these vehicles illegal to drive on city streets?








But not this?






ATVs have the same speed and capabilities as motorcycles. The larger Polaris 5-seater ATVs are even safer than motorcycles and bikes. And they're more fuel efficient than most sedans.



I don't care if you like riding your bike. I like my bike too. But my god the cyclists on the road never obey the rules of the road and feel that the rules don't apply to them. They run stop signs/lights, hog a full lane and stall traffic and go real slow.

 

Because only knobs drive them.

 

a bicycle is legally entitled to take the full lane, just so you know.

 

Yeah no airbags, turn signals, any of that stuff a car needs. A normal bike gets a pass because that is how it's designed I assume. It was never meant to have an airbag. Also the potential for you to cause damage with something with a motor vs. something without is very different. There needs to be higher standards for gas powered vehicles.

 

depends where you live

its perfectly legal here for me to take my atv down the roads ...its one of the perks of not being in the main city


for a while it was atvs only...specifically had to have 4 tires ..steering bars (not a wheel) and they used the word "straddle" ......so the side by side utes were not allowed (because obviously you dont straddle them and they have steering wheels)...but now the side by sides are allowed too


....as long as the atv/ute driver has a drivers licence and liability insurance



i suppose bicycles are allowed because they pre-date just about every other vehicle that doesnt get pulled by an animal

 

Because It's difficult to murder someone with a bicycle. Unless you're Alice Cooper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FHAEWS5XXo

 

And motorcycles and bicycles do? How are they any safer than ATVs?

 

Just because it's legal, doesn't make it right.

 

bicycles dont need to meet safety requirements because they arent powered by engines

 

Technically they could be ticketed for obstructing traffic. It's illegal to drive too far under the speed limit but most cops are not going to bother.

 

of course politics enteres into how safety is defined, and what is and is not an acceptable risk, and so on.
and the insurance industry's political influence is a big part of it.

(which is why the restriction on orv's, it is by the way, a state option, and in some states a local option,
as to what to license allow where. i happen to live in a state, where outside of cities, which can and do make their own traffic ordinances,
damd near anything is legal. though for the interstate it has to be able to blend with the flow of other traffic.
being visible to other drivers is a common sense safety consideration too.)

and yes, traffic safety DOES require giving two wheels the same space as four.
its not about how much space they occupy, but how much it takes for YOU to not run over them!
(that part ought to not take rocket science to figure out)

if it were up to me, those personal off road vehicles, would be the ONLY personal motor vehicles,
and only for places too remote for minimal form factor public transportation to be practicle.

america's obsession with bigness is totally assinign on general principals,
but small vehicles don't mix safely well with large ones.

the bicycle thing also have many variations from place to place.

 

the only transportation that should be legal on public city streets is public transportation,

and that should run on narrow gauge rails and the remainder of pavement be removed and replaced with parks and gardens.
by streets of course i assume we are talking about densely populated places like cities and their suburbs.

rural roads are another matter,
but minimal form factor public transit infrastructure could be practical in much smaller communities then currently contemplate the concept,
and propelled strictly by only clean sources of energy also.

well if the question is going to be raised, that is certainly my opinion on the subject.

i do like the idea of personal vehicles being personal sized though, and only those, INSTEAD of giant wasteful of space and energy cars common now.

(much as i have in the past enjoyed 'road trips' on back roads to out of the way places,
they really don't explain why anyone would want to drive (anything) in city traffic)

 

I disagree with your public transportation should be the only option. While it is handy for some, it isn't handy for all. Personal vehicles allow you to go wherever, whenever. Personal Transportation equals Freedom. However I do agree that small personal sized vehicles should be OK for road use. If they let people ride their ATVs to work, we could save a ton of energy if the driver needed a quick errand.

 

except that it doesn't. and is needlessly wasteful of the environment too. which is where everything it takes to sustain life ultimately comes from.
but about that freedom thing, you forget the indenture it takes to aquire, fuel and maintain them. pretty much at least as much as the time spent waiting for a bus.
the only reason there isn't super minimal form factor public transportation to all those places you need your own to get to now,
is the politics bating and switching you on what you've been conned into thinking is freedom.

if you really live a long way from other people, and or really want to, that's one thing, but for 95% of today's world's population who live in or near a larger community of some kind,
the idea that that kind of indenture is any kind of freedom is utter and absolute bullshit.

its a wonderfully romantic illusion, but it ain't freedom.