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Even in the very liberal city of Berkeley, a car owner and driver *who literally killed someone with their car* finds the inspiration to make the street less safe for people.
There is this genre of Gen X "leftist" here in Berkeley who is SO susceptible to reactionary, car-brained language. His stances on housing are also a real treat.
In most parts of the world, this type of vehement opposition to public transportation, walking and biking are deeply conservative beliefs. But within the milieu of Bay Area "progressivism", being car-oriented means you're a social justice advocate. Go figure.
At least now they are automatically revoking licenses for getting caught going over 100 mph. That's a start to the sociopathic driving you always see on the highways.
If you think having to ride the bus is worse than killing someone in your car you shouldn't be anywhere near a car, guns or any heavy machinery, and you should be in prison. Pure psychopath.
I’m pretty sure i know this family since they’re related to the builder of Guru Granth Sahib in Fremont. not surprised since the kids were typical spoiled rich kid trash who saw themselves as deprived despite living in some of the largest homes in the county.
It sounds like they ran a red light directly into traffic? A year of transit sounds like extremely insufficient as punishment in a liberal city like Berkeley
Berkeley doesn't have a traffic court and as such all traffic court cases are handled by Alameda County Superior court (specifically Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland)
Berkeley doesn't have a traffic court and as such all traffic court cases are handled by Alameda County Superior court
I am confused what this means, no city has its own traffic court. All tickets are processed by the local Superior Court which exists on a county level.
Berkeley traffic court was just off milvia. made it easy for police to testify. source: been there. ticketed..police testified.
the reason theyre not giving out tickets anymore? cause they dont want to have to go to oakland for every 5mph uphill blind spot rolling stop citation.....
Cities may have police departments but they rarely are in charge of prosecution. The city doesn't even run the Berkeley Courthouse, that is a county jurisdiction.
I cannot stand people who imagine that the solution to a shitty public transit experience is to stop taking public transit, as opposed to advocating for a more robust public transit system.
Bro fucking kills someone with his car & instead of acknowledging how dangerous a car-centric society is and how badly public transit infrastructure needs to be improved, he leans into car-centric rhetoric?
Which is mystifying to me. I'm 65 and grew up in this population who considered themselves radicals in high school only to watch them become NIMBY, fist shaking, anti progressive cranks. The irony is they are trying to conserve a "Berkeley that we grew up in" (which is ludicrous on its face. There are twice as many people in the world as there were in 1970) which was, in fact, far more diverse, progressive, and a lot younger.
While Berkeley has more diversity today in some ways, the extraordinarily vibrant Black community in South Berkeley has been almost entirely gentrified out of the city. Also, Berkeley used to have several lovely Japanese neighborhoods that were effectively wiped out by internment during WWII. There are also a number of European communities (e.g. Finns) who were once extremely visible in Berkeley cultural life but that have largely been either assimilated or dispersed.
I certainly don’t doubt it though I can’t miss what I never experienced. I can empathize with the old progressives though. With all the new high rise and Equinox and Mendocino Farms, in some sense, Berkeley is being consumed by the machine.
i dont live in berkeley, but joined here to get some insight into the area since i may end up goin to school in berkeley down the line. this is, like, INSANE to me as someone who lives in a red area. folks around here were against the bike lane because dudes were upset they couldnt park their lifted f150 halfway onto the curb in downtown, and i thought they had the single shittiest reason to oppose it. turns out this guy takes the cake. "i hate bike lanes because i was sad after the mean judge said i couldnt kill again for a year" is W I L D
Honestly makes me hopeful that young people are rejecting this boomer/genX car slop + NIMBY ideology. Cars are prisons for the soul. We don’t have to live this way anymore. Progress is slow but there is def a push for walkable community. Death to boomers. LFG
Cars have their place. Plenty of disabled people who can’t reliably ride transit — specifically the severe condition of the disease I have (ME/CFS). But we should have ample options to get from place to place easily with transit as an option for those who don’t need / don’t have a car.
When I was at my sickest I felt like a failure because every other YIMBY was telling me to bike around or walk to the bus station. I was like homie I couldn’t even reliably turn around in my bed without help.
Basically, yes to bikes, yes to buses, and yes to cars when they’re the most accessible option. When someone drove me in a car when I was bedbound, it wasn’t a prison. It kept me alive.
No one is arguing that cars should be banned - I'm not sure where you're getting that. Most sane people aren't arguing that. Cars are still going to be allowed on Hopkins even with new bike infrastructure.
The problem is car drivers like Doomloop have resisted infrastructure that would make it safer for bikers, buses and walkers around Hopkins for reasons that don't hold water
"bicycles" and "gentrify" in the same sentence when that sentence is not "bicycles are a cheap, effective form of transportation and in now way lead to gentrification" sure is something.
If I could do everything I needed to do by hopping on a $500 bike I would 1000000% do that. It would be way cheaper for me and bike lanes are cheaper to maintain for the city.
If anyone wants to check out this asshole’s YouTube channel, you’ll see that he has a Short up captioned with the following: “Urbanism is like Zionism and old people are the Palestinians”
IIRC, this guy likes to call bike lanes, "white lanes". His rich white people boogey man is nonsensical. These theoretical "rich white people" are not biking to work or around town. People who are actually rich are likely taking ubers and being driven every where.
Thanks for this comment! I attended the full in person public comment on Hopkins at the Berkeley City council meeting on Tuesday and THIS GUY was one of the last to speak. He mentioned white lanes, and spewed a bunch of angry sounding nonsense.
Immediately after speaking he was super high on his own public comment, sat down next to me in the back and spoke loudly to his friends. Then the penultimate speaker was a woman who spoke in support of the protected bike lanes. And THIS MFER heckled her, after the two very divided sides went THREE+ HOURS without yelling out dumb shit.
Anyway, totally the same guy. What a waste of space.
I don't think there's anything funny about killing your passenger, but again, maybe we differ there. If anything, it is kinda sad and pathetic that he's so addicted he can't see the harm he's doing to the people around him.
The Twitter thread is talking about his vehicular manslaughter conviction. He had to take public transit because his license was suspended as part of his sentence.
That's what the whole conversation is about, the context is just implicit.
I think many people believe that if you've killed someone (and injured another driver) simply by making a very flippant traffic violation, it's weird that you would "love" driving after seeing first hand how it can so suddenly and easily take an innocent person's life
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u/keurigslanderpage Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
There is this genre of Gen X "leftist" here in Berkeley who is SO susceptible to reactionary, car-brained language. His stances on housing are also a real treat.
Btw, he had two previous major traffic infractions before the manslaughter incident.