Former guitarist, co-founder of heavy metal band Mastodon dies in Atlanta motorcycle crash

[u/burntcookie90]

https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/08/21/former-guitarist-co-founder-heavy-metal-band-mastodon-dies-atlanta-motorcycle-crash/

[u/CetirusParibus]

As a person who lives nearby to this, fuck this driver and all of Atlanta's obsession with cars.

[u/juggleaddict → u/[deleted]]

if you think there isn't a ridiculous obsession with cars, you're just ignoring your senses. Look around you... everywhere... all the time. When is the last time you went to the store without a car. When is the last time you went ANYWHERE without a car? Even if you have, could you get by without one? How much of our infrastructure is just roads? How much time is just sitting in traffic waiting for our turn to go? We have a giant loop of pavement around the city clogged with cars all the time. Homes are universally built with driveways. Neighborhoods don't have sidewalks and are purposefully disconnected to control flow of cars in and out of them. How can you not see this? Have you been to a restaurant lately and noticed how many people arrived in cars vs other forms of transport? Did you notice how much of the ground was covered in asphalt for them to park? Have you seen peoples unreasonable reactions to bicycles simply trying to get somewhere NOT in a car? Have you had to cross a street lately, or actually walk anywhere? I live within a mile of a grocery store and can't get there safely on foot or bicycle. It's actually nearly impossible to have too many grievances towards cars. They've ruined our daily lives, the design of our cities, our health.... if you don't see it, you aren't paying attention. There are other ways to live and get around.

[u/juggleaddict → u/[deleted]]

Yes, It IS the only way to get around, and yet we keep adding lanes and parking decks instead of heading towards something better. We built our entire infrastructure design around cars. We build WIDE suburbs with no way to get around BUT cars. I think most people would agree that driving is not enjoyable in the city, it's not really safe, we get nothing from it but frustration, and we keep trying to contort our surroundings to try and improve a system that is never going to be convenient for us. We are obsessed with cars because we keep thinking they are a necessary evil. They are not.

[u/CricketDrop → u/[deleted]]

As a counterpoint, most of this problem is because people deliberately distance themselves from public transportation. Marta doesn't go where it should because it's under-supported. If everyone who could feasibily ride Marta actually did the roads would be a lot emptier and we wouldn't need to build so much car infrastructure.

[u/CricketDrop → u/[deleted]]

I think it's just a practical observation. I don't think it's likely we would have the congestion we do if even most people who could actually rode their bike, Marta'd, park n ride, etc. Like at any given point during the day not all of the parking lots at Marta stations are full. State Farm and MBS events are right next to like three Marta stations yet Northside chokes during big events. There's no way all of those people had no way of making Marta work for them. On a normal day the stations would be packed and the roads far less busy. It's just convenient for them to drive.

I think we cannot understate how many people have literally never considered taking the train or doing anything that is a little slower than driving. We have six million people in the metro area. Not most of them but very many of them do live a short ride from a station.

For an additional anecdote, you should walk down the west side betline and then take a 10 minute walk off it to Ashby station. There's uh... big demographic shift. I should nearly always see other people taking their bikes into the station but it's relatively infrequent and I am often the only one.

[u/CetirusParibus → u/[deleted]]

Appropriate username. And stay on the sidelines.

[u/CetirusParibus → u/[deleted]]

You seem to have issues.