I'm a lifelong cyclist, ex-bike courier. Cars don't offend me. Bad drivers do. I always loved the freedom of cycling. The lack of regulation and traffic stops is one of my favorite points. Never enjoyed 'cycling routes' or special bike lanes. They always seem to box me in. I feel less safe in these areas.
But just as not all people are track runners, not all people are ex-bike-couriers, and it would be nice if they could ride a bike in something other than abject terror.
Also, I actually don't favour a total ban for the most part, just pricing in the externalities. Which would make petrol and diesel powered cars astonishingly expensive. Removing a liter's worth of CO2 from the air would have to be priced in to the cost of a liter of fuel. Paying for your dead neighbour's funeral would need to be covered too (though insurance is meant to cover this, drivers who kill people walking or cycling are rarely found at fault, because it's legal to kill people with your car if they're in the street). Meanwhile, you'd still let the odd hot rod or classic car enthusiast have a project car to wrench on during the weekends, and honestly, I think that's great. They're a key part of our cultural history and great fun.
But right now we still pay for all of those things! We just make _everyone else_ pay for them, which is very unfair. My taxes pay for the street where people drive too quickly to stop before killing my child if she slips from the pavement, and where they emit pollution that has rendered her less intelligent than she might be otherwise, though it's impossible to say by how much.
I don't even own a car. So that seems unjust.
For me the bigger negative externality is in foreign policy. I don't want any part of overseas adventures for oil. The financial costs alone are astronomical.
At the same time, I do benefit from transportation infrastructure in terms of shipping and purchasing goods which are transported. But if it were my decision I'd say just privatize the whole thing.
If a private road pollutes or otherwise harms anyone, then they should be liable. Problem solved. Lawyers have every incentive to claim damages.
About the abject terror, just build your way up. You can do it. Once you try it you'll see that it truly is as easy as riding a bike.
Back to your main point - it is not selfish to not want to ban petrol/diesel vehicles. I am ready to share the road with anyone.
But most people are not me, and we definitely don't demand new drivers live in utter terror until they get numb to it.
Nevermind survival bias. Dead ex-bike-couriers aren't here to give their view.
Prohibition of alcohol would be a more apt comparison.
Cars physically hurt people even when they aren't hitting people.
I think your rule about possession being different from action doesn't hold water at all.
If you're an ultra-libertarian I think you need to get your externality philosophy straightened out first in your model of utopia.
Seems like most of the safety complainers don't want to cycle and are looking for excuses.
Vehicular cycling has set back actual progress in safe infrastructure by decades and is woefully ill-informed about the needs of anyone other than fit, adult, experienced cyclists with excellent vision, hearing, and reflexes.
If you wouldn't let your 8 or 80 year old relative use it, it's crap bike infrastructure.
Aged 8, I was in the UK in the 1990s.
- Most children went to the nearest school (no longer the case with increased choice from parents)
- The tabloid "paedo-fear" thing hadn't really set in, so more children were allowed outside unsupervised.
- There were fewer people, and fewer working people [1]
- The number of car trips has gone up (although not much), and the number of walking trips has gone down massively [1]
- The number of children being driven to school (on a parent's way to work) has increased massively [1]. That presumably adds traffic at the worst possible place and time for children who could otherwise walk or cycle to school.
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...