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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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I don't get it. When does it become morally acceptable to block traffic?
Between Just Stop Oil and Stop Arming Israel, they both have equally valid points. So why is it that blocking the Golden Gate Bridge is "based" while blocking various feeder roads in Britain makes you a twat?
Edit: messed up the titles
It’s absolutely acceptable. Driving isn’t some untouchable human right that goes above everything else and can’t yield to something else for a little bit.
Nah brah. There could be an ambulance carrying your child to a hospital in that queue.
Or a dude on its way to an interview after more than two years trying to land a job.
Or a person about to catch a flight.
So, not absolutely acceptable. No.
Or tens of thousands of children being slaughtered. Nah brah
How does this help though? It just makes people annoyed at protesters and, if anything, detracts from their cause. Protesting is great, blocking traffic is a criminal offence.
Emergency vehicles are usually let through protest crowds and have contingency plans in place when there is a highway blockage. This was brought up during the oil protesters in the UK a couple years ago and it turned out no emergency vehicles were impeded from reaching their destinations. The point is to disrupt normal traffic flows.
A good employer would reschedule due to the unforeseen circumstance. If they dock you over something that much out of your control in the interview process, they will absolutely fuck you over as your employer.
That’s what customer service at airports are for. This is no different than a car accident on a highway blocking you from getting to your flight. There’s gonna be another flight. Call the airline and let them know you’ll need help with changing your flight schedule. I fly for work every month or so and shit happens. Leave early as if there’s gonna be the worst traffic imaginable and take an alternate route if needed.
Being inconvenienced sucks. But more often than not the protest is over something much bigger than a day of being stuck in traffic. Protests that don’t cause a disruption aren’t heavily reported on and struggle to garner support or bring about change.
Edit: every single one of you chuds downvoting me and upvoting this nerd would have bitched about civil rights protesters and celebrated when MLK was arrested in Birmingham. You wouldn't even blink at students getting shot at Kent State. Bet you had your panties in a twist over Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem. I hear X.com is a good platform for losers like you.
These protests aren’t a job stopper for emergency responders. I know because I fucking meet with state and local governments for my job and we’ve run analytics on this very issue. I guaranfuckingtee not a single one of you know the first thing about how situations like protests are handled by local municipalities. Hope one day you have an important cause you care about and everyone clowns on you.
They block ambulances and I have zero problems with people kneeling for the anthem.
It’s not common for ambulances to be blocked. Every protest I’ve been to or seen has made way for emergency vehicles when sirens are on. When paramedics are aware of a protest blocking a major artery, they usually will reroute. It’s an issue people use for virtue signaling that isn’t widespread, like the Seattle one where the vehicle was not using sirens or lights. Sirens turn on, people will move.
Similar criticisms were leveraged toward Civil Rights protesters. When nothing else is working, civil disobedience is next.
Ironically, not a single fucking article about the Golden Gate Bridge shutting down for commercial shoots gets attention. Hell, it rarely gets published beyond local papers, if at all.
"common" "usually"
How about don't do things like that and you won't have to have faith in backup plans?
Do you give a shit when traffic is blocked during a commercial shoot? What about for a car accident? How about traffic jams? No, you don’t. Backup plans exist for a reason. And there’s plenty of reasons for a bridge to close. How about you grow up and learn how the world works.
Yes, yes, and yes. How about you stop playing in traffic and murdering people?
Oh do you? Well shit, what are you doing to help put an end to those things? How about you stop calling people murderers when you don’t know shit about them? You sound just like a pro-life activist. Get bent, chud.
If it prevents people from taking planes, that's a good thing climate and pollution wise.
Considering that the planes were still flying around empty when travel restrictions were in place, I don't think a few passengers caught in a traffic jam are going to keep the planes from taking off.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ghost-flights-pandemic-greenpeace-cmd/index.html
Actually the right to travel is a human right. You are the oppressor in this because you are inflicting your will on everyone else.
I just question the effectiveness of it. We want more people to join the cause, but making them sit and listen to honking for 15 minutes might have the inverse effect.
Great for spreading awareness, though.
It absolutly is not, protest how ever you want with or without a permit from the municipality, you are responsibly for your own actions. If you delay an emergency vehicle, those lives are on your head.
When I lived in Boston this happened multiple times. The one that comes to mind was some eco-protest that linked the protesters to oil drums filled with concrete on mass pike (the main east-west highway into the city). There were emergency vehicles stuck in the jam and someone died that was on their way to the hospital. IIRC most of the protestors are still in jail for murder.
I wish we could block more than traffic
They’re both twats. They aren’t making converts or reaching the people who can even effectuate a change. All the do is poison the well for the middle of the country that otherwise might have been receptive.
If I’m on my way to work, or the hospital, or to visit gram gram and some whack job makes my life noticeably more miserable then I’m always going to have negative feelings for them.
Apparently if you are a farmer in Europe people support your right to block traffic
I don't support them either
Nope. Not always. Next time you have to drive a loved one to the hospital, and then there is a blockade because of "the children of North Korea," let me know if you feel like sympathizing with the blockers.
Edit: I understand the whole Palestinian crisis is a very sensitive subject, and people get emotional with this kind of topic. But we can't have that "either you're us or against us" mentality. It's not like I'm saying "don't protest, and your cause sucks!" I'm saying "yes, protest, and yes, disrupt, but disrupt it to the people who can actually do something about it."
That's a false equivalence. The traffic in front of your house is not caused by some people who can't think of better ways to protest.
Again... not the point. And that's another false equivalency. "People with different reasons to be on the road are blocked by people are being a public threat in the name of some cause." "Well, serves them right for being a public threat with their cars!" No, that's not a good argument.
I'm just going to pretend you didn't write this absurd sentence.
If it’s an emergency an ambulance will drive an alternate route because they have contingency plans in place for blocked highways like with major car accidents or infrastructure failure. Protesters will let an ambulance through.
The point isn’t to sympathize with the blockers. It’s to raise awareness on an issue and let lawmakers and people with power know that their cause is worth causing a disruption for. The more a protest disrupts the status quo, the harder power will try to quash it before budging. Change doesn’t come from being quiet and invisible like by standing on a sidewalk with some signs.
Sure. Because an ambulance can totally divert to an alternative way when it's already on the bridge. And if it's not on the bridge already, then the "alternative way" is the "already too late" way. That's why there is a bridge there in the first place.
Are you familiar with the Bay Area by chance? The Golden Gate Bridge isn’t the only bridge nor are the hospitals in downtown SF the only accessible options. An ambulance is going to take you to the nearest emergency room that will meet your needs. On the north side of the bridge, there’s the entire Marin Health system. Across 580 you have the Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda hospital centers. In the rare event that an ambulance is on the bridge prior to being aware there is a protest blocking traffic, odds are the protesters will let the ambulance through.
This round of protests was cleared out pretty quickly anyways. The November protest delayed an organ transplant by a few hours but did not put the patient in a life-threatening scenario per USCF Medical. Anything more urgent in the rare case a diversion isn’t possible and would require some sort of transportation across the bridge would use a helicopter, even during rush hour traffic.
I get your concerns about people’s lives being put in jeopardy are probably very real. Honestly, if I didn’t have experience working with local government and health districts that helped me understand what goes on during a protest blocking a major avenue, I’d likely be just as upset as you. However, dispatchers are trained and ready to work in a variety of tough scenarios, and protests blocking Golden Gate is absolutely one of them. Dispatch finds out about blockages faster than the public does, so guarantee they were already changing routes before the story even broke.
Insightful comment. Thank you.
I still gotta add, though: just because ambulances are trained to deal with protest blockades, doesn't justify said blockades. Like a cop is trained to deal with thieves that shoot at them, we don't say "ok! Violent burglary attempts may continue to happen, then." So yeah, good to know that ambulances have an alternative, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with these blockades all of a sudden. Plus not everyone wanting to cross that bridge (or road, or whatever) has a good contingency plan.
When there is a truck with people carrying your mom to a lynching site.
Other than that, I agree with you. Blocking traffic is one of the dumbest way to protest. You won't get any sympathizers from that car queue.
Unless you are DIRECTLY saving a human life, it isn’t.
I get that it gets your movement noticed. But not by the people that can do a damn thing about it.
And the people that maybe can do something, like Biden? They will never reward such tactics so as to not encourage more protests of the type.
And you want to point to civil rights protests doing the same thing? When the first Selma to Montgomery march happened, it was Sunday, a day when at the time few travelled anywhere but church on Sunday. They deliberately chose low traffic times and announced it well in advance.
Run them over?!
Rotting car brain syndrome.
someone needs to spend some time on !fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
Truly a gathering of the most level headed people on Lemmy
Britain is the rotting husk of a colonial empire. The people are psudo-fascist bootlickers obsessed with institutional proceduralism who think good things fundamentally cannot happen.
*England is...
Time for bed, lass, school in the morning, off ye go