The Council yesterday unanimously passed the emergency legislation to keep streateries alive in DC! Coming as a shock to nobody, the Mayor opposed the legislation because apparently she'd rather have parked cars than people dining.
Every journey in Europe should be a safe one 🚗🏍️🚴♂️🏃♀️🚶♂️
In 2024, 19,940 people lost their lives in road crashes across the EU, a 2% drop compared to 2023.
We are not yet where we want to be, but it shows that we are moving in the right direction: Towards our Vision Zero goal of halving road deaths and serious injuries by 2030 and getting close to zero by 2050.
At 45 deaths per million inhabitants, EU roads still remain among the safest in the world.
Every life saved counts.
Bar chart titled “Changes in road deaths from 2019 to 2024.” Most EU countries show decreases in road deaths, represented by green bars. The largest reductions are in Poland (–35%), Lithuania (–33%), and Slovenia (–33%). A few countries show increases, highlighted in red: Estonia (+33%), Ireland (+22%), and Spain (+2%). The European Commission logo appears in the bottom right corner.
March was rough! We fell way short of our goal and only made rent bc of a miraculous tax refund (which we'd hoped to put toward lawyer fees). Setting a $7k goal this month to get my head above water again.
I don't wanna flood your feed but I also need to eat. Trying to strike that balance—which means I need your help w boosts & donations.
If the insurance run around weren't bad enough, I just found out that if the guys insurance pays out a settlement beyond basic medical costs due to owing child-support I would never see any settlement cash.
Unclear what happens to the value of the vehicle, but thankfully the car was still in a family friends name and hadn't been transfer to my partner and I yet. So hopefully I don't need to get a family lawyer for that part.
"I’m suddenly reminded that, for a while, I asked people, if they were playing Russian roulette with a gun with a billion barrels (or some huge number, so in other words, some low probability that they would actually be killed), how much would they have to be paid to play one round? A lot of people were almost offended by the question and they’d say, “I wouldn’t do it at any price.” But, of course, we do that every day. They drive to work in cars to earn money and they are taking risks all the time, but they don’t like to acknowledge that they are taking risks. They want to pretend that everything is risk-free."
Paul Bucheit, in "Founders at work" by Jessica Livingstone.
While it is true that switching to small electrical vehicles can be part of the solution for a few people in limited circumstances, the reality is that our path to a cleaner, healthier, happier future does NOT include a shiny new Tesla in every garage.
We need fewer cars on the road, not more cars (electric or not). And we must strongly encourage better solutions like walking, cycling, e-bikes, light rail, etc.
Cartoon drawing...
Text: Electric cars don't solve the problem of carbon emissions from transport. There's a huge environmental cost to replacing all vehicles worldwide, and it just won't make enough of a difference. We need to find ways to reduce our use of cars, switching to cleaner ways to travel: walking, cycling, rail.
Astonished to see this in a NYT article about how to host a party. Anyone — family, friends, workmen, diplomats— coming into my home is going to take off their shoes. We will offer you house slippers. You want to track dirt into your own home? That’s your choice. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/21/style/how-to-party-host-guest.html
Some sections of roads, ramps, intersections should have signs with the photos and names of the engineers who designed them. They should take credit for their work.
Hammurabi, king of the Old Babylonian Empire from 1792 to 1750 BC understood the critical role engineering played in society, commissioned the world's first known building code emphasizing the protection of life. If a building collapsed killing occupants, the engineer(s) was put to death.
Graphic asks the question: "What does it take to move 1000 people?" Three answers are illustrated: one light-rail tram (4 cars), or 15 buses, or 625 cars.
Graphic that compares "how people get around" in various parts of the world. In North America (excluding Mexico), cars are used for 92% of weekday trips, while public transport is only 5%, and walking or biking just 4%. The world average is 51% for cars, 26% for public transport, and 22% for walking or biking. Every other region is better than the world average, but North America drags the average down.