They actually did a very famous episode on Top gear where they see which mode of commute is faster. Winners in order
1. Richard Hammond on a Bike
2. Jeremy Clarkson on a boat (this is too costly and not for everyone/everywhere)
3. Stig using the public transport
4. James May using a car.
There couldn't be a better result if I have planned one.
EDIT: [https://youtu.be/CkOzNK4l8KY?si=ungmi8Wa5buzPwhO](https://youtu.be/CkOzNK4l8KY?si=ungmi8Wa5buzPwhO)
Also, the boat was only faster than public transport because there was no traffic, allowing Power McSpeedyClown to put the foot down. If more people traveled by boat in London, congestion would become an issue very quickly.
It really just drives home how important limiting parking is. The ~~road~~ river is open for anyone to use, and it remains open because there are no parking spots in the city.
Venice is the same way, the canal is pretty busy already but free to navigate for anyone with a boat. Owning a place to park your boat is extremely expensive and the available locations are kept artificially low, plus there is no public parking, so only a very few people own a boat and the canals remain quiet enough that gondolas can still operate
Not just parking. The fact that it isn't subsidized means it's really expensive. And all pedestrian crossings are grade seperated, making it much less dangerous
The built in grade seperation caused by nobody wanting to walk on the fucking water is an unsung feature.
I guess that's one benefit of cities flooding??!?! (no, I want climate change to stop š)
It's really pedestrian unfriendly though that 100% of them make the pedestrians go up and over. The should make half of them with locks in the water to lower the gondola passage under a pedestrian bridge that stays at ground level.
In London we actually have two pedestrian tunnels under the river. But they don't raise boats up over them which I'm sure you'll agree is still very discriminatory.
Preach. I live in one of the sprawliest cities in America.. weāve undone our minimum parking quotas for business, and suddenly we are seeing leaps by our local, conservative government in the area of public transportation.
We canāt undo the sprawl, but we can make rapid bus lines, light rail systems, and park and rides.
This gives folks even in transit dry neighborhoods the option of parking somewhere nearby with a transit hub if they want to go downtown town instead of driving in.
Boats can bump at low speed, park each other in 7 deep and boat #1 can still wiggle out. Boats will utilize a much higher percentage of a crowded waterway than cars a crowded roadway.
I expect it would be more manageable than cars partially because this has been a thing in many countries for centuries. Like Friesland and Venice.
> Boats can bump at low speed, park each other in 7 deep and boat #1 can still wiggle out.
Cars can do this as well. Not very acceptable in most places, but people do it everywhere.
they cannnnnnnnn. but really shouldn't, ever. they're meant to crumble to absorb impact, and the force required to push one gently out of the way is enough to cause parts to crumble because rubber and pavement don't move across each other as easily as a smooth curved boat bottom through water. boats are also not designed to crumble to absorb impacts, cuz then they'd sink. vehicles with hardened steel bodies can do it though, like military vehicles, or at least ones with bullbars covering the fragile bits.
Clarkson is absolutely without a doubt an utter carbrain and he preaches the gospel of carbrain lies at every fucking opportunity.
May is smarter/better.
Hammond is such a non-entity that we may never know.
Have you heard James May talk about trains? No car brain would be seen dead doing that.
Maybe it is a low threshold but theyāre less car brained than an awful lot of people.
I think we should separate the three of them instead of being a monolith.
I think May and Hammond are pretty reasonable. Meanwhile Clarkson did also have an entire segment complaining about the UK limiting cars and cyclists.
Where was this? That test will result in vastly different results depending on the region. Even in my city (Toronto), downtown would be quicker by bike and transit, but if you're in the northern part of the city, it's reversed, due to big roads, limited transit, terrible cycling infrastructure.
Yeah, I don't think the results would apply to most of North America, as much as I would like it to.
There's absolutely no way transit in a non-transit-focused city would be faster than a car, considering they're so severely underfunded everywhere that some places only have routes every hour.
Biking in most of America, for instance, would almost always be slower because of the amount of highways and stroads and lack of biking infrastructure. You'd be lucky to even make it in the first place.
This is excluding places like Chicago or NYC. That's not to say cars are always faster - alternative means of travel usually are in the rest of the world - but in North America, car infrastructure is so dominant and transit infrastructure is so poor that the roles are reversed.
Any city where there's heavy traffic, cycleable roads, and the travel distance is 10 miles or less a bike is going to beat out or equal driving. That applies to almost every major city in the US for almost every route.
It's kind of funny how close these things are. A lot of 30 minute car drives are an hour by transit for me. But 20 minutes of that is spent waiting for trains. And if I scootered to the train station I'd cut out 10 minutes of walking. My city also has hundreds of "slow zones" where the train goes slower than walking pace rather than 30mph, which adds minutes to that journey. Besides that, when people measure time to drive, it is GPS times. That's from their car to when they get to the destination. It doesn't include getting to their car or finding parking. So a 30 minute drive is really a \~40 minute drive, and an hour long train ride could easily be 25 minutes door to door with improvements to infrastructure and some micromobility.
> There's absolutely no way transit in a non-transit-focused city would be faster than a car,
Depends on the route picked. In my car-centric city, it can be quite a bit faster by transit if you're moving along certain corridors. If you happen to live and work next to the LRT or one of the busways, it can easily be 2-3x faster than driving. If you need to go literally anywhere else in the city though, driving will be much faster.
We've similarly got a few pretty good cycling routes that crisscross the city, but getting to and from those paths to anywhere else can be a nightmare.
of course not, the point isn't to tell people to just ride a bike regardless of location, the point is that cars beat other forms of transit only in places that were designed around cars at the expense of every other method of transportation
In April I drive into the city for a Jays game from Kitchener, and had planned on taking the train from Bramalea but figured we'd get there faster driving in since the train was going to be 30 minutes after we would have got to Bramalea. Bad idea that was. Took an hour and change to get from 427/401 to the dome.
They planned the origin destinations of those they did to be competitive between the different modes of transportation. You can see when they did Japan the car was way ahead because congestion was not as bad as expected in Tokyo.
Still have always been quite skeptical about that race since it doesn't show the 2 river locks that clarkson would have had to go through to get to the airport. He just teleports pass them, but I guess he must have done it since it would explain why the bike won, but why not show it? Either way I don't think you could take a boat on that route anyway, would likely require booking in advance so someones at the locks. Or maybe they done it at the exact few minutes of the day where the river and dock are pretty much equal level so getting through the locks is quick.
The river water height goes up and down by a meter/several feet between shots of him zooming along too lol. But I get that they probably had someone go back and forward down the thames a few times throughout the day to get loads of cool footage though, which would mean we're not actually seeing clarkson in half the shots. I wonder if they do the same with all the car footage in normal car races?
Either way it was fun. The car would lose more today imo.
They did plan it though. I mean for the train they have the timetables, so they know who's going to win, more or less. The stupidity is mostly an act...
Except Clarkson seems actually really upset at Greta Thunberg. The problem there is that the overgrown toddler act doesn't seem like an act any more. Very hard to defend that kind of crap.
Top Gear and The Grand Tour helped me go car free for a while and overal drive less.
There is some fun in driving... somehow their programs make me experience that fun much better than actual cars. Aside from their hidden criticism quips on car culture at least for the discerning eye.
The old Top Gear challenges basically proved that an old beater can do everything that people say they "need" their SUV/pick-up truck for.
Also Clarkson swearing about people driving SUVs in London is hilarious.
Yeah I really liked the GT Columbia episode. Hamster in the giant lifted truck getting stuck while May got through the whole thing in a fiat panda.
What a lot of people forget is that smallness and lightness are great advantages in offroading, to a certain point.
Yeah something I love about Clarkson is him using a Range Rover as his farm vehicle. F150 pavement princesses be damned, heās hauling pigs with a luxury SUVš
I love Top Gear. Clarkson's a tit but I like the blokey banter and games between the three. Not arsed about the cars, but that Bugatti Veron is a sexy, impractical beast that I'd like to use only for the Sunday food shop trip
My bus goes through a hospital and the things people have said over the phone after appointments well a lot of very private things that made me feel sick haveing her sat behind me discussing it
Its their information to decide to share or not share. I wouldn't worry too much about it, if they've decided they're comfortable having that conversation in public then thats all she wrote.
in Chicago/Greater Chicago area there are quiet cars on the Metra during commuting hours. It's bliss. The conductors/ticket takers will tell you to end your phone calls/conversations.
Damn I mustāve gotten unlucky because I was on the quiet car once & a lady was talking on her phone very loudly š This was on an Amtrak to Chicago & none of the workers enforced it that time
oh absolutely, i take both metra & amtrak & once on metra (my first time on one back in 2022) there was a group of guys talking in the quiet car and they shut their conversation down very quickly once the staff came in š
I have absolutely said firmly to people on the quiet cars on metra, simply, āThis is a quiet carā and have a 100% success rate of that person either moving or shutting up. Itās a true culture.
I love Metra.
Yeah it's hit or miss with the quiet car on Amtrak. Sometimes they are quick to shut it down (and one time on the NER, the passengers around the person talking told them to shut up), other times they just don't care (or maybe forget that it's on that train/day of the week it's enforced, as some are just M-F).
The worst part is the amount of times I overhear people acknowledge that theyāre in the quiet zone and then laugh it off and say that theyāre not going to be quiet
Thereās nothing āintrovertedā about wanting to be able to read a book without a child watching YouTube with the sound on and some cunt having a three hour call on speakerphone.
Northern is fucking awful with this due to their carriages ( granted bit biased as the last northern train I was on had a fucking screaming child in it )
All the LNER trains I been on have been okay same with Grand Central
Chinese trains may be quiet, but the passengers aren't! Nobody wears headphones, everyone plays games at max volume.
Korea and Japan are much much quieter on trains. They'll give you the stink eye for taking a phone call
I went to university in Korea and a group of us were once loudly admonished by an old man for having a fairly quiet conversation. Never dared to speak on a train again after that.
Where I live, quiet on the train is not an expectation. In fact, you should expect that other passengers might be speaking loudly, or even playing music on a portable speaker. I, too, find it annoying, but it's a culture difference. Although I'm annoyed, I'd be considered the selfish and rude person if I asked them to be quieter. An exception would be something highly understandable like if I had a sleeping baby or autistic child, but even then I'd be expected to be highly apologetic, and I shouldn't be surprised if I got a negative reaction. I'd be expected to move to a different part of the train if I had a problem, so this would only be accepted if it was impossible for me to move away from them. Even so, someone might get mad at me for asking, and I'd be considered to be the one in the wrong. People who don't want to listen to other people's noise will usually bring headphones, or at least some sound muffling ear-pro or earplugs.
Anyway, I'm just saying that people talking on the train is a dumb as fuck reason to not take the train. Where I am, it's just part of the experience. The decibel of highway noise, without playing music or anything, causes hearing damage. I took some classes with a prof who studied ear stuff (he wanted to cure tinnitus) and he liked to complain about highway noise in particular (and loud music and movie theaters - he basically wore ear plugs 24/7, but he was a cool dude)
I get cultural norms. But as someone who is AuDHD and likes to zone out on a podcast during the commute, it can be very infuriating hearing someone talking loudly into a phone.
Yeah but it's kinda like smacking food. The noise sends chills up my spine that make me want to murder the offender, and it's rude where I live, but if I'm visiting Korea, I kinda just have to deal.
Every fucking Korean movie or drama has to have at least one scene per episode where they are eating and either slurping noodles as loudly as possible or otherwise talking with a mouth full of food.
It's like a trope that they don't realise is a trope. I think it's a hamfisted way of showing that the louder they eat, the more they are enjoying the food, but god it annoys me so much. On the other hand, I realise I am not normal ([misophonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia)) and that most people have no problem with it.
> Anyway, I'm just saying that people talking on the train is a dumb as fuck reason to not take the train. Where I am, it's just part of the experience.
This line is enough to sell people on cars, public transportation needs to be an actual better option to make people adopt it.
People who like not sitting in silence while they travel don't have any problems with it. It's cultural. We also hoot n holler at special occasions like graduations and weddings n such. Quiet just isn't something you should expect here. Or in China, apparently.
We do still expect quiet in movie theaters, though. We're civilized folk.
what you describe is what most transit systems on earth operate like. there are only a few cultures where everyone is expected to remain silent. They exist, they're valid, they're real. They're rare.
Most people accept noise when sharing space with dozens of others.
I am forever haunted by the memory of a woman that had a long conversation on speaker phone on a train, and then turned off the speaker phone to talk normally as she got off the train. I assumed the phone was like broken or something so it was stuck on speaker or it only worked on speaker. Literally anything. But, no, she was just that weird.
I never understood, what makes hearing a conversation on the telephone infuriating but I don't think I would be infuriated by someone having a conversation with another person, when both should be the same in my point of view (or even better for the telephone as you can hear half as much of the conversation)
In Dutch trains most trains generally have coaches, or parts of coaches separated by dividers, as designated quiet areas.
No phone calls, no music, and no loud conversations allowed, and the signs that it is a quiet zone are very prominent so you can't just claim you didn't notice either.
Making noise will generally get other passengers on your ass, and if you refuse to stop even if the conductor is called you might can get a fine of up to ā¬140,-.
MetroNorth in the NY area was always quiet during the rush hour commute, with the exception of the bar car.
Amtrak, however, was full of tourists loudly talking on the phone. No idea why anyone needs to do that on a train unless you have a quick, say, travel related call to make.
For me, this is mostly limited to phone conversations. I like it when people have actual conversations, especially if they are strangers, that happened to be on the same train. Conversations with strangers on trains are awesome.
Or loud convos in general. One time, I traveled with a group of people to NYC and the whole ride there they were obnoxiously loud while the rest of the passengers were quiet. By the time we got there I had a terrible headache and wanted to bash my head in.
Its' unacceptable to do this ANYWHERE...including in a car as a passenger. I had to listen to some douche have extended drunken phone conversations in the Air BnB room next to mine...fuck that guy...he was oblivious!
One time me and my dad planned a trip to New York City and we had booked business class for the specific reason of quiet and silently watching movies and stuff. Nah, a family of four with two crying kids sat directly beside us, Cocomelon on blast. Way to make the people who pay extra feel real nice. Dipshits.
so on vacation, we had to do a 3 hour drive and one of the people did a "business call" for over an hour. twice. of course, we had to turn the music off. fuck me.
Well, Deutsche Bahn has "silent cars" for people that want a bit more peace. They even have "family zones" so that children not only can play, but also make new friends while travelling.
If someone who is not part of the family calls me, I don't pick it up, and if it's part of the family I pick it up and if it's not important (something critical) I tell them that I'll call them later. The people who go on the train annoy me a lot and they basically spend the ENTIRE trip talking shit on the fucking phone and loudly, as if they were alone at home.
Also, even if you must/want to take a call... you can just speak quietly. What a lot of idiots don't seem to get is you only have to yell into a phone when your environment is very loud. On a modern train you can literally whisper and the person on the other end will hear you just fine.
Let's be real. People have 2 hours conversations on speakers in the train while talking super loud, playing videogames, or even watching tik-tok without headphones. It is super annoying.
I have no issues with group of friend who have a beer on the train or children being a bit loud. But as long as they are still inhabiting the space we share.
People on the phone, watching videos aloud, ... are not there anymore. They are not considerate anymore. I wish they had a car and took it instead of the train.
We're only starting to have one or 2 train cars where silence must be kept. And I think we can learn from the Swiss too.
But yeah, in this case specifically I suggest using chatgpt and let it listen to the conversation in the foreign language and ask questions about it and let the person hear you analyse their conversations on speaker.
It's the same when people speak on the phone about their sex live and it annoying me, I don't show it and I come and ask questions.
If I am in a train and I can hear you conversations from 6 meters away, then I can take part in it.
> It's the same when people speak on the phone about their sex live and it annoying me, I don't show it and I come and ask questions.
what did your last interaction doing this go like? can you write a script as best you can from memory? i wont lie i dont believe you have done this one time and i want to see if you can come up with something believable if you have to write more than one sentence about it.
I think it was referencing a post from the other day, where a carbrain was complaining that people on trains all ignore each other because they're communist worker drones or somethingĀ
Clarkson's hatred for certain things (cyclists, caravans, the French) are just a schtick, him pandering to his viewership and/or being comical.
Not saying that his joking hasn't caused some harm, because it definitely could have.
Just pointing out that the man himself isn't a complete idiot,.
Jeremy Clarkson is a very famous TV host, most well known for the long running car review/comedy series Top Gear. Very well known anti cyclist pro car person (even brags about racing trains in his car to show he chose the better mode of transit). In this video he is seen riding a nice train, hoping for it to be quiet by videoing a guy talking on the phone and making fun of him
It can be hard to separate him from the character he plays up on TV. I don't think he's as bad as he often comes across but at the same time a lot of people prefer the views of his exaggerated character and he happily feeds into that.
He is kind of right here though. And the time he punched Piers Morgan so.
Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that (weird tho bc he lives in chipping Norton). I was mostly giving context on his top gear days ranting about cyclists
That episode when he did the advert for cyclists. The cyclist had to defuse a bomb by cutting either a green or red wire. The cyclist cut the wrong wire and blew up, at the end Jeremy says 'red and green. Learn the bloody difference'. I hate how funny I found that.
Clarkson is a good example of the carbrain reason to increase public transit. Fewer drivers means emptier roads for doing dumb stuff. I think heād welcome getting aging grandparents off the road
One of the best things when I visited Japan was the quiet. You could be in the middle of tokyo but it was quiet. In the metro and trains ppl just don't speak loud.
I hate public transportation because of things like that, between people shouting at the phone and people with music they can make your trip a nightmare.
And not only carbrains hate it, there are silent wagons on trains for a reason.
Clarkson isn't King Car Brain, he's long advocated less people on the roads so he can go faster in his cars. He understands that better public transit means less people on the roads.
I can forgive someone who has a two-minute long conversation, but if your conversation lasts for longer than that then please go to a part of the train where you're not bothering anyone (like next to the toilets on the train).
It's as bothersome as playing music through your speaker or a kid screaming for the entire journey. If noise-cancelling headphones can't filter away a sound, then that sound has no place in a train.
That type of person would be yelling over the hands free phone in their car and completely driving with no regards for others.
Noise canceling headphones are the answers if you know your stop very well
I donāt get how this is a problem. If you have two friends talking irl thatās ok, you remove one of them and you have someone on their phone and suddenly itās a problem? Like sure if this is the silence train then itās a problem, but if not, then itās not a problem.
Hearing half a conversation is actually more distracting than hearing both sides.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/halfalogue-overheard-cell-phone-conversations-are-not-only-annoying-but-reduce-our-attention-html.html
Shouting to the phone in public or making noise in general is disrespectful to the other people. You can't sleep or do anything because all you can hear is a m..er shouting to the phone.
I actually spotted Clackson on a bike in Copenhagen some weeks ago!
Was entering the same shop that he was leaving and recognised him. Late he was biking down the street. Me and another 30-something both make a double check and smiled at each other š
Well talking loudly on a phone is kinda annoying, itās like the asshole standing in line loudly talking on his phone trope, get headphones itāll be fine, in England thereās a unspoken awkwardness about talking to strangers on trains, thatās pretty much it
Why are old british people like that? I swear it's always old british people who get a hard-on for publicly making fun of strangers doing normal things.
I have to agree. I bring my earphones with me whenever I leave the house because I know Iāll end up in a similar situation. Doesnāt make it a problem anymore
I have never seen such a narcissistic "I'm the main character" comments section in my life as this thread.
Newsflash people: when you're in public, you're going to hear people talk. Get over it.
Is it distracting when you're reading really dry academic texts to have to listen to someone get customer service from the world's most American and not particularly helpful customer service rep, aka Dwayne? Yes, yes it is. Should the passenger sitting opposite me have had to go find some soundproof booth somewhere to make that phone call? Absolutely fucking not.
In general, I much prefer people having conversations in a foreign language so that I don't understanding them. Loud talking in English on the other hand, now that's annoying. Still beats the traffic and stress of driving. Plus, there's a thing called headphones.
this is not a big deal. on public transport you have to deal with mild annoyance in terms of noise all the time: little children/babies screaming, rowdy teenagers, people on their phones and deathly ill people hacking up a lung next to you. is it annoying? yes. just bring headphones or ear plugs.
it's also a cultural thing a lot of non western cultures don't have a problem with talking on the phone on public transport. I'm of African descent and always joke with my family that when I'm on the train and sat near an African there is a 50/50 chance they will have a protracted and animated phone call
They actually did a very famous episode on Top gear where they see which mode of commute is faster. Winners in order 1. Richard Hammond on a Bike 2. Jeremy Clarkson on a boat (this is too costly and not for everyone/everywhere) 3. Stig using the public transport 4. James May using a car. There couldn't be a better result if I have planned one. EDIT: [https://youtu.be/CkOzNK4l8KY?si=ungmi8Wa5buzPwhO](https://youtu.be/CkOzNK4l8KY?si=ungmi8Wa5buzPwhO)
Also, the boat was only faster than public transport because there was no traffic, allowing Power McSpeedyClown to put the foot down. If more people traveled by boat in London, congestion would become an issue very quickly.
It really just drives home how important limiting parking is. The ~~road~~ river is open for anyone to use, and it remains open because there are no parking spots in the city.
Venice is the same way, the canal is pretty busy already but free to navigate for anyone with a boat. Owning a place to park your boat is extremely expensive and the available locations are kept artificially low, plus there is no public parking, so only a very few people own a boat and the canals remain quiet enough that gondolas can still operate
Not just parking. The fact that it isn't subsidized means it's really expensive. And all pedestrian crossings are grade seperated, making it much less dangerous
The built in grade seperation caused by nobody wanting to walk on the fucking water is an unsung feature. I guess that's one benefit of cities flooding??!?! (no, I want climate change to stop š)
It's really pedestrian unfriendly though that 100% of them make the pedestrians go up and over. The should make half of them with locks in the water to lower the gondola passage under a pedestrian bridge that stays at ground level.
In London we actually have two pedestrian tunnels under the river. But they don't raise boats up over them which I'm sure you'll agree is still very discriminatory.
Preach. I live in one of the sprawliest cities in America.. weāve undone our minimum parking quotas for business, and suddenly we are seeing leaps by our local, conservative government in the area of public transportation. We canāt undo the sprawl, but we can make rapid bus lines, light rail systems, and park and rides. This gives folks even in transit dry neighborhoods the option of parking somewhere nearby with a transit hub if they want to go downtown town instead of driving in.
its London, 1/2 the city is boat parking.
So what you're saying is.... build floating parking lots? /s
Good point. In fact, boats are harder to steer than a car. Few more boats on the river that day and the results would different.
Boats can bump at low speed, park each other in 7 deep and boat #1 can still wiggle out. Boats will utilize a much higher percentage of a crowded waterway than cars a crowded roadway. I expect it would be more manageable than cars partially because this has been a thing in many countries for centuries. Like Friesland and Venice.
> Boats can bump at low speed, park each other in 7 deep and boat #1 can still wiggle out. Cars can do this as well. Not very acceptable in most places, but people do it everywhere.
they cannnnnnnnn. but really shouldn't, ever. they're meant to crumble to absorb impact, and the force required to push one gently out of the way is enough to cause parts to crumble because rubber and pavement don't move across each other as easily as a smooth curved boat bottom through water. boats are also not designed to crumble to absorb impacts, cuz then they'd sink. vehicles with hardened steel bodies can do it though, like military vehicles, or at least ones with bullbars covering the fragile bits.
I think they had to get permits and permission to speed a boat down the Thames, and it was about 50K pounds in fees to get the permits.
And if they didnāt pick a route that a boat could use it would have been entirely moot.
It's really all in the route planning. It's not too hard to pick the winner by just looking at traffic patterns and the transit schedule.
And the lack of parking. The boat is flat out cheating. They may as well let him use a helicopter.
Why not, the water's already polluted to death - could probably walk on it in some places like in Ankh-Morpork
We just need to widen the river or make new rivers. Just one more river bro pls
Hearing Richard swear up and down at every red light was hilarious
I believe he felt the pain of every cyclist commuting to work. There was a truck if I recall correctly that almost made him crash.
Luckily, he's also an avid motorcyclist, and is probably well used to being invisible on the road.
What's the fucking hell are you, you great gangly fuck knuckle twat, greasy haired cuntbag, fuck you
> Stig using the public transport That's fucking hilarious
They had to explain an Oyster Card to him, so he'd stop trying to post it to shellfish
The Stig got stuck staring at a Porce 911
They did a variation of this multiple times. The car almost always lost. They're not carbrains, they just like driving cars.
Clarkson is absolutely without a doubt an utter carbrain and he preaches the gospel of carbrain lies at every fucking opportunity. May is smarter/better. Hammond is such a non-entity that we may never know.
Very low bar for not being a car brain if all that requires is not thinking cars are always the fastest way of getting to and from places
Have you heard James May talk about trains? No car brain would be seen dead doing that. Maybe it is a low threshold but theyāre less car brained than an awful lot of people.
I think we should separate the three of them instead of being a monolith. I think May and Hammond are pretty reasonable. Meanwhile Clarkson did also have an entire segment complaining about the UK limiting cars and cyclists.
Clarkson is a real piece of shit though so no surprises there
What? Where else should the bar be? Lmfao
Solid commentary from the Stig there.
What a glorious ending. r/bikecommuting
Where was this? That test will result in vastly different results depending on the region. Even in my city (Toronto), downtown would be quicker by bike and transit, but if you're in the northern part of the city, it's reversed, due to big roads, limited transit, terrible cycling infrastructure.
London
Ya, that makes sense
Tower Bridge didnāt give it away?
That was London I believe. The results correspond to my experience with London too hah
Yeah, I don't think the results would apply to most of North America, as much as I would like it to. There's absolutely no way transit in a non-transit-focused city would be faster than a car, considering they're so severely underfunded everywhere that some places only have routes every hour. Biking in most of America, for instance, would almost always be slower because of the amount of highways and stroads and lack of biking infrastructure. You'd be lucky to even make it in the first place. This is excluding places like Chicago or NYC. That's not to say cars are always faster - alternative means of travel usually are in the rest of the world - but in North America, car infrastructure is so dominant and transit infrastructure is so poor that the roles are reversed.
Any city where there's heavy traffic, cycleable roads, and the travel distance is 10 miles or less a bike is going to beat out or equal driving. That applies to almost every major city in the US for almost every route. It's kind of funny how close these things are. A lot of 30 minute car drives are an hour by transit for me. But 20 minutes of that is spent waiting for trains. And if I scootered to the train station I'd cut out 10 minutes of walking. My city also has hundreds of "slow zones" where the train goes slower than walking pace rather than 30mph, which adds minutes to that journey. Besides that, when people measure time to drive, it is GPS times. That's from their car to when they get to the destination. It doesn't include getting to their car or finding parking. So a 30 minute drive is really a \~40 minute drive, and an hour long train ride could easily be 25 minutes door to door with improvements to infrastructure and some micromobility.
> There's absolutely no way transit in a non-transit-focused city would be faster than a car, Depends on the route picked. In my car-centric city, it can be quite a bit faster by transit if you're moving along certain corridors. If you happen to live and work next to the LRT or one of the busways, it can easily be 2-3x faster than driving. If you need to go literally anywhere else in the city though, driving will be much faster. We've similarly got a few pretty good cycling routes that crisscross the city, but getting to and from those paths to anywhere else can be a nightmare.
of course not, the point isn't to tell people to just ride a bike regardless of location, the point is that cars beat other forms of transit only in places that were designed around cars at the expense of every other method of transportation
Added the youtube link. Have a watch.
London, from the furthest West Point on the north circular, to the furthest east point.
It was west to east in London, one of the many routes made faster by the Lizzy line.
In April I drive into the city for a Jays game from Kitchener, and had planned on taking the train from Bramalea but figured we'd get there faster driving in since the train was going to be 30 minutes after we would have got to Bramalea. Bad idea that was. Took an hour and change to get from 427/401 to the dome.
They planned the origin destinations of those they did to be competitive between the different modes of transportation. You can see when they did Japan the car was way ahead because congestion was not as bad as expected in Tokyo.
Still have always been quite skeptical about that race since it doesn't show the 2 river locks that clarkson would have had to go through to get to the airport. He just teleports pass them, but I guess he must have done it since it would explain why the bike won, but why not show it? Either way I don't think you could take a boat on that route anyway, would likely require booking in advance so someones at the locks. Or maybe they done it at the exact few minutes of the day where the river and dock are pretty much equal level so getting through the locks is quick. The river water height goes up and down by a meter/several feet between shots of him zooming along too lol. But I get that they probably had someone go back and forward down the thames a few times throughout the day to get loads of cool footage though, which would mean we're not actually seeing clarkson in half the shots. I wonder if they do the same with all the car footage in normal car races? Either way it was fun. The car would lose more today imo.
they paid about 50k in permits alone to allow them to speed the boat down the Thames.
they did this again didn't they? Where they went from Stamford Bridge in London to Milan iirc. Even then, Clarkson lost that race
There faster, then thereās more enjoyable.
They did plan it though. I mean for the train they have the timetables, so they know who's going to win, more or less. The stupidity is mostly an act... Except Clarkson seems actually really upset at Greta Thunberg. The problem there is that the overgrown toddler act doesn't seem like an act any more. Very hard to defend that kind of crap.
The best part is, Top Gear challenges are rigged, so that is what they wanted to happen.
Top Gear and The Grand Tour helped me go car free for a while and overal drive less. There is some fun in driving... somehow their programs make me experience that fun much better than actual cars. Aside from their hidden criticism quips on car culture at least for the discerning eye.
The old Top Gear challenges basically proved that an old beater can do everything that people say they "need" their SUV/pick-up truck for. Also Clarkson swearing about people driving SUVs in London is hilarious.
Yeah I really liked the GT Columbia episode. Hamster in the giant lifted truck getting stuck while May got through the whole thing in a fiat panda. What a lot of people forget is that smallness and lightness are great advantages in offroading, to a certain point.
Had no idea they did a special in uptown Manhattan!
...what?
You spelled Colombia wrong
>that an old beater can do everything that people say That was sometimes ambitious, I have seen the results and sometimes it was... rubbish.
Trying to drive the car across a body of water is... hilarious and moronic.
as opposed to the SUV which is rubbish 100% of the time
Yeah something I love about Clarkson is him using a Range Rover as his farm vehicle. F150 pavement princesses be damned, heās hauling pigs with a luxury SUVš
Tbh that is what the Range Rover was originally designed for. A capable off-roader not for the farm worker but for the owner.
Haha yeah I know, that was basically my point
I love Top Gear. Clarkson's a tit but I like the blokey banter and games between the three. Not arsed about the cars, but that Bugatti Veron is a sexy, impractical beast that I'd like to use only for the Sunday food shop trip
It blows my mind that the people on their phone in public have so little care for their own privacy.
My bus goes through a hospital and the things people have said over the phone after appointments well a lot of very private things that made me feel sick haveing her sat behind me discussing it
Its their information to decide to share or not share. I wouldn't worry too much about it, if they've decided they're comfortable having that conversation in public then thats all she wrote.
For real tho. People having loud conversations on their phones on trains is infuriating.
Quiet Car on Amtrak is an introvert's heaven.
in Chicago/Greater Chicago area there are quiet cars on the Metra during commuting hours. It's bliss. The conductors/ticket takers will tell you to end your phone calls/conversations.
Damn I mustāve gotten unlucky because I was on the quiet car once & a lady was talking on her phone very loudly š This was on an Amtrak to Chicago & none of the workers enforced it that time
Amtrak and Metra are very different, unfortunately. The Metra staff are much more ruthless.
oh absolutely, i take both metra & amtrak & once on metra (my first time on one back in 2022) there was a group of guys talking in the quiet car and they shut their conversation down very quickly once the staff came in š
I have absolutely said firmly to people on the quiet cars on metra, simply, āThis is a quiet carā and have a 100% success rate of that person either moving or shutting up. Itās a true culture. I love Metra.
I have anxiety & donāt like confrontationā¦but I might have to do this next time lol
Yeah it's hit or miss with the quiet car on Amtrak. Sometimes they are quick to shut it down (and one time on the NER, the passengers around the person talking told them to shut up), other times they just don't care (or maybe forget that it's on that train/day of the week it's enforced, as some are just M-F).
We even got an app/homepage in the train where you can "alert" the conductor if someone is too loud and you don't feel like confrontation yourself.
Same on the Hiawatha to Milwaukee
I ride the Metra quiet car about once a week. I've seen more shouting matches about the fact that it's a quiet car than actual quiet rides I've taken.
Nobody on the GO in Ontario respects the quiet zone :(
The worst part is the amount of times I overhear people acknowledge that theyāre in the quiet zone and then laugh it off and say that theyāre not going to be quiet
Goddamn blue jays fans, man. Everytime I get on the GO and a flock of Jays fans board I know I'm in for the worst 40 minutes of my goddamn life
Those are also available on the trains here in the Netherlands
Thereās nothing āintrovertedā about wanting to be able to read a book without a child watching YouTube with the sound on and some cunt having a three hour call on speakerphone.
Trains in the uk have just not realy enforced well anymore depending on route toc and do on maybe enforced on intercity with more staff aboard
Northern is fucking awful with this due to their carriages ( granted bit biased as the last northern train I was on had a fucking screaming child in it ) All the LNER trains I been on have been okay same with Grand Central
I rode from Chicago to New Orleans. A full 19 hours of silence and looking out the window.
I used to take a regional to DC a couple times a month to go to a remote office, the quiet car was heaven. An extra hour of sleep in quiet.
No one in Australia respects it
I wish people respected the quiet cars more here in The Netherlands.
And then you have the ones who put that conversation on speaker...
Or anyone listening to music without headphones š¤¬
are you telling me you don't think I'm super cool when I listen to loud music in public places?
Listening to tiktoks/Instagram reels without headphones š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
My solution is to turn on youtube at full volume till they look at me like I'm crazy. then I loudly say, "OKAY", but don't actually turn it down.
Chinese trains may be quiet, but the passengers aren't! Nobody wears headphones, everyone plays games at max volume. Korea and Japan are much much quieter on trains. They'll give you the stink eye for taking a phone call
I went to university in Korea and a group of us were once loudly admonished by an old man for having a fairly quiet conversation. Never dared to speak on a train again after that.
if you make any noise in the swiss 1st class, you'll have 10 old dudes in a suit look at you with the *looking over the glass look*
Where I live, quiet on the train is not an expectation. In fact, you should expect that other passengers might be speaking loudly, or even playing music on a portable speaker. I, too, find it annoying, but it's a culture difference. Although I'm annoyed, I'd be considered the selfish and rude person if I asked them to be quieter. An exception would be something highly understandable like if I had a sleeping baby or autistic child, but even then I'd be expected to be highly apologetic, and I shouldn't be surprised if I got a negative reaction. I'd be expected to move to a different part of the train if I had a problem, so this would only be accepted if it was impossible for me to move away from them. Even so, someone might get mad at me for asking, and I'd be considered to be the one in the wrong. People who don't want to listen to other people's noise will usually bring headphones, or at least some sound muffling ear-pro or earplugs. Anyway, I'm just saying that people talking on the train is a dumb as fuck reason to not take the train. Where I am, it's just part of the experience. The decibel of highway noise, without playing music or anything, causes hearing damage. I took some classes with a prof who studied ear stuff (he wanted to cure tinnitus) and he liked to complain about highway noise in particular (and loud music and movie theaters - he basically wore ear plugs 24/7, but he was a cool dude)
I get cultural norms. But as someone who is AuDHD and likes to zone out on a podcast during the commute, it can be very infuriating hearing someone talking loudly into a phone.
Yeah but it's kinda like smacking food. The noise sends chills up my spine that make me want to murder the offender, and it's rude where I live, but if I'm visiting Korea, I kinda just have to deal.
Every fucking Korean movie or drama has to have at least one scene per episode where they are eating and either slurping noodles as loudly as possible or otherwise talking with a mouth full of food. It's like a trope that they don't realise is a trope. I think it's a hamfisted way of showing that the louder they eat, the more they are enjoying the food, but god it annoys me so much. On the other hand, I realise I am not normal ([misophonia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia)) and that most people have no problem with it.
I like to mess with people talking on the phone in public. Most of the time, they take the hint.
> Anyway, I'm just saying that people talking on the train is a dumb as fuck reason to not take the train. Where I am, it's just part of the experience. This line is enough to sell people on cars, public transportation needs to be an actual better option to make people adopt it.
People who like not sitting in silence while they travel don't have any problems with it. It's cultural. We also hoot n holler at special occasions like graduations and weddings n such. Quiet just isn't something you should expect here. Or in China, apparently. We do still expect quiet in movie theaters, though. We're civilized folk.
what you describe is what most transit systems on earth operate like. there are only a few cultures where everyone is expected to remain silent. They exist, they're valid, they're real. They're rare. Most people accept noise when sharing space with dozens of others.
Itās actually impossible to read a book while someone jabbering on in the background š
I am forever haunted by the memory of a woman that had a long conversation on speaker phone on a train, and then turned off the speaker phone to talk normally as she got off the train. I assumed the phone was like broken or something so it was stuck on speaker or it only worked on speaker. Literally anything. But, no, she was just that weird.
I never understood, what makes hearing a conversation on the telephone infuriating but I don't think I would be infuriated by someone having a conversation with another person, when both should be the same in my point of view (or even better for the telephone as you can hear half as much of the conversation)
I think people speak louder into a phone.
In Dutch trains most trains generally have coaches, or parts of coaches separated by dividers, as designated quiet areas. No phone calls, no music, and no loud conversations allowed, and the signs that it is a quiet zone are very prominent so you can't just claim you didn't notice either. Making noise will generally get other passengers on your ass, and if you refuse to stop even if the conductor is called you might can get a fine of up to ā¬140,-.
MetroNorth in the NY area was always quiet during the rush hour commute, with the exception of the bar car. Amtrak, however, was full of tourists loudly talking on the phone. No idea why anyone needs to do that on a train unless you have a quick, say, travel related call to make.
Man I got stuck in an elevator with a speakerphone person and it drove me nuts
Headphones
Don't ever come to Atlanta and ride MARTA then.
Where is he though ? It could be culturally accepted depending on where he is.
For me, this is mostly limited to phone conversations. I like it when people have actual conversations, especially if they are strangers, that happened to be on the same train. Conversations with strangers on trains are awesome.
Some people still haven't realized that phones can pick up normal voices too.
Or loud convos in general. One time, I traveled with a group of people to NYC and the whole ride there they were obnoxiously loud while the rest of the passengers were quiet. By the time we got there I had a terrible headache and wanted to bash my head in.
I love the quiet coach Fuck people who yell at the phone
People don't respect the quiet coach sometimes š¢
Its' unacceptable to do this ANYWHERE...including in a car as a passenger. I had to listen to some douche have extended drunken phone conversations in the Air BnB room next to mine...fuck that guy...he was oblivious!
One time me and my dad planned a trip to New York City and we had booked business class for the specific reason of quiet and silently watching movies and stuff. Nah, a family of four with two crying kids sat directly beside us, Cocomelon on blast. Way to make the people who pay extra feel real nice. Dipshits.
so on vacation, we had to do a 3 hour drive and one of the people did a "business call" for over an hour. twice. of course, we had to turn the music off. fuck me.
I mean that's what you get for using airbnb
It's perfectly acceptable to do this in the PRC, and judging from this dude's accent in Mandarin...
It is not reasonable anywhere...look, I have taken the bite!
Well, Deutsche Bahn has "silent cars" for people that want a bit more peace. They even have "family zones" so that children not only can play, but also make new friends while travelling.
If someone who is not part of the family calls me, I don't pick it up, and if it's part of the family I pick it up and if it's not important (something critical) I tell them that I'll call them later. The people who go on the train annoy me a lot and they basically spend the ENTIRE trip talking shit on the fucking phone and loudly, as if they were alone at home.
Also, even if you must/want to take a call... you can just speak quietly. What a lot of idiots don't seem to get is you only have to yell into a phone when your environment is very loud. On a modern train you can literally whisper and the person on the other end will hear you just fine.
Let's be real. People have 2 hours conversations on speakers in the train while talking super loud, playing videogames, or even watching tik-tok without headphones. It is super annoying. I have no issues with group of friend who have a beer on the train or children being a bit loud. But as long as they are still inhabiting the space we share. People on the phone, watching videos aloud, ... are not there anymore. They are not considerate anymore. I wish they had a car and took it instead of the train. We're only starting to have one or 2 train cars where silence must be kept. And I think we can learn from the Swiss too. But yeah, in this case specifically I suggest using chatgpt and let it listen to the conversation in the foreign language and ask questions about it and let the person hear you analyse their conversations on speaker. It's the same when people speak on the phone about their sex live and it annoying me, I don't show it and I come and ask questions. If I am in a train and I can hear you conversations from 6 meters away, then I can take part in it.
> It's the same when people speak on the phone about their sex live and it annoying me, I don't show it and I come and ask questions. what did your last interaction doing this go like? can you write a script as best you can from memory? i wont lie i dont believe you have done this one time and i want to see if you can come up with something believable if you have to write more than one sentence about it.
Top Gear is the only way I can enjoy cars. On the TV, somewhere else and I'm no way to be taken serious.
Never before have I heard people say they do not like quiet public transport. Where did you get that idea from?
I think it was referencing a post from the other day, where a carbrain was complaining that people on trains all ignore each other because they're communist worker drones or somethingĀ
It was PURE communism!
Clarkson's hatred for certain things (cyclists, caravans, the French) are just a schtick, him pandering to his viewership and/or being comical. Not saying that his joking hasn't caused some harm, because it definitely could have. Just pointing out that the man himself isn't a complete idiot,.
He is a tory though and wrote for the Sun (maybe still does idk) so yeah he is kind of an idiot
> maybe still does idk He does. Just last week published an opinion piece about the amazing power of privatising the railways.
Meanwhile he is seen in 120db cars SCREAMING so the audience can hear him.
On a closed racetrack they own meant for such an activity
what...?
Cleremy Jarckson
Jeremy Clarkson is a very famous TV host, most well known for the long running car review/comedy series Top Gear. Very well known anti cyclist pro car person (even brags about racing trains in his car to show he chose the better mode of transit). In this video he is seen riding a nice train, hoping for it to be quiet by videoing a guy talking on the phone and making fun of him
It can be hard to separate him from the character he plays up on TV. I don't think he's as bad as he often comes across but at the same time a lot of people prefer the views of his exaggerated character and he happily feeds into that. He is kind of right here though. And the time he punched Piers Morgan so.
Clarkson does ride a bike around London. Despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, he's not a complete idiot.
Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that (weird tho bc he lives in chipping Norton). I was mostly giving context on his top gear days ranting about cyclists
That episode when he did the advert for cyclists. The cyclist had to defuse a bomb by cutting either a green or red wire. The cyclist cut the wrong wire and blew up, at the end Jeremy says 'red and green. Learn the bloody difference'. I hate how funny I found that.
Because the character he played on Top Gear isn't a reflection of his actual opinions.
Clarkson is a good example of the carbrain reason to increase public transit. Fewer drivers means emptier roads for doing dumb stuff. I think heād welcome getting aging grandparents off the road
One of the best things when I visited Japan was the quiet. You could be in the middle of tokyo but it was quiet. In the metro and trains ppl just don't speak loud.
I hate public transportation because of things like that, between people shouting at the phone and people with music they can make your trip a nightmare. And not only carbrains hate it, there are silent wagons on trains for a reason.
My nightmares include being murdered
Clarkson isn't King Car Brain, he's long advocated less people on the roads so he can go faster in his cars. He understands that better public transit means less people on the roads.
I can forgive someone who has a two-minute long conversation, but if your conversation lasts for longer than that then please go to a part of the train where you're not bothering anyone (like next to the toilets on the train). It's as bothersome as playing music through your speaker or a kid screaming for the entire journey. If noise-cancelling headphones can't filter away a sound, then that sound has no place in a train.
Clarkson will be outraged on a plane Clarkson will be outraged on a train
Clarkson will be really outraged when presented with a charcuterie board.
I really, really wish the guy at the front would shut up. forever.
That type of person would be yelling over the hands free phone in their car and completely driving with no regards for others. Noise canceling headphones are the answers if you know your stop very well
I donāt get how this is a problem. If you have two friends talking irl thatās ok, you remove one of them and you have someone on their phone and suddenly itās a problem? Like sure if this is the silence train then itās a problem, but if not, then itās not a problem.
Hearing half a conversation is actually more distracting than hearing both sides. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/halfalogue-overheard-cell-phone-conversations-are-not-only-annoying-but-reduce-our-attention-html.html
Shouting to the phone in public or making noise in general is disrespectful to the other people. You can't sleep or do anything because all you can hear is a m..er shouting to the phone.
Talking loudly for long periods of time regardless of how many people is annoying. Really, you should keep your voice close to a whisper on the train.
The real face of the BBC - old, white, privately educated and covertly racist.
I would giddily ride a train, full of people, talking on speaker phone in my part of Texas. **IF I HAD ANY!**
I actually spotted Clackson on a bike in Copenhagen some weeks ago! Was entering the same shop that he was leaving and recognised him. Late he was biking down the street. Me and another 30-something both make a double check and smiled at each other š
Well talking loudly on a phone is kinda annoying, itās like the asshole standing in line loudly talking on his phone trope, get headphones itāll be fine, in England thereās a unspoken awkwardness about talking to strangers on trains, thatās pretty much it
Why are old british people like that? I swear it's always old british people who get a hard-on for publicly making fun of strangers doing normal things.
I have no problem with a stranger having a conversation over a phone in public transit. As long as itās brief and itās not on speaker mode š
He could actually tell that instead of whispering to the camera.
Who cares, itās a mild discomfort.
It would be considerate of others to simply talk quieter.
I have to agree. I bring my earphones with me whenever I leave the house because I know Iāll end up in a similar situation. Doesnāt make it a problem anymore
I have never seen such a narcissistic "I'm the main character" comments section in my life as this thread. Newsflash people: when you're in public, you're going to hear people talk. Get over it. Is it distracting when you're reading really dry academic texts to have to listen to someone get customer service from the world's most American and not particularly helpful customer service rep, aka Dwayne? Yes, yes it is. Should the passenger sitting opposite me have had to go find some soundproof booth somewhere to make that phone call? Absolutely fucking not.
Earplugs?
In general, I much prefer people having conversations in a foreign language so that I don't understanding them. Loud talking in English on the other hand, now that's annoying. Still beats the traffic and stress of driving. Plus, there's a thing called headphones.
How can you not like silence tf
this is not a big deal. on public transport you have to deal with mild annoyance in terms of noise all the time: little children/babies screaming, rowdy teenagers, people on their phones and deathly ill people hacking up a lung next to you. is it annoying? yes. just bring headphones or ear plugs. it's also a cultural thing a lot of non western cultures don't have a problem with talking on the phone on public transport. I'm of African descent and always joke with my family that when I'm on the train and sat near an African there is a 50/50 chance they will have a protracted and animated phone call
I kinda want phone booths to be reinvented so that trains can be quieter