The Wrong Side of my Car
The blog that wants to go obsolete
Child raising BS: holding hands
Ashley Neal posted a video *1 containing a clip where a toddler rolls into the street, ahead of his parents. If this happens at the wrong time, that can easily end with a dead child.
So a question a few people asked was: why can’t those parents hold hands with the kids?
And the answer is it doesn’t matter, holding hands doesn’t prevent kids running off.
Have you ever walked with a toddler? Has he ever try to run off? It is possible to restrain a toddler by holding his hand. But you’ll have to squeeze hard. And I mean hard enough that it will properly hurt after a few minutes. So that is not how you normally hold hands.
Holding hands will guide your child, but it will not restrain them.
What’s the deal with those backyards?
Here is something awkward for urbanists over here: if you want to raise a kid in Auckland, you need a backyard.
No ifs and buts. Backyard.
And that is very unfortunate. We keep going on and on about how we need to live smaller. Build apartments. The solution to housing crises always seems to converge to 6-storey apartment blocks*1, and Auckland is no exception.
But then you have to find people who are willing to live without a backyard.
Te Hā Noa: it is actually happening
One of the more uplifting bits of news this week is that Te Hā Noa, also known as Victoria Street Linear Park, is actually going to be built.
And well, it is not really a linear park, is it? We should call it what it is, a street upgrade. There is nothing wrong with that. Street upgrades are important and badly needed. So, let’s go.
Who Is To Blame for that cyclist’s death?
Sad news arrived from Cambridgeshire, Great Britain. A cyclist lost balance and fell off the footpath. She then got run over by a car and died. Rest in piece.
Let me sketch a picture of what happened. An elderly cyclist was cycling on the footpath *1. She met a pedestrian coming on foot from the other side. That pedestrian got angry, some shouting and gesticulation ensued, and as the cyclist tried to get out of the way, she lost balance, and fell into the road. There, A car driver found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and hit the cyclist.
The pedestrian got sentenced for three years in prison for this. Case closed? Eh, I think we still have to ask questions.
The consequences of stupid greenwashing
Greenwashing means marketing a product by pretending it is somehow good for the environment.
This amusing example showed up on my Twitter feed.
Sometimes it is amusing. Sometimes it does some damage.
Diesels
In Belgium diesel engines have long been a popular choice for people buying a new car. It was cheaper at the pump, and it is particularly popular for the many company owned cars on Belgian roads (a bit more derisively known as salary cars — long story).
And in 2008 this popularity got turbocharged (pardon the pun) by something called the eco bonus (ecopremie). Cars which emit less than 105 g of CO2 per km would get a 15% cashback from the government. Because climate change. It was announced a bit later that the registration tax would also get cheaper depending on CO2 emissions. If you were buying a small car in 2010 you were strongly incentivised to look for low CO2 emissions, which de facto meant choosing a diesel.