Watching a thread unfold on another platform about parents' frustrations with their teenage children's anxiety around driving.

We helped create a world in which our kids are dependent on cars...a dependence that is their second leading cause of death, and that is rapidly destabilizing the planet they're inheriting from us.

We don't also get to be annoyed with them when they don't want any part of it.

#Asheville area: Google doc listing resources (food, water, gas, internet, pharmacies) and their locations:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/154hYrmMKWNKWIwcTkUP8GhcAn4z4LXnFr2AKMgv3Qik/edit?usp=drivesdk

#Helene #WNC #MutualAid

#Helene #MutualAid thread:

* If you can get to #Boone, #AppState has power, internet, and food. You do not need to be a student.

I'm posting information as I find it; please feel free to add your own.

It's painfully obvious how little information is getting out about the catastrophic impacts of #Helene on the southern Appalachians. Please help spread the word. The entire area is devastated. Death tolls in the hundreds and climbing. Tens of thousands of people whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed.
The impacts will be generational. Share and help, please.

https://transportation.social/@DrTCombs/113216514665452545

#Helene #HowToHelp thread:

If you're in the NC Triangle, 2 locations to drop supplies off to be delivered by Day One Relief (likely by air):
- Carrboro: Back Alley Bikes, 100 Boyd St. Open Tues/Sat 11-6
- Durham: Art Post, 718 Iredell. Open Mon-Say 12-6

(I'll add more as I learn; feel free to add your own information)

There have been very specific requests for gas-powered chainsaws, gas cans, unopened containers of mixed gas, and chainsaw PPE.

Other commonly needed items include:
Non-perishable food & baby formula
LifeStraws (or other super easy ways to purify water without power)
Heavy duty bags & totes
Heavy duty tarps
Generators
Coolers
Sports drinks & electrolytes
Bottled water
Bug spray
5 gallon buckets
Toilet paper
Batteries and USB power banks (preferably charged)
Heavy duty cleaning materials

#NC Dept of Public Safety has a website with resources to help those affected by #Helene in #WNC

https://www.ncdps.gov/our-organization/emergency-management/hurricane-helene

Meanwhile, on the other side of the state, there are 4 (5?) active #Tornado warnings in eastern #NorthCarolina.

**Western #NC: head for high ground now**
**Eastern #NC: head for low ground now**

Central NC: stay alert because shit is hitting the fan on both sides.

#Helene #WNC #weather #tornadowarning

I was going to write a thread about the 'strava thing' this morning but have been derailed by the 'nypd shot a bystander in the head because someone else tried to use public transit for free' thing

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-subway-shooting-nypd-sutter-avenue/5799406/?os=firetv&ref=app

"Why on earth would we build a protected bike lane when you already have a perfectly good sidewalk?"

The perfectly good sidewalk:

Since it's come up on other platforms again, here's your semi-annual reminder that the term "Vulnerable Road User," or #VRU, is a #transportation catchall for "humans not safely ensconsed inside a motor vehicle," and it's lazy, inaccurate, offensive, and counterproductive.

#CarBrain #RoadSafety #VisionZero 🧵

The term #VRU implies that being in danger (e.g., in danger of being hit by someone driving a car on a poorly designed street) is a condition the 'vulnerable user' opted in to.

#VulnerableRoadUser is used to define people ouside of cars according to the dangers imposed by cars and the people who drive, design, and cater to cars.

It's textbook #VictimBlaming, characterizing people as vulnerable because they dare exist in public without a #car.

#CarBrain #RoadSafety #VisionZero (3/4)

Vulnerability is not an intrinsic characteristic of anyone. It's a condition imposed on people by their environments (be those environments physical, social, economic, political, etc).

#VulnerableRoadUser language dehumanizes and makes it easy to shift blame and responsibility off those causing harm and onto those receiving it.

#CarBrain #RoadSafety #VisionZero (2/4)

I just got back from a grocery run, and holy crap. The difference in temperature between a greenway in the woods and a sidewalk next to a multilane road is mindboggling. The greenway was almost pleasant. The road felt more like the surface of the sun.

It's almost* as if continuing to coddle drivers by building out more and more roads is actually contributing to the global heat wave we're living in right now. [*sarcasm]

Light reading in the garden this morning, thinking about that time our district engineer told me I should ride my #bicycle in the extra wide shoulder of a multi-lane highway and be grateful for it.

#KilledByATrafficEngineer #FediBikes #VisionZero #RoadSafety

I continue to be amazed that someone signed off on this.

#CarBrain

Happy to have solved the problem of the school bus driver honking at us every morning.

It's been a week, and not a single honk.

#BikeToSchool #BikeTooter #BikeSafety

OMG OMG OMG IT'S HERE!!!

Look. I know I'm cynical, but I'm just not comfortable using my credit card to pledge money to a private company that will then coerce my child to run laps around a gym while calling it a "Fun Run" in order to increase the amount of money said company 'gives' back to my child's school.

But I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Anyone out here ever heard of a company called "My Booster" or maybe "Boosterthon" (it's unclear)?

#SchoolFundraisers

There are also requests to submit a video of my child talking about how much fun they are having and vague promises of a grand prize trip to Disney. As well as "epic character building experiences" along the way.

All I have to do is register my child, submit a headshot, enter my credit card information into a secure portal "that's just like what major banks use" use, authorize a random 3rd party to charge an undisclosed amount my said card based on how many laps they make my kid run.