He’s clearly still a car guy, just not a dumb, out of touch narcissist. He can recognize that driving in cities being miserable is a sign you shouldn’t drive in cities.
Moreover, he always seemed to be the one with the greatest environmental awareness among the entire TopGear team.
Never seen the show really, what things did he generally talk about or do that makes you feel that way?
it’s more about his actions outside it.
Remember the Vietnam special? I loved that episode so much and how miserable Clarkson was riding that Vespa hehe. May and Hammod were enjoying it since they are both bikers.
just not a dumb, out of touch narcissist.
Not something that can be said of all of the Top Gear guys…
More cycling instead of driving will make the times when you to do go driving more fun. And the whole show James was part of was about having fun, not about how to waste your life stuck in traffic.
And, as a person who owns a sportscar but takes the metro everywhere, it’s nice that I don’t need to put so many unnecessary and hard miles on it all the time. It’s already 10 years old but it should last a good long time not needing to being constantly heat cycled every day just to make a bunch of 15-30min trips.
It’s like people in cars forget that they are also able to walk. The very idea of getting around on foot is so foreign to them as to be an insane, impossible notion.
Precisely! That’s what I don’t get about drivers complaining about cyclists!? More cyclists means less bumper to bumper traffic crawling painfully through clogged up city grids! You should be embracing separated cycleways even more so, then you don’t even have to see us! You just get to enjoy less traffic, quicker travel, reduced stress/road rage incidents etc!
I find cycling to be more fun than driving on average, but I also never really get to cut loose driving.
I love to cycle and live to drive, cycling at rush hour is way more fun than driving and way quicker. Driving along a windy mountain road is also really good fun, or even going on a lazy Sunday drive with windows down can be really nice. And finally screaming down a dirt track on a mountain bike is also really good fun, and I can’t wait to teach my daughters how
I wish this was c/fuckcars and I could make a comment about the much louder one off that programmme - just his name breaks the verbal abuse rule though. :(
E-scooters are still illegal where I live, there is virtually no cycling infrastructure unless you enjoy cycling on pedestrian walkways, and the public transport is dire. Driving a car is sadly the only reliable method of transport. I wish it wasn’t this way.
The issue right now is not that things were broken a long time ago but that these days so many people resist and attempt to repair the damage. Like, every single person who doesn’t want such car-centric infrastructure knows that the current state of many places is not good and they seek to improve it. Telling us that isn’t saying anything new and just reads as not wanting to actually have to put any effort in to fixing the problem.
Vote for people that want to improve the situation and tell people who get mad about bike lanes and narrower roads to shove it up their asses.
This is so where I am as well, but everyone rides electric scooters everywhere anyway and it seems it’s one of the few things (thus far) our overzealous and quasi-fascist police department doesn’t hassle anyone over.
I’ll also point out that James May himself is an avid owner and rider of motorcycles, as am I, which are also a fantastic personal transportation solution that everyone outside of Southeast Asia studiously forgets about.
That’s because American motorcyclists have to share the road with American drivers. And American drivers suck. They are constantly distracted by phone calls, social media posts, doing makeup, and of course eating McDonald’s. That is assuming they can see you over the hood of their monstrosity.
It’s largely like this where I live and I just ride my bike/ebike like a car. I’m fortunate enough to live in a place where I can mostly get around on streets that aren’t super fast, but when it gets sketchy I’ll just walk my bike on the sidewalk or even ride if it’s not crowded (not technically legal, but nobody cares as long as you aren’t being an idiot about it). Alternately, I skate on the sidewalk or side of the street but I prefer bikes.
Roads are for bikes. What’s your problem?
Normally I would agree with the essence of the comment but I can also understand what the person you’re replying to is expressing.
I’m from a rural town in Canada and I moved away specifically so that I do not need a car in my life. In and around the city, I can pretty much use public transit mixed with my bike to cover a radius of about 100 km. I will usually take the lane and use the space I have the right to use.
However my family still lives in that rural region and it’s around 140 km away. I can use public transit and bring my bike for the first 100 km, but I have to cycle on rural roads for about 40 km and it’s always a scary experience. To the point where I simply refuse to cycle on those roads and ask for someone in my family to come grab me, or cycle the entire 140 km using a dedicated bike path.
I am very adamant on “roads should be for everyone”, but doing that in some regions of North America will just get you killed, and blamed for it.
Rural micromobility options exist but they’re more on the end of motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, horses, etc.
There are probably ebikes out there that could do it too, but just barely I’d imagine. That said, a MTB would be just fine for getting around a small farm or homestead.
Yes. When I go back there I use an MTB with a trailer. However there’s also “fortunately” a rail trail that links a few towns together. Because as the first commenter said, some roads can be scary without respect from car drivers, or proper infrastructure, even if you have all the right to be there.
But passed micromobility, people need get in and out of the region. When I was a kid the biggest town around had intercity buses. Now it’s just ‘use your car’. There is also a train station that is now a museum. My mother remembers taking the train there. Trains are still very frequent on those rails, but just freight.
Looking at maps and public transit for my native rural region, they had much much more transit options 75 years ago than right now. There were trains and buses linking villages and factories and now there’s only “get a car, loser”.
Don’t live in North America then.
Do you actually think this exchange was in any way helpful or productive
I don’t live in North America, wonder if they’ve got any other bright ideas.
