La voiture est-elle un symbole de liberté, de réussite sociale et de progrès ou plutôt un synonyme de pollution de l'environnement, de gaspillage et de renforcement des inégalités ? Cette série documentaire revisite dix grandes questions qui divisent le monde contemporain et confronte les récits.

German police arrested a Saudi Arabian man after a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market Friday in which an SUV barrelled through a crowd of revellers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.

At least two people were killed, one of them a young child, and 68 injured, said authorities in the city of Magdeburg, located about 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Berlin.

The suspect was a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi Arabia living in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, said regional premier Reiner Haseloff, speaking at a scene cordoned off and guarded by police commandos. "We have arrested the perpetrator, a man from Saudi Arabia, a doctor who has been in Germany since 2006," he told reporters, calling the attack a "catastrophe" for the city and the country. "From what we currently know he was a lone attacker so we don't think there is any further danger."

German media partially named the suspect as Taleb A. and said he was a doctor of psychiatry.

The black BMW barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 pm local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revellers.

Police said the vehicle drove "at least 400 metres across the Christmas market" leaving a trail of bloodied casualties, debris and broken glass at the city's central town hall square. Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the chaotic site, which was doused in blue police lights and wailing sirens, as badly injured people were treated on site and rushed off to hospitals.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that "the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted" in the attack but he cautioned that "the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified". The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X "when will this madness stop?" The Saudi government expressed "solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims", in a statement on social media platform X, and "affirmed its rejection of violence". French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "profoundly shocked" by the attack and that he "shares the pain of the German people". Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also condemned the "brutal attack on the defenceless crowd" and Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez voiced his sorrow at the "terrible attack".

I’m sure the folks in this community are intelligent enough not to waste time reading National Review, but this is what passes for the conservative “intellectual” argument to keep killing ourselves and others.

By this logic, we shouldn’t have put any limits on tobacco, or required seatbelts.

I love that he just completely ignores the very real ecological impacts of cars in favor of freedom (to sit in traffic and pay an exorbitant amount of fees to insurance companies).

Speaking of freedom, he invokes the specter of surveillance in cities, but cars are literally just rolling computers now that already gather an incredible amount of our data.

There’s so many things wrong with the arguments in this piece, but they all kind of amount to vibes. I guess the author feels like auto drivers are oppressed 🙄.

Here’s an Apple News link for anyone with a News+ subscription: https://apple.news/A-nLoMHTOQlKGHiT9M_7SoA

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23395832

New research shows what happens when cities add sidewalks and take other pedestrian-friendly steps.

"Carbrain" is a real thing.

From this article about several cities lowering the speed limit of certain rods by 5mph.

This commenter always complains on any article about transportation.

Again car versus cow violence. This time it's not a cop so they got jail for animal cruelty

A new high-speed train service linking Paris and Berlin was launched on Monday – just in time for the Christmas travel season. Joint operators SNCF and Deutsche Bahn say they hope passengers will see it as a "greener" alternative to flying.

In London, England, where the roads are narrow, the parking spaces are limited and we have plenty of availability of vans that can actually fit things in, we still get these a*holes with their unnecessary large pick up trucks made for a road system completely different to ours...

These spaces are wider than usual and long enough to fit them but they still have to park like w*nkers blocking the only footpath around!

I mean, I have a 5 door hatchback and know that my car overhangs the back wheels, as does any primary school kid drawing a car...

Children's Streets” consist in pedestrianizing the streets around nursery and elementary school. The aim is to make the route between home and school safer for children, but also to combat pollution.

Removable barriers are installed wherever possible. They allow the passage of emergency vehicles and services (garbage trucks, etc.), but prohibit the passage of other motorized vehicles.

More picture and before/after sliders at the bottom: https://www.paris.fr/pages/57-nouvelles-rues-aux-ecoles-dans-paris-8197#des-rues-aux-enfants-avec-un-amenagement-specifique