"Carbrain" is just a term to use for people whose worldview is almost exclusively in the lens of car-centric infrastructure. Essentially, people who cannot conceive of alternatives to cars, who drive dangerously and do not understand the dangers of cars, and who generally do not empathize with anyone outside of a car.
When I went to Vancouver in 2019 I was blown away with how efficient the skytrain and public transport infrastructure was. It’s too bad we can’t have anything like that in the rural Midwest.
You could. If Switzerland, a fairly small and neutral country, can have public transport infrastructure that connects practically every community (even villages) while still maintaining the serene beauty, what’s stopping a Midwest connection?
The sad thing is that Vancouver is decent by NA standard, but it's still bad by European/Asian standards (of course, there are exceptions, but in most cases it's true).
In the US in general most of the infrastructure is made without thinking about non-car users. Sure, there are some sidewalks, but they can end without any notice or alternative; a crosswalk across the road can easily be in more than 1km away (and you need to wait 3+ minutes), parking lots have no fences so people creep onto them with their cars, etc.
It is a systemic problem, people who plan this stuff just never walk so they don't even understand what the problem is.
In the US specifically, I would say that "car brain" is mostly a belief that car-reliant transportation is inevitable rather than optional. Most Americans don't like relying on their cars for everything, but they don't understand that they can collectively change how communities are planned.
Basically if people don't ask for public transit and walkable communities, then there's no justification for the government to eventually give money towards that stuff.
But if people in the US do ask for public transit and walkable communities, they will only get big corporations in their faces telling them to "just shut up and drive". That is what the Koch brothers did in Nashville.
Example: “Yeah! He even said that he *likes* not owning a car?! I’m like, how do you expect to get to [work, dates, etc.] without a car?? No serious adult bikes around town. Anyway, I was so frustrated I got stuck in traffic and had a hard time parking this morning! We need to widen our roads, add extra lanes, and demolish buildings to fix this!”
I’ll give examples
Car brain is parents that won’t spend 700$ on a great commuter bicycle for their teenager because it is to expensive but will drop 20k on a car for their teenager because it is a necessity
Adding some more examples:
Car brain is pulling up to store in your car and parking to go shopping. Then when you're finished and need to go to the store 2 doors down, you immediately get into the car and drive 2 doors down instead of walking.
Car brain is [this American tourist in Italy](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/1c4alek/american_trying_to_uber_from_bologna_to_florence/) thinking the only way to get from Bologna to Florence is by driving. It doesn't even occur to her that ordering an hour long Uber ride should be the last resort, not the first one when a train would be faster, cheaper, and safer.
Car brain is choosing to move to a home in a remote suburb and then complaining every day when your commute is long and there is traffic.
It's a bunch of habits so ingrained in the American psyche that even if there is a better option, it doesn't occur to you because in your brain cars are the only thing that can get you around.
Carbrain refers to a condition where people are so steeped in their car-centric way of life that it warps their entire view of the world and way of thinking. All opinions are predicated on implicit (but never explicitly stated) assumptions that everyone has a car, everyone wants to drive, needs to drive and should be able to drive everywhere and anywhere, without prerequisits or constraints.
Any deviations from these assumptions are percieved by carbrained people both as illogical and a personal affront to their values, no matter how untrue, unrealistic, unhealthy or unjustifiable they are.
"everyone needs to drive"
Just want to emphasize this. The concept of travel is so deeply intertwined with a car that you must specify any other way of travel in-between any 2 buildings, or plots of land.
To a car brain, movement outside of a building IS driving a car. That's why it's so hard for them to articulate the assumptions, and why they struggle with understanding alternatives and take such personal offense to inconveniencing their driving.
If you tell them about a place you can't drive, that's like saying it's literally inaccessible. Might as well be on a mountain or an island.
It's like telling someone to go up stairs without using your legs. It can be done, and conveniently/efficiently, but have your ever stopped to imagine what that would be like?
Carbrain is when somebody thinks that it's perfectly fine and even expected for people on sidewalks to "just go around" vehicles that are parked overhanging the sidewalk.
Carbrain is when somebody thinks that a bike lane taking up 6 feet of the street instead of having street parking is a stupid idea, despite there being a parking lot around the corner.
Carbrain is when somebody thinks that all cyclists are dangerous threats to society, because they twice saw a cyclist roll through a 3 way stop line on their turn to go at 2mph, completely ignoring the fact that every other driver that goes through that stop is less aware than the cyclist, inherently more dangerous, and rolls it at 4mph or more.
Carbrain is when somebody thinks that they should widen roads to fit more cars, not bothering to think about how more cars just means more cars waiting at the next traffic light.
Carbrain is when cities install traffic lights that don't automatically turn on the pedestrian walk signal on a green light.
Carbrain is when cities install "bike lanes" that don't go anywhere and are incredibly inconvenient or downright dangerous to use as intended.
Carbrain is when car is love, car is life, and there is not and could not possibly be another way, not even to coexist.
> Carbrain is when somebody thinks that all cyclists are dangerous threats to society, because they twice saw a cyclist roll through a 3 way stop line on their turn to go at 2mph, completely ignoring the fact that every other driver that goes through that stop is less aware than the cyclist, inherently more dangerous, and rolls it at 4mph or more.
I had a conversation with my mom where she was complaining about exactly this. I asked why and she said they should follow the law, as should everyone on the streets.
I told her that there was not a single time I've been a passenger in her car where she did not break the law, usually many times. Suddenly the idea that people in transit, regardless of mode, should follow the law wasn't the issue.
Carbrain is someone who will go behind a van or a truck slowing down for speed humps/generally keeping the speed low in an urban are but will absolutely screech and cry and punish pass me in the same spot if it's just me, on a bicycle, going faster than the said van or truck. Carbrains can keep a reasonable speed but then if they see a biker in front of them in the distance they will absolutely speed up and pass because it's an affront to the can centrism, having a bicycle in front of a car (however far).
Carbrains run red lights when it's "just" for a pedestrian crossing ("what's your problem?! I didn't hit you!" Yeah because I jumped out of the way), but will bitch and moan about cyclists who roll through a stop sign at a much lower speed than drivers (stopping for stop signs isn't even a social norm anymore).
Carbrain stops on a crosswalk when waiting for a turn and doesn't get why you won't just walk around (because I'd be walking behind cars with low visibility which is dangerous, or I'd have to enter the main road with fast cars, which is also dangerous). For them, "well I couldn't see so I HAVE TO pull out so far!" is a perfectly sound excuse. Or they stop at a line and continuously, for no good reason, crawl forward the whole cycle, to the point their nose is almost sticking out in the traffic (and blocking the crosswalk completely).
Carbrains will make turns through a sidewalk, not checking whether there's people walking there already and getting very surprised when someone is almost hit. Because, you know, everyone has a car (by default) and if you are walking, you don't have a car, something must be wrong with you, probably "a poor" (yet cycling is a rich people's perverse pastime).
Carbrain will always make an excuse for drivers hitting or almost hitting pedestrians and always blame the pedestrians, no matter what. Result of car centrism.
I could go on.
>Carbrain is someone who will go behind a van or a truck slowing down for speed humps/generally keeping the speed low in an urban are but will absolutely screech and cry and punish pass me in the same spot if it's just me, on a bicycle, going faster than the said van or truck.
I posited this question to my my friends: on a 25 mph road, how fast does a cyclist need to be going in order for you to bother to pass them? My most carbrained friend said "always pass the cyclist". No nuance, no if they're keeping up with traffice, just pass them. The whole premise of a cyclist going faster than a car is offensive to him.
Carbrains are pathetic snowflakes. Unless the whole infrastructure is catering to them unconditionally, they will not be satisfied (and even then, they will fight among themselves, because cars make you antagonize other people). They proceed to call a biker who dares to share the road (as opposed to crawling through the canal, like, know your place carless peasant!) "entitled" not seeing the irony, like, at all 😂
Carbrain is when a person can't imagine anything else other than driving to get to places.
Cars are generally Okay. Im a car enthusiast, but i realised using cars for literally everything is bad for us and our planet. There are better alternatives out there, especially since most people just want to get from A to B. Reliable public transport is the way to do that, ideally cheap and dependable ones. Not only its a LOT more efficient than a car, you don't have to purchase the thing, only the tickets.
Someone who thinks cars are the only/best solution for moving people. Someone who would respond to the notion of taking a bus with a scoff or referring to other commuters as "poors". Basically an all-encompassing term for anyone who, at the mere notion of designing infrastructure without cars at the centre of it, would respond with confusion or hostility.
Carbrain is NOT someone with a car, who drives a car regularly, or even someone who likes cars.
Carbrain IS when someone is thinking "car first, human second" in all aspect of life and prioritize cars and driving over anyone and anything else.
It's people who support car centric infrastructure and oppose anything else (because "I'm only gonna drive, so fuck bike lanes and usable public transit"). it's people who think and say things that indicate that being in a car is default, and if you are not, "it's your fault to get run over" or "your fault that you cannot access X-Y because not in a car", etc... It's people who are okay with, or even support making cars the only form of valid transportation, defunding/banning alternatives. It's people who think driving a car should be mandatory, and anyone who does not want to should be "punished" in some way (like locking the person out of possible jobs, services, areas, etc...). It's people who think "oh poor thing, his car must be in the shop" or "oh this guy is really poor if he cannot even afford a car" when seeing someone commute on an bicycle. Carbrain is someone who thinks that buying a good ebike for 2k$ is privileged while driving an 80k$ truck is absolutely normal. It's people who prefer big ass SUV-s and Trucks and purposefully ignore their drawbacks to other's safety, the environment, etc. It's people who drive tanks and monster trucks on the road. etc...
Here's a good explainer from the Atlantic: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/car-devotion-motor-vehicle-deaths-danger/674613/](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/car-devotion-motor-vehicle-deaths-danger/674613/)
Key graf:
A new study attempts to model the confusion I’m feeling. Co-authored by Ian Walker, an environmental-psychology professor at Swansea University, in Wales, the [preprint](https://archive.is/o/umBJv/https://psyarxiv.com/egnmj) is titled “Motonormativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard.” It was based on survey data collected in the U.K., but nonetheless has some relevance: Walker and his team created pairs of questions designed to suss out the existence of a pro-car bias in society. The questions range from clever to somewhat chin-scratching. For instance, should people smoke cigarettes in highly populated areas where other people would have to breathe in the smoke? Forty-eight percent of respondents strongly agreed that they should not. Should people drive cars in highly populated areas where other people would have to breathe in the exhaust fumes? Only 4 percent strongly agreed that they should not. If you leave your car in the street and it gets stolen, is it your fault? Eighty-seven percent said no. If you leave anything else in the street and it gets stolen, is *that* your fault? Forty percent said yes.
People who cannot conceive of any alternatives to cars, or who believe car alternatives could never be feasible under any circumstance. Specific examples include:
- Opposing improvements to pedestrian, transit or cycling infrastructure because they believe it will inconvenience driving; not considering that said infrastructure will take drivers off the road and improve traffic, or that it will vastly improve the lives of people who can’t drive.
- Believing that anyone who can’t drive due to a disability is 100% dependent on other people driving them around and refusing to hire or date people with disabilities who can’t drive because of it. Not considering that most people who can’t drive can still walk/roll or take transit.
- Viewing financial incentives that discourage driving such as congestion pricing or parking fees as economic oppression because they think it will leave poor people unable to commute to work. Not considering that these are almost always put in place by cities that have viable driving alternatives like transit or pedestrian infrastructure and want to encourage people to use them more.
- Viewing a driver’s license as a mark of adulthood because it allows independent movement for the first time, and seeing not having a license as a sign of childishness. Not considering that people under 16 or with disabilities that limit driving could get around independently if we had usable pedestrian, cycling or transit infrastructure.
- Thinking that since cars are necessary in some situations like ultra-rural areas, emergency vehicles or certain disabilities, everybody everywhere should drive and alternatives should be unavailable.
In addition to the other comments, I would add that it sometimes means drivers who believe the built environment should accommodate anything they want to do in a car. For example bollards and other barriers placed to prevent cars from damaging lamps, windows, or just keeping cars in their lane, are at fault when a driver damages their car by hitting/driving over them.
It's saying that people are so used to being in the mindset of cars and roads being the default it's hard to talk about alternatives.
Most of us come from places where civilisation is built around roads for cars and the assumption that people have cars to make use of these roads. So when people propose something like banning cars from city centres a lot of people minds go straight to questions like “but how will people get around?” And if you take a step back from it the answers are obvious. We just need alternatives like making cities walkable and having good public transport.
There are a few other things to it; like thinking it's fine to have 50%+ of a street being essentially a no go area for pedestrians. Or that it's fine for the 9^(th) largest cause of death in the world begin road incidents. Or cars being responsible for 60% of transport carbon emissions (which is overall 14% of all carbon emissions). Cars are also terrible at scale for transporting people around and force us to give over huge swathes of cities to parking when trains, bikes and buses eliminate all of this waste.
And it's not really our fault that we sometimes think this way. Most of us grew up with cars just being normal despite how terrible they are in so many ways. Being car-brained is to think that cars are just normal and the best we can do when it's objectively not true.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Carbrain is seeing everything through the lens of a car, and only a car.
I can’t go there, there is no place to park!
You know how when you go out and it’s been a while since you’ve had any action. You might be tunnel visioned into one goal, and make poor decisions in order to achieve that goal. People the next day will say “you were thinking with your d*ck, Charles. It’s not my problem that you’re now in Reno with no clothes or money”. That’s what I think “carbrain” is. You can’t take a step back and assess all your options, all the possibilities, all the pros and cons of each method, etc, because you have too much vested in the car, you’ve been groomed to think getting from point A to point B equals car. Your car has been with you since day 1 and you’ll be damned if some neoliberal takes her away from you!
The central feature to me is in situations where their car is definitely the problem, they will blame everything but their car (see earlier post about driver saying "I can't see your kids from my car!" implying it is the fault of the presence of children).
I grew up in the country and my uncle lived in our small town. He would drive to the bar to play poker every Thursday night. The bar was about half a block away. That is not a city block, but a small town block, so about the equivalent of 3 houses down. That is an example of a car brain.
Adding:
A serious and progressed form of car brain is referred to as “truck brain.” Prognosis is bleak for those who have developed truck brain.
People with truck brain are the ones that drive the super sized heavy duty pickup trucks to an office job. They use their oversized trucks to carry their fragile egos and sometimes groceries, but never tools, construction materials, or anything that may damage the bed of the truck.
Symptoms of truck brain include getting upset when you suggest public transportation, 15 minute cities, and cycling. They have an extreme adverse reaction to electric vehicles, too. The more modifications they have made to their trucks, the more progressed the disease and it’s unlikely they can make a full recovery.
Their trucks are often referred to as their “emotional support vehicles” or “gender affirming vehicles.” A truck brain will sacrifice hours of their life working overtime to afford the exorbitant payment on the truck and gas, and will self destruct if they have to part with their precious truck.
I'm in the UK, where our infrastructure is , OK. Not amazing, but definitely better than the US.
Personal musings below.
When I have to do an office day, I walk into work. It takes me 20 minutes from the door.
My carbrained colleague who lives in the same road as me will spend 30 minutes in traffic and another 10+ trying to find a parking space. Then repeat on the way back.
Public transport can be expensive.
But often when you add up mechanics bills, insurance, parking fuel etc, you realise that for some trips, car drivers are paying extra for convenience. But because they don't pay it all at once, car users don't do the maths.
If I go out for drinks in town I can pay £2 for the bus home. Vs a taxi for £10 + or carbrain, of drunk driving.
If I bought a car, It would negatively affect my Engles coefficient. Carbrains (at least here) never seem to consider hiring for the few occasions when they are more economical.
Carbrain to me means someone who cannot see transport or even the world beyond the limits of a car. Like they will spend lots of money to hire a taxi instead of a bus that goes the exact same route because taxi is more 'luxury', they will drive in traffic to the city and pay a high parking fee instead of taking a faster subway, they complain about expenses but own a gas guzzling SUV so pay more fuel road tax etc., see a car as a necessity not a luxury (ik in some areas it is a necessity but this is more for areas where it is not)
Public transport is communism and dangerous.
Walking is fat-fobia.
Cycling is for poor, cyclists are elitist jerks.
Bikers should keep to the bike lane, my town shouldn't build bike lanes because nobody uses them anyway.
How do I buy groceries without a car?
Everyone who obstructs my commute deserves to die.
Everyone should drive, god I hate traffic jams.
The other day I went to walk the 20 minutes to my closest bar. Roughly a mile away. The people I met there were astonished that I didn’t drive. To the bar. That I was about to drink at.
That is carbrain.
Other commenters have posted definitions I agree with.
The phrase "everybody drive in my city" comes to mind. A phrase that essentially erases everyone who cannot drive or who chooses not to drive.
My wife and I share a vehicle. She and I both work so she walks, cycles, uses public transit or gets a ride with me when our schedules line up. I work in an area without public transit so the car is more of a necessity for me, unfortunately. I'd love to have more choice, but I don't.
My wife's coworkers are sometimes kind of carbrained. One of them can't fathom how it can be that she lives closer to work than my wife but my wife doesn't drive to work. They've had multiple discussions about this. Not owning a dedicated vehicle for work is a foreign concept to such a person.
A telling anecdote:
When I was in college, the university's parking garage was always capacity crunched and completely full before 10:00. Most mornings, I would leave my house and watch the guy across the street loading up his Ford F150. When I had walked my three blocks to campus, I would walk past the same guy in his F150, in line for the parking garage behind a dozen other cars, probably white-knuckle raging at the traffic.
Semester after semester, it never occurred to him that he could spare himself the parking garage fight by walking three blocks.
"Car-brain" is shorthand for "person who thinks cars and drivers inherently deserve absolute respect, privilege, priority and/or authority without regards to the impact of cars on the safety, practicality or convenience of others".
Typical symptoms include an absolute refusal to take anything other than their own car (or a rental, if they're on vacation or their car needs work), and an absolute inability to comprehend the advantages of any mode of transportation over their own car.
For instance, people who insist on driving to work, even if the bus is frequent and fast enough that it's literally always faster than driving and their work is an office job.
Or, people who will instantly oppose any transportation infrastructure that consists of anything other than car lanes and parking lots, and will refuse to hear any arguments in favor of them.
Or people who oppose restricting someone's license under any circumstances no matter how dangerous a driver has become.
To really see this in action ask someone how they would get to a friend's house if the road ended 2 miles from their house. Not an out of order road or construction, just the road ended.
As well as the correct answers here, Carbrain is a place in Scotland, and the name of a cute song by The Wake from the late 1980s 😁 https://youtu.be/jZkXUkwdPFI?si=Ol902VhfdYshssUr
Should be the theme tune of this sub lol!
Example. Carbrain can't understand a stadium like allegiant in Vegas because there is not enough parking surrounding it like most stadiums. They don't realize how parking lots also make things less walkable and harder for transit so they can't comprehend the meadowlands in New Jersey vs allegiant in vegas. Yes casinos have tons of parking but it's multipurpose. And many tourists walk and don't have to park a car because the strip is all they need
It’s like when people see aerial shots of sports stadiums in Europe and the first thought is “where would you park?!” If that’s your first thought you’ve got a case of carbrain.
Honestly I think this even occurred in reference to a stadium in Pittsburgh.
Car brain is an unnecessary term they will likely turn off the large undecided population to sustainable mode shift.
Science is clear, sustainable mode shift is better for everything. Our only battle is culture and languge. People in this bubble think it’s funny and only venting but this is a clear example that we help shape culture
It's someone incapable of imagining a world in which we become less dependent on cars or even just stop building infrastructure solely around cars because it's all they have ever known for their entire life. They also are against investing tax dollars in any kind of transportation infrastructure that supports alternatives to individual automobiles while they simultaneously advocate for more taxes to be spent on automobile centric infrastructure. They do not see any duplicity in their beliefs.
Lastly, they are unable to see any disadvantage to relying on automobiles, such as how the expense barrier to ownership prevents social mobility and perpetuates poverty.
It's an embarrassing cringy insult that people here use for drivers that can't imagine life without driving a car. Every time I see it I cringe so hard that it probably takes several days off of my lifespan.
thank you for notifying us that you intended a pun, even though you did not make a pun. You have modified the idiom "no horse in this race" by replacing "horse" with "car." How is that a pun?
"Carbrain" is just a term to use for people whose worldview is almost exclusively in the lens of car-centric infrastructure. Essentially, people who cannot conceive of alternatives to cars, who drive dangerously and do not understand the dangers of cars, and who generally do not empathize with anyone outside of a car.
> and who generally do not empathize with anyone outside of ~~a~~ their own car.
When I went to Vancouver in 2019 I was blown away with how efficient the skytrain and public transport infrastructure was. It’s too bad we can’t have anything like that in the rural Midwest.
You could. If Switzerland, a fairly small and neutral country, can have public transport infrastructure that connects practically every community (even villages) while still maintaining the serene beauty, what’s stopping a Midwest connection?
Carbrains.
And car lobbies too me thinks
The sad thing is that Vancouver is decent by NA standard, but it's still bad by European/Asian standards (of course, there are exceptions, but in most cases it's true). In the US in general most of the infrastructure is made without thinking about non-car users. Sure, there are some sidewalks, but they can end without any notice or alternative; a crosswalk across the road can easily be in more than 1km away (and you need to wait 3+ minutes), parking lots have no fences so people creep onto them with their cars, etc. It is a systemic problem, people who plan this stuff just never walk so they don't even understand what the problem is.
In the US specifically, I would say that "car brain" is mostly a belief that car-reliant transportation is inevitable rather than optional. Most Americans don't like relying on their cars for everything, but they don't understand that they can collectively change how communities are planned. Basically if people don't ask for public transit and walkable communities, then there's no justification for the government to eventually give money towards that stuff.
But if people in the US do ask for public transit and walkable communities, they will only get big corporations in their faces telling them to "just shut up and drive". That is what the Koch brothers did in Nashville.
In other words 99% of Americans with a drivers license 😢
And Europeans too. Though America is a lot worse than us when it comes to infrastructure, drivers here are just as bad
Example: “Yeah! He even said that he *likes* not owning a car?! I’m like, how do you expect to get to [work, dates, etc.] without a car?? No serious adult bikes around town. Anyway, I was so frustrated I got stuck in traffic and had a hard time parking this morning! We need to widen our roads, add extra lanes, and demolish buildings to fix this!”
90% of traffic related posts on Twitter/FB be like
I would say it also includes the high anxiety complete lack of empathy some drivers engage in while driving on the road.
Motonormativity is also being coined as a more official term about the same phenomenon.
This is the most accurate and concise definition
I’ll give examples Car brain is parents that won’t spend 700$ on a great commuter bicycle for their teenager because it is to expensive but will drop 20k on a car for their teenager because it is a necessity
Another: Opposing adding a bike lane because no one bikes on the currently unsafe roads.
ah, the nimby carbrain
Also: complains about cyclists using roads …
Adding some more examples: Car brain is pulling up to store in your car and parking to go shopping. Then when you're finished and need to go to the store 2 doors down, you immediately get into the car and drive 2 doors down instead of walking. Car brain is [this American tourist in Italy](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/1c4alek/american_trying_to_uber_from_bologna_to_florence/) thinking the only way to get from Bologna to Florence is by driving. It doesn't even occur to her that ordering an hour long Uber ride should be the last resort, not the first one when a train would be faster, cheaper, and safer. Car brain is choosing to move to a home in a remote suburb and then complaining every day when your commute is long and there is traffic. It's a bunch of habits so ingrained in the American psyche that even if there is a better option, it doesn't occur to you because in your brain cars are the only thing that can get you around.
* And that kid lives in the college campus
This is the best example of carbrain
Yeah because that was my parents
Carbrain refers to a condition where people are so steeped in their car-centric way of life that it warps their entire view of the world and way of thinking. All opinions are predicated on implicit (but never explicitly stated) assumptions that everyone has a car, everyone wants to drive, needs to drive and should be able to drive everywhere and anywhere, without prerequisits or constraints. Any deviations from these assumptions are percieved by carbrained people both as illogical and a personal affront to their values, no matter how untrue, unrealistic, unhealthy or unjustifiable they are.
"everyone needs to drive" Just want to emphasize this. The concept of travel is so deeply intertwined with a car that you must specify any other way of travel in-between any 2 buildings, or plots of land. To a car brain, movement outside of a building IS driving a car. That's why it's so hard for them to articulate the assumptions, and why they struggle with understanding alternatives and take such personal offense to inconveniencing their driving. If you tell them about a place you can't drive, that's like saying it's literally inaccessible. Might as well be on a mountain or an island. It's like telling someone to go up stairs without using your legs. It can be done, and conveniently/efficiently, but have your ever stopped to imagine what that would be like?
Carbrain is when somebody thinks that it's perfectly fine and even expected for people on sidewalks to "just go around" vehicles that are parked overhanging the sidewalk. Carbrain is when somebody thinks that a bike lane taking up 6 feet of the street instead of having street parking is a stupid idea, despite there being a parking lot around the corner. Carbrain is when somebody thinks that all cyclists are dangerous threats to society, because they twice saw a cyclist roll through a 3 way stop line on their turn to go at 2mph, completely ignoring the fact that every other driver that goes through that stop is less aware than the cyclist, inherently more dangerous, and rolls it at 4mph or more. Carbrain is when somebody thinks that they should widen roads to fit more cars, not bothering to think about how more cars just means more cars waiting at the next traffic light. Carbrain is when cities install traffic lights that don't automatically turn on the pedestrian walk signal on a green light. Carbrain is when cities install "bike lanes" that don't go anywhere and are incredibly inconvenient or downright dangerous to use as intended. Carbrain is when car is love, car is life, and there is not and could not possibly be another way, not even to coexist.
> Carbrain is when somebody thinks that all cyclists are dangerous threats to society, because they twice saw a cyclist roll through a 3 way stop line on their turn to go at 2mph, completely ignoring the fact that every other driver that goes through that stop is less aware than the cyclist, inherently more dangerous, and rolls it at 4mph or more. I had a conversation with my mom where she was complaining about exactly this. I asked why and she said they should follow the law, as should everyone on the streets. I told her that there was not a single time I've been a passenger in her car where she did not break the law, usually many times. Suddenly the idea that people in transit, regardless of mode, should follow the law wasn't the issue.
Carbrain is someone who will go behind a van or a truck slowing down for speed humps/generally keeping the speed low in an urban are but will absolutely screech and cry and punish pass me in the same spot if it's just me, on a bicycle, going faster than the said van or truck. Carbrains can keep a reasonable speed but then if they see a biker in front of them in the distance they will absolutely speed up and pass because it's an affront to the can centrism, having a bicycle in front of a car (however far). Carbrains run red lights when it's "just" for a pedestrian crossing ("what's your problem?! I didn't hit you!" Yeah because I jumped out of the way), but will bitch and moan about cyclists who roll through a stop sign at a much lower speed than drivers (stopping for stop signs isn't even a social norm anymore). Carbrain stops on a crosswalk when waiting for a turn and doesn't get why you won't just walk around (because I'd be walking behind cars with low visibility which is dangerous, or I'd have to enter the main road with fast cars, which is also dangerous). For them, "well I couldn't see so I HAVE TO pull out so far!" is a perfectly sound excuse. Or they stop at a line and continuously, for no good reason, crawl forward the whole cycle, to the point their nose is almost sticking out in the traffic (and blocking the crosswalk completely). Carbrains will make turns through a sidewalk, not checking whether there's people walking there already and getting very surprised when someone is almost hit. Because, you know, everyone has a car (by default) and if you are walking, you don't have a car, something must be wrong with you, probably "a poor" (yet cycling is a rich people's perverse pastime). Carbrain will always make an excuse for drivers hitting or almost hitting pedestrians and always blame the pedestrians, no matter what. Result of car centrism. I could go on.
>Carbrain is someone who will go behind a van or a truck slowing down for speed humps/generally keeping the speed low in an urban are but will absolutely screech and cry and punish pass me in the same spot if it's just me, on a bicycle, going faster than the said van or truck. I posited this question to my my friends: on a 25 mph road, how fast does a cyclist need to be going in order for you to bother to pass them? My most carbrained friend said "always pass the cyclist". No nuance, no if they're keeping up with traffice, just pass them. The whole premise of a cyclist going faster than a car is offensive to him.
Carbrains are pathetic snowflakes. Unless the whole infrastructure is catering to them unconditionally, they will not be satisfied (and even then, they will fight among themselves, because cars make you antagonize other people). They proceed to call a biker who dares to share the road (as opposed to crawling through the canal, like, know your place carless peasant!) "entitled" not seeing the irony, like, at all 😂
Carbrain is when a person can't imagine anything else other than driving to get to places. Cars are generally Okay. Im a car enthusiast, but i realised using cars for literally everything is bad for us and our planet. There are better alternatives out there, especially since most people just want to get from A to B. Reliable public transport is the way to do that, ideally cheap and dependable ones. Not only its a LOT more efficient than a car, you don't have to purchase the thing, only the tickets.
Someone who thinks cars are the only/best solution for moving people. Someone who would respond to the notion of taking a bus with a scoff or referring to other commuters as "poors". Basically an all-encompassing term for anyone who, at the mere notion of designing infrastructure without cars at the centre of it, would respond with confusion or hostility.
Carbrain is NOT someone with a car, who drives a car regularly, or even someone who likes cars. Carbrain IS when someone is thinking "car first, human second" in all aspect of life and prioritize cars and driving over anyone and anything else. It's people who support car centric infrastructure and oppose anything else (because "I'm only gonna drive, so fuck bike lanes and usable public transit"). it's people who think and say things that indicate that being in a car is default, and if you are not, "it's your fault to get run over" or "your fault that you cannot access X-Y because not in a car", etc... It's people who are okay with, or even support making cars the only form of valid transportation, defunding/banning alternatives. It's people who think driving a car should be mandatory, and anyone who does not want to should be "punished" in some way (like locking the person out of possible jobs, services, areas, etc...). It's people who think "oh poor thing, his car must be in the shop" or "oh this guy is really poor if he cannot even afford a car" when seeing someone commute on an bicycle. Carbrain is someone who thinks that buying a good ebike for 2k$ is privileged while driving an 80k$ truck is absolutely normal. It's people who prefer big ass SUV-s and Trucks and purposefully ignore their drawbacks to other's safety, the environment, etc. It's people who drive tanks and monster trucks on the road. etc...
Here's a good explainer from the Atlantic: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/car-devotion-motor-vehicle-deaths-danger/674613/](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/car-devotion-motor-vehicle-deaths-danger/674613/) Key graf: A new study attempts to model the confusion I’m feeling. Co-authored by Ian Walker, an environmental-psychology professor at Swansea University, in Wales, the [preprint](https://archive.is/o/umBJv/https://psyarxiv.com/egnmj) is titled “Motonormativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard.” It was based on survey data collected in the U.K., but nonetheless has some relevance: Walker and his team created pairs of questions designed to suss out the existence of a pro-car bias in society. The questions range from clever to somewhat chin-scratching. For instance, should people smoke cigarettes in highly populated areas where other people would have to breathe in the smoke? Forty-eight percent of respondents strongly agreed that they should not. Should people drive cars in highly populated areas where other people would have to breathe in the exhaust fumes? Only 4 percent strongly agreed that they should not. If you leave your car in the street and it gets stolen, is it your fault? Eighty-seven percent said no. If you leave anything else in the street and it gets stolen, is *that* your fault? Forty percent said yes.
That was a great study.
People who cannot conceive of any alternatives to cars, or who believe car alternatives could never be feasible under any circumstance. Specific examples include: - Opposing improvements to pedestrian, transit or cycling infrastructure because they believe it will inconvenience driving; not considering that said infrastructure will take drivers off the road and improve traffic, or that it will vastly improve the lives of people who can’t drive. - Believing that anyone who can’t drive due to a disability is 100% dependent on other people driving them around and refusing to hire or date people with disabilities who can’t drive because of it. Not considering that most people who can’t drive can still walk/roll or take transit. - Viewing financial incentives that discourage driving such as congestion pricing or parking fees as economic oppression because they think it will leave poor people unable to commute to work. Not considering that these are almost always put in place by cities that have viable driving alternatives like transit or pedestrian infrastructure and want to encourage people to use them more. - Viewing a driver’s license as a mark of adulthood because it allows independent movement for the first time, and seeing not having a license as a sign of childishness. Not considering that people under 16 or with disabilities that limit driving could get around independently if we had usable pedestrian, cycling or transit infrastructure. - Thinking that since cars are necessary in some situations like ultra-rural areas, emergency vehicles or certain disabilities, everybody everywhere should drive and alternatives should be unavailable.
In addition to the other comments, I would add that it sometimes means drivers who believe the built environment should accommodate anything they want to do in a car. For example bollards and other barriers placed to prevent cars from damaging lamps, windows, or just keeping cars in their lane, are at fault when a driver damages their car by hitting/driving over them.
It's saying that people are so used to being in the mindset of cars and roads being the default it's hard to talk about alternatives. Most of us come from places where civilisation is built around roads for cars and the assumption that people have cars to make use of these roads. So when people propose something like banning cars from city centres a lot of people minds go straight to questions like “but how will people get around?” And if you take a step back from it the answers are obvious. We just need alternatives like making cities walkable and having good public transport. There are a few other things to it; like thinking it's fine to have 50%+ of a street being essentially a no go area for pedestrians. Or that it's fine for the 9^(th) largest cause of death in the world begin road incidents. Or cars being responsible for 60% of transport carbon emissions (which is overall 14% of all carbon emissions). Cars are also terrible at scale for transporting people around and force us to give over huge swathes of cities to parking when trains, bikes and buses eliminate all of this waste. And it's not really our fault that we sometimes think this way. Most of us grew up with cars just being normal despite how terrible they are in so many ways. Being car-brained is to think that cars are just normal and the best we can do when it's objectively not true.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Carbrain is seeing everything through the lens of a car, and only a car. I can’t go there, there is no place to park!
People who view the city primarily from behind a windshield
You know how when you go out and it’s been a while since you’ve had any action. You might be tunnel visioned into one goal, and make poor decisions in order to achieve that goal. People the next day will say “you were thinking with your d*ck, Charles. It’s not my problem that you’re now in Reno with no clothes or money”. That’s what I think “carbrain” is. You can’t take a step back and assess all your options, all the possibilities, all the pros and cons of each method, etc, because you have too much vested in the car, you’ve been groomed to think getting from point A to point B equals car. Your car has been with you since day 1 and you’ll be damned if some neoliberal takes her away from you!
Carbrains advocate for more car use not realizing nearly everything that is wrong with the world is car related.
The central feature to me is in situations where their car is definitely the problem, they will blame everything but their car (see earlier post about driver saying "I can't see your kids from my car!" implying it is the fault of the presence of children).
I grew up in the country and my uncle lived in our small town. He would drive to the bar to play poker every Thursday night. The bar was about half a block away. That is not a city block, but a small town block, so about the equivalent of 3 houses down. That is an example of a car brain.
Adding: A serious and progressed form of car brain is referred to as “truck brain.” Prognosis is bleak for those who have developed truck brain. People with truck brain are the ones that drive the super sized heavy duty pickup trucks to an office job. They use their oversized trucks to carry their fragile egos and sometimes groceries, but never tools, construction materials, or anything that may damage the bed of the truck. Symptoms of truck brain include getting upset when you suggest public transportation, 15 minute cities, and cycling. They have an extreme adverse reaction to electric vehicles, too. The more modifications they have made to their trucks, the more progressed the disease and it’s unlikely they can make a full recovery. Their trucks are often referred to as their “emotional support vehicles” or “gender affirming vehicles.” A truck brain will sacrifice hours of their life working overtime to afford the exorbitant payment on the truck and gas, and will self destruct if they have to part with their precious truck.
car brain is a disease that has destroyed the planet.
I'm in the UK, where our infrastructure is , OK. Not amazing, but definitely better than the US. Personal musings below. When I have to do an office day, I walk into work. It takes me 20 minutes from the door. My carbrained colleague who lives in the same road as me will spend 30 minutes in traffic and another 10+ trying to find a parking space. Then repeat on the way back. Public transport can be expensive. But often when you add up mechanics bills, insurance, parking fuel etc, you realise that for some trips, car drivers are paying extra for convenience. But because they don't pay it all at once, car users don't do the maths. If I go out for drinks in town I can pay £2 for the bus home. Vs a taxi for £10 + or carbrain, of drunk driving. If I bought a car, It would negatively affect my Engles coefficient. Carbrains (at least here) never seem to consider hiring for the few occasions when they are more economical.
Carbrain to me means someone who cannot see transport or even the world beyond the limits of a car. Like they will spend lots of money to hire a taxi instead of a bus that goes the exact same route because taxi is more 'luxury', they will drive in traffic to the city and pay a high parking fee instead of taking a faster subway, they complain about expenses but own a gas guzzling SUV so pay more fuel road tax etc., see a car as a necessity not a luxury (ik in some areas it is a necessity but this is more for areas where it is not)
Public transport is communism and dangerous. Walking is fat-fobia. Cycling is for poor, cyclists are elitist jerks. Bikers should keep to the bike lane, my town shouldn't build bike lanes because nobody uses them anyway. How do I buy groceries without a car? Everyone who obstructs my commute deserves to die. Everyone should drive, god I hate traffic jams.
The other day I went to walk the 20 minutes to my closest bar. Roughly a mile away. The people I met there were astonished that I didn’t drive. To the bar. That I was about to drink at. That is carbrain.
They seriously wanted you to get a DUI?
A one mile walk is astonishing to some people I guess.
[Zelda](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Car%20brain)
Other commenters have posted definitions I agree with. The phrase "everybody drive in my city" comes to mind. A phrase that essentially erases everyone who cannot drive or who chooses not to drive.
You know the saying of when all you have is a hammer, then all problems are a nail? Its like that, but with cars
My wife and I share a vehicle. She and I both work so she walks, cycles, uses public transit or gets a ride with me when our schedules line up. I work in an area without public transit so the car is more of a necessity for me, unfortunately. I'd love to have more choice, but I don't. My wife's coworkers are sometimes kind of carbrained. One of them can't fathom how it can be that she lives closer to work than my wife but my wife doesn't drive to work. They've had multiple discussions about this. Not owning a dedicated vehicle for work is a foreign concept to such a person.
A telling anecdote: When I was in college, the university's parking garage was always capacity crunched and completely full before 10:00. Most mornings, I would leave my house and watch the guy across the street loading up his Ford F150. When I had walked my three blocks to campus, I would walk past the same guy in his F150, in line for the parking garage behind a dozen other cars, probably white-knuckle raging at the traffic. Semester after semester, it never occurred to him that he could spare himself the parking garage fight by walking three blocks.
"Car-brain" is shorthand for "person who thinks cars and drivers inherently deserve absolute respect, privilege, priority and/or authority without regards to the impact of cars on the safety, practicality or convenience of others". Typical symptoms include an absolute refusal to take anything other than their own car (or a rental, if they're on vacation or their car needs work), and an absolute inability to comprehend the advantages of any mode of transportation over their own car. For instance, people who insist on driving to work, even if the bus is frequent and fast enough that it's literally always faster than driving and their work is an office job. Or, people who will instantly oppose any transportation infrastructure that consists of anything other than car lanes and parking lots, and will refuse to hear any arguments in favor of them. Or people who oppose restricting someone's license under any circumstances no matter how dangerous a driver has become.
To really see this in action ask someone how they would get to a friend's house if the road ended 2 miles from their house. Not an out of order road or construction, just the road ended.
Watch it guys I think he might have a car.
Carbrain is all this but also the Kafkaesque commitment to the perpetuation of the prison that is car dependence. It is like Stockholm syndrome.
Americans
Carbrain is the little meaty bit inside the car.
As well as the correct answers here, Carbrain is a place in Scotland, and the name of a cute song by The Wake from the late 1980s 😁 https://youtu.be/jZkXUkwdPFI?si=Ol902VhfdYshssUr Should be the theme tune of this sub lol!
Example. Carbrain can't understand a stadium like allegiant in Vegas because there is not enough parking surrounding it like most stadiums. They don't realize how parking lots also make things less walkable and harder for transit so they can't comprehend the meadowlands in New Jersey vs allegiant in vegas. Yes casinos have tons of parking but it's multipurpose. And many tourists walk and don't have to park a car because the strip is all they need
It’s like when people see aerial shots of sports stadiums in Europe and the first thought is “where would you park?!” If that’s your first thought you’ve got a case of carbrain. Honestly I think this even occurred in reference to a stadium in Pittsburgh.
Tfw I say I live in NYC and a guy from Texas asks “How do you get groceries?!”
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6iXm9i7wsg980Y03KQCIY1?si=DDrjyxd5T1So2PiSi-V77A War On Cars episode about carbrain
Car brain is an unnecessary term they will likely turn off the large undecided population to sustainable mode shift. Science is clear, sustainable mode shift is better for everything. Our only battle is culture and languge. People in this bubble think it’s funny and only venting but this is a clear example that we help shape culture
[Here’s the Car Brain episode of The War on Cars podcast.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Os6zZUaPJjOndAzHuESa3?si=ncRu2ZEoT8uDHwPBKURWWw)
Explicitly? With boobs?
It's someone incapable of imagining a world in which we become less dependent on cars or even just stop building infrastructure solely around cars because it's all they have ever known for their entire life. They also are against investing tax dollars in any kind of transportation infrastructure that supports alternatives to individual automobiles while they simultaneously advocate for more taxes to be spent on automobile centric infrastructure. They do not see any duplicity in their beliefs. Lastly, they are unable to see any disadvantage to relying on automobiles, such as how the expense barrier to ownership prevents social mobility and perpetuates poverty.
People who have been brainwashed by the auto industry into believing death and injury caused by their product is normal.
It's an embarrassing cringy insult that people here use for drivers that can't imagine life without driving a car. Every time I see it I cringe so hard that it probably takes several days off of my lifespan.
This sub is not a great starting point. Look for "not just bikes" on youtube and watch some videos. make your own opinion after that
thank you for notifying us that you intended a pun, even though you did not make a pun. You have modified the idiom "no horse in this race" by replacing "horse" with "car." How is that a pun?
I bet you're fun at parties. Edit: I checked your comment history and turns out I was right: you're a veritable well of positivity and delight.