Parking lots are ugly, and yet for every building there's a parking lot of equal size. Roads are ugly, and yet they crisscross everywhere. Not only dangerous, cars are ugly, noisy, polluting and stinking, and yet they're everywhere, making these places unsuitable for people and bicycle traffic. If one were to blast stereos at a loudness comparable to the noise cars make, whether in public or at home, one would soon find the pigs paying a visit. Yet, nobody stops the motorists and asks them to turn down the volume. Cars are sacred cows, and everything is permitted of them. Everything is designed for them. Cars come first, and people and bicycles are pushed into whatever little space and time remains, if there's even any money left for other development. Time, for cars on a major thoroughfare tend to be given long time slices in traffic lights, and other street users – who are very often moving in the perpendicular direction, trying to take the shortest path between areas encircled by such roads – tend to be given short time slices, and motorists have absolutely no respect for zebra crossings without traffic lights.
http://tuomov.bitcheese.net/b/archives/2006/07/27/T16_55_44