this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
435 points (96.2% liked)

Fuck Cars

12956 readers
2772 users here now

A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

Rules

1. Be CivilYou may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.

2. No hate speechDon't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.

3. Don't harass peopleDon't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.

4. Stay on topicThis community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.

5. No repostsDo not repost content that has already been posted in this community.

Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.

Posting Guidelines

In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:

Recommended communities:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

No, actually please stop with regurgitating weird language constructs.

Everybody knows that a car doesn't drive itself (STFU Tesla fanboys, it doesn't) and that a driver is responsible.

That, and yes, a vehicle DID hit them. It's not like the driver stopped, got out and beat the shit out of the toddler, his car, driven by him (doh) hit the toddler and killed her.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

No, its still passive voicing that intermediates between the actor and the act.

The vehicle struck the child

vs

The driver struck the child

is analgous to

The bullet struck the child

vs

The cop shot the child

EDIT:

With the active phrasing... you can just append a following clause to give more detail, and it flows naturally.

The driver struck the child [with the truck] , [unaware of their presence].

The cop shot the child [unintentionally] / [with their service pistol], [while pursuing a suspect].

These kinds of statements are active voiced, and also more fact/detail content heavy.

It is entirely possible to use active voicing and also be precise... you're bending over backwards with your hyperbolic example.

The whole point of using passive voicing is that it works on the reader at a subconscious or subliminal level.

Yes, 'everybody knows' that a car doesn't drive itself, but phrasing and vocabulary have always been key elements of propaganda, because only more literate, more critically analytic readers realize what is happening in a more conscious way.

[–] Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf 4 points 6 days ago

But in this case it's actually the vehicle that is the problem. These trucks are simply unsafe and shouldn't exist. The blame is to be put on the car manufacturer. Of course the drivers are at fault but I bet they didn't want to squish their kids. They bought a car, assuming it should be safe to drive.

Still, fuck the drivers too.