1500 hours per year ...

[cfsmtb]

The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.


Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries
one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75
calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any
motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still
less efficient than horses or sturgeon.


A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's
self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no
further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and
do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended
walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre
expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better
not only than any machine but also than any animal.


Ivan Illich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich


--
cfsmtb

[DeF]

cfsmtb wrote:
> The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
> driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
> to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
> highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
> it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
> courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
> model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
> vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
> four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
> people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.
>
>
> Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries
> one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75
> calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any
> motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still
> less efficient than horses or sturgeon.
>
>
> A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's
> self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no
> further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and
> do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended
> walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre
> expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better
> not only than any machine but also than any animal.
>
>
> Ivan Illich
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich
>
>

Is this the same Ivan Illich that suggested a world wide
speed limit of 25kph? That would slow me down too much on
the bike.

DeF.

--
e-mail: d.farrow@your finger.murdoch.edu.au
To reply, you'll have to remove your finger.

[DeF]

flyingdutch wrote:
> Go the Sturgeon! :D
>
>
Mmm, caviar.

--
e-mail: d.farrow@your finger.murdoch.edu.au
To reply, you'll have to remove your finger.

[Random Data]

On Wed, 24 May 2006 15:54:53 +0800, DeF wrote:

> Is this the same Ivan Illich that suggested a world wide
> speed limit of 25kph? That would slow me down too much on
> the bike.

Kind of. He basically said that once people started going above 15mph
(near enough to 25km/h) the pressure to be places quickly meant that you
couldn't get there fast enough. So it's a bit of a catch-22. I guess you
could make the analogy that if you want to average 5km/h faster on your
bike you'll need to put far more time in to training than you'll gain by
being faster (this ignores the fun aspect of riding a bike, and therefore
of "training").

The original words are here:

http://reactor-core.org/energy-and-equity.html#chapter5

--
Dave Hughes |
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
-Steven Wright

[Vincent Patrick]

DeF wrote:

> cfsmtb wrote:
>> The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
>> driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
>> to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
>> highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
>> it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
>> courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
>> model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
>> vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
>> four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
>> people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.
>>
>> Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries
>> one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75
>> calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any
>> motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still
>> less efficient than horses or sturgeon.
>>
>> A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's
>> self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no
>> further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and
>> do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended
>> walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre
>> expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better
>> not only than any machine but also than any animal.
>>
>> Ivan Illich
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich
>>
>
> Is this the same Ivan Illich that suggested a world wide
> speed limit of 25kph? That would slow me down too much on
> the bike.
>
> DeF.

I first heard of Ivan Illich when I read his book "Deschooling Society",
which I thought presented a useful view on education.

Unfortunately, it seems he has not taken into account the additional heat
energy lost from the human body when riding a bicycle at 6 km/hr. Apart
from Brisbanites, most people wouldn't ride wearing an insulating suit.

During and after physical activity our body temperature is higher than at
rest, and we continue to use up extra energy for some time after we have
reached the destination. This additional energy consumption can be higher
than the mechanical energy expended.

Which is my excuse for why I have just been eating about 2000 kilojoules
worth of chocolate...

Yum,

Vince

[beerwolf]

gplama wrote:
>
> Which is only a fraction of the time he will spend catching public
> transport in Melbourne. waiting for it, paying for it, lining up for a
> ticket, renewing a monthly ticket made from paper that fails to
> validate after two days, trying to find enough change because some
> machines only take coins. being jammed up against other unhappy people
> in peak hour, being sneezed on and catching a flu, recovering from that
> flu. and that's just on the way to work!...
>
> Yay cars, yay bikes, boo the state of our PT.

ditto for Sydney, in spades.

--
beerwolf (remove numbers from email address)

[Resound]

cfsmtb Wrote:
> The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
> driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
> to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
> highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
> it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
> courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
> model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
> vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
> four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
> people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.
>
>
> Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries
> one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75
> calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any
> motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still
> less efficient than horses or sturgeon.
>
>
> A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's
> self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no
> further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and
> do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended
> walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre
> expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better
> not only than any machine but also than any animal.
>
>
> Ivan Illich
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich

Where does the first paragraph come from? I found the rest of it. The
gender specificity is odd, given that the whole notion has nothing to
do with gender. To be honest, although I can see the point of what's
being said in that excerpt, Ivan appears to be something of a tosser
from what I read in the full text.


--
Resound

[cfsmtb]

Resound Wrote:
> Where does the first paragraph come from? I found the rest of it. The
> gender specificity is odd, given that the whole notion has nothing to
> do with gender. To be honest, although I can see the point of what's
> being said in that excerpt, Ivan appears to be something of a tosser
> from what I read in the full text.

Ivan's (was) one of those card-carrying intelligentsia folk, read the
wiki entry.

**wanders off muttering something about groupthink**


--
cfsmtb

[Resound]

cfsmtb Wrote:
> Ivan's (was) one of those card-carrying intelligentsia folk, read the
> wiki entry.
>
> **wanders off muttering something about groupthink**

He sounds vaguely Chomskyesque only without Chomsky's actual knowledge
of anything actually pertaining to the real world. And even Chomsky got
waffly.


--
Resound

[Rory Williams]

cfsmtb Wrote:
> The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
> driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
> to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
> highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
> it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
> courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
> model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
> vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
> four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
> people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.
> Ivan Illich
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich

I came across another example of these concepts at
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/tdm/publications/effectivespeeds.html

A report by Paul J. Tranter
School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW@ADFA,
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Commisioned by the Australian Greenhouse Office, Department of the
Environment and Heritage, 2004

Abstract
Formula One racing teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars each
year so that their drivers can travel at very high speeds for a very
short time. If these teams want to be competitive, they have no choice
but to devote huge amounts of time and money to their cars. But is this
strategy a sensible one when applied to everyday transport? Is it worth
investing hundreds of hours per year to pay for a mode of transport
that might save only half of that in travel time? We can help answer
this question by considering the concept of 'effective speed', where
speed is calculated on the basis of the total amount of time consumed
by a particular mode of transport. Applying this concept of 'effective
speed' provides some surprising results in the comparison of cars,
bicycles and public transport

I havent been thorough it all again recently but I recall some
interesting comparisons

RoryW


--
Rory Williams

[BrettS]

cfsmtb wrote:

> The model... male spends more than 1500 hours per year on his car;
> driving or sitting in it, parking or searching for it; earning enough
> to pay for the vehicle, the tolls, the tyres, the insurance or the
> highway taxes. These four hours per day for gathering his resources for
> it do not include his transport-related dally-ing in hospitals, traffic
> courts, and garages, his sitting time before the TV to be sold a new
> model, or the time needed to earn or enjoy the travelling on his
> vacation. In terms of lifetime invested, the average (driver) attains
> four miles per hour. In countries without any transport industry,
> people walk at this rate wherever they want to go.
>
>
> Man, unaided by any tool, is quite efficient when he moves. He carries
> one gram of his weight over a kilometre in 10 minutes by expending 0.75
> calories, which makes him thermodynamically more efficient than any
> motorized vehicle and most animals, such as rats or oxen. He is still
> less efficient than horses or sturgeon.
>
>
> A century ago, however, the bicycle appeared. It lifted man's
> self-powered mobility into a new order, beyond which there can be no
> further progress. On flat ground he can travel faster than on foot and
> do so using only one-fifth of the calories he would have expended
> walking. He can now carry one gram of his weight over one kilometre
> expending only 0.15 calories. Equipped with a bicycle, man does better
> not only than any machine but also than any animal.

It's only going to get worse here in WA (Bunbury). The Harvey Shire has
voted to become part of the pilot program for 40km/h speed limits in
built-up areas and 30km/h limits in school zones! If it's 'successful'
it will be expanded throughout the state.

--
Brett"Now I can get a speeding ticket on the flat without a tailwind"S

[Zebee Johnstone]

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 26 May 2006 17:38:25 +1000
Rory Williams > wrote:
> by a particular mode of transport. Applying this concept of 'effective
> speed' provides some surprising results in the comparison of cars,
> bicycles and public transport

Sigh... motorcycles lose again.

can't be enough lazy cyclists in Canberra!

Zebee

[Aeek]

On Fri, 26 May 2006 16:12:15 +0800, BrettS
> wrote:

>It's only going to get worse here in WA (Bunbury). The Harvey Shire has
>voted to become part of the pilot program for 40km/h speed limits in
>built-up areas and 30km/h limits in school zones! If it's 'successful'
>it will be expanded throughout the state.

SA has had "25kmh in school hours or when children present" zones for
some years now.

[BrettS]

Aeek wrote:

> On Fri, 26 May 2006 16:12:15 +0800, BrettS
> > wrote:
>
>
>>It's only going to get worse here in WA (Bunbury). The Harvey Shire has
>>voted to become part of the pilot program for 40km/h speed limits in
>>built-up areas and 30km/h limits in school zones! If it's 'successful'
>>it will be expanded throughout the state.
>
>
> SA has had "25kmh in school hours or when children present" zones for
> some years now.

That sounds bizarre! How much more likely are kids to be on the road
*during* school hours than on the road outside their house *after*
school hours?

--
BrettS

[Peter Signorini]

"Aeek" wrote:

> SA has had "25kmh in school hours or when children present" zones for
> some years now.

Whoa!!

I'd be a candidate to get booked every day while riding past the local high
school under those rules. Crazy stuff.

Oh yeah. I don't do it while children are present - well no more then one or
two.

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

[Zebee Johnstone]

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 26 May 2006 21:55:12 +1000
Peter Signorini > wrote:
>
> "Aeek" wrote:
>
>> SA has had "25kmh in school hours or when children present" zones for
>> some years now.
>
> Whoa!!
>
> I'd be a candidate to get booked every day while riding past the local high
> school under those rules. Crazy stuff.

Yeah, but the zones have flashing lights in school hours so that
helps.

I didn't know about the "when children present" bit, and never heard
of anyone being done when the lights weren't flashing.

Zebee