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The problem is that most of that people that need to be hit are in the cars, and there are just too many of them. Too many.
When I was learning to drive the thing that took me by surprise the most is how fast the situation can change. You can take your eyes off the road for a second to check your mirror(s), your speed, etc and just in that tiny bit of time the entire situation on the road ahead of you can change dramatically.
Using a phone while driving is negligence of the highest level. It is so incredibly goddamn dangerous that I would possibly argue it should fall under attempted murder instead.
it’s mind blowing how we are expected to all regularly use a giant dangerous machine like that.
imagine cooking, but the oven can explode at any moment and you have to pay 100% attention all the time while baking, because at any moment, if it were to explode and kill you and everyone in the room, you only have 0.2 seconds to react and not die.
such oven would never exist, but a car?
Not sure that’s the best analogy, because that does also happen. Explosions from cooking oil fires are more common than you might think, and most people are woefully unprepared for that, too.
most americans still have gas in their kitchens, it’s fucking insane
When I tell people that a driver should strive to see 100% of the road where their tires will go when driving, I inevitably get a lot of responses from people who say it’s impossible to do. I mean, you don’t have to consciously focus on it, just make sure you can see it. That’s what I learned in my defensive driving class, and I’ve been doing it for decades. Obviously, I can’t do it perfectly, so there are rare times where I hit a pothole I didn’t see, but I don’t think you should be driving if you don’t try to do this.
I always wonder how many potholes/animals/small children these people hit with their cars.
If it’s impossible to do, that’s a good reason to reject the idea of everyone driving in the first place.
What’s even worse, is that I am a person who tries to do a lot of defensive driving, and I’ve been doing it for decades, and I’m just constantly aware of all the little mistakes I still make. Maybe you can say it’s the Dunning-Krueger effect, but I think I’m objectively not a very good driver, and I don’t know what that makes all of the other people out there.
But overall, I really do agree that people shouldn’t be driving if they can avoid it. (I can’t avoid it at the moment.)
i think it’s basically impossible to be a good driver on a normal road above 40km/h, we’re just not at all built to handle those speeds mentally and unless it’s a mostly empty highway there’s simply too much going on.
80km/h is the highest anyone but police and emergency services should ever be going on a road, and even 80 is me stretching it because i know just that would make many people want to actually literally unironically murder me in cold blood if i said it in public.
Like 5 years ago I had a pedestrian walk into my blind spot while I was checking for traffic in the opposite direction (not sure how I didn’t see them before i looked the opposite direction) so I started to move then hit the breaks as I saw them exit the blind spot immediately in front of me. I’ve been thinking about the mistake ever since and I’m extra careful to make sure there is no chance there’s a person hiding behind my A beam ever
Edit: also huge benefit to bikes is no obstructions to your view. You can see everything on and off the road
As someone with big wheels and thin tires on a low car I’m hyper vigilant about these sorts of things.
Obviously, I can’t do it perfectly, so there are rare times where I hit a pothole I didn’t see, but I don’t think you should be driving if you don’t try to do this.
I agree. Even looking the road all the time you can’t see everything at the same time: there are the mirrors, there is stuff far away, there is stuff close. I really can’t drive if I don’t pay attention the the roaf
Oh my god if I could take a train to work I would be soooooo happy.
1: trains
B- I could leave slightly later and be relaxed most of the time
III• if there’s dense fog like today or severe weather, I don’t have to stress out for 30 minutes going 20 in a 55 because I can’t see 150ft ahead of me.
I had a 55-minute commute by train for a few years and it was absolutely wonderful. It was two hours a day of time to read, or if I was still tired I would just nap the whole way. TBF it really helped that my station was 5 minutes from my house and the train let me off literally in the basement of the building I worked in.
Then I changed jobs and had a 45-minute commute by car, and that shit was just nightmare fuel.
if we all woke up from our collective nightmare and started building dense housing around railway stations, living 5 minutes from your station could be reality for 80% of the population
Taking the train/subway/tram/bus is just like having your own personal chauffeur.
I hate driving myself anywhere like a “peasant”. All the rich folks outsource mundane tasks like driving or cutting ones lawn, that how they stay rich!
I remember in my childhood reading a joke that went something like: One person says to another: “You know, I’ve recently started to regularly travel in a large vehicle with its own chauffeur.” – “Really? Wow!” – “Yes! Oh, look, my bus is coming!”
But you don’t understand, they have to speed up to tickle their adrenaline just so the commute isn’t boring, and texting to maximise their time.
(real argument, i’m not even kidding.)
I’m a school bus driver. I actually had the dispatcher last year tell me that it was legal to drive 5 miles an hour over the posted speed limit. I was like “so the posted speed limit isn’t the posted speed limit?” It’s amazing the crazy shit that gets into the heads of people that should know better – which is fucking everybody.
It should come as no surprise that some of my fellow drivers text, doom-scroll Facebork, and watch movies while driving the buses. I’ve never seen someone doing it with actual kids on the bus, but I think that’s only because they know the kids might rat them out for it.
A few of them vape on the buses, too.
i’d imagine many countries still have the “you can’t drive faster than is safe” rule anyways, i know we have it in sweden.
Like no you can’t drive 80km/h through 1m visibility fog, if you can’t see shit you drive at walking speed and appreciate the fact that you have a comfortable vehicle to sit inside instead of having to actually walk.Speed cameras typically are set to 10%+3mph to account for variations in speedometers/tyre pressure etc. At least in the UK.
Sure. It’s reasonable to say “you will probably not be ticketed for going 5 mph over the speed limit”, but that is not the same as saying “it is legal to drive 5 mph over the speed limit”. Hell, where I live you probably have to go 40 mph over the speed limit before the cop is even going to wake up.
I think distracted driving is way more dangerous than fast driving, assuming the person going 10mph over is paying attention. That said, people are terribly bad at understanding where and why you should be proceeding slowly.
Freeway? Yeah fine whatever. Blind intersection? Fucking slow down.
you can drive slower
Please don’t drive slower than the speed limit. That can be dangerous too.
not much slower; somewhat slower is completely fine
Not just completely fine. Slower is safer as long as it’s not so slow that you’re creating a hazard.
OP seems to recommend 20mph slower
They do?
In at least one thread they took the position that minus 20mph was perfectly fine
We know it’s boring. That’s the game.
Don’t like it?
Perhaps you hate the game.
Driving is fucking boring. Let one person do it, take the bus or train
Totally agree. Time you’re driving is wasted time. If you’re on a bus, you can set an alarm for a few minutes before your stop and just totally zone out or do whatever.
public transport apps really need to have a standard functionality to trigger an alarm when the vehicle approaches your destination
This meme implies this is only an issue of personal responsibility ; but in truth to actually lower car deaths we need a systemic approach.
Think of cigarette companies laying blame at “addictive personalities”. They knew making people personally responsible would not threaten their business, whereas public policies against tobacco did.
This post is doing the same thing : when an accident happens we should not just ask “who is to blame?” but also “how do we prevent it in the future?”, which in this case means redesigning streets to be friendlier to pedestrians and developing other modes of transportation.
Design infrastructure to be actively hostile to cars. It’s the best way to be pro environment, pro bike, pro a better future
This meme is a parody of PSAs aimed at telling people walking and cycling how to avoid getting hit. Y’know, the personal responsibilty + victim-blaming approach.
Thinking about that cab driver who was so pissed when I asked him to please not watch a movie while driving. dude had a tablet attached to the window in front of him
I ride a motorcycle. Whenever I see someone driving like they’re drunk, I try to see if I can pull beside them and have a look. Lo and behold, 95% of the time, they’re on their phone.
I hope you’ve got a helmet camera and send the police the footage with plates and driver holding their phone clearly visible.
They have to edit out all the illegal lane splitting and speeding first.
