Have you notice how the general opinion is that people getting hit by cars somehow deserved it? My best friend was hit by a text-and-drive kindof woman. He was an athlete and now he can’t walk more than a few hundred meters.
Another attempt to get rid of private property. No one will say people deserve unfair injuries. They could say that in cases when pedestrians are crossing road against rules, but I don’t approve such speech. Let’s not be blind looking only at some specific cases and say that whole thing is bad, like your own car. It’s just a car, it is not making decisions.
Now thats not to say they should be banned. No, due to the personal freedoms they allow they should be allowed, however: where they can go, who can drive them, and how you can drive them should be much more strictly regulated. If you enjoy driving, and you do it safely you should support regulating vehicles and creation of better transit so that there are fewer cars on the road and more open roads for those of us who enjoy the act of driving.
Roads are meant for vehicles. When you cross one, the onus is on BOTH parties to pay attention. This is why in many cases, BOTH parties are fined in a collision. And for the record:
My dude, pedestrians get killed by cars while they wait at bus stops. Or while using a crosswalk when they have the right of way.
Suggesting that people should jump out of the way because they have an onus to pay attention from unskilled or negligent motorists seems like victim blaming.
My policy is: if you are weaker, you have to be extra carefull and give way to the others.
Usually in this order: pedestrian < bicycle < motorcycle < car < truck
This has served me well. No reason to risk your life in competing even if you are in the right. Being in the right serves you nothing when you’re dead.
What about “I almost run over a cyclist so he attacked me with a hammer?”. One can only be so tolerant toward the constant threat of vehicular assault.
Hell I almost got ran over by some bitch a couple of days ago while walking on the sidewalk.
I’m not saying or suggesting that it’s a pedestrian, cyclist, driver, or anyone else’s sole responsibility to stay safe. In fact, I strongly believe the “stronger” party has an outsized responsibility to make sure they act safely and not endanger other road users.
All I’m advocating for is for all participants to be vigilant and not assume right of way will be honored by the other party.
Ultimately, only you can keep you safe. Don’t assume anyone is flawless. Regardless of where you are driving a car, walking, cycling, etc. people can and will make mistakes, miss something, or forget to check.
Of course. I am not disputing it. What I’m pointing out (and tbh I found it especially pernicious where I live, I did not have the same feeling in Canada or Ireland or France outside of big cities - in those places, yes infrastructure can be better, but people are actually nice on the wheel), is that dangerous behavior are normalized for cardrivers. And I would not equate dangerous behavior of a pedestrian with one of a car. In the first case, I’m only endangering myself. It’s not smart and of course people should be careful. But it’s not the same as drunk driving, for example.
Like a few days ago I was walking on the sidewalk. Some seeyouhaynetee just backdrove into me from her parking. And it’s not an isolated incident, it’s common occurrence. ALL the cardrivers in my family are taking the wheel drunk. Its normal here.
I think what is considered acceptable strongly depends on where you live to be honest. Driving while druk (a felony offense in most places) is extremely frowned upon by the general public. At least, it is where I live.
Although I do get where you are coming from in terms of other behaviors, there’s a reason traffic violations are the most ticketed offenses in just about any country.
The ocean is big. How do I exercise caution when some bitch is tailing me on my bike? If I fall I die. If I side, they pass you leaving the size of an apple as security. Quit your victim blaming lmao. Ocean tankers takes half an hour to take another direction, your cars takes 1 seconds. False equivalency.
I mean, it makes sense from a self-preservation point of view. Too many are upholding this exact policy while driving though, which is what I’m pointing out. One could argue that the heavier / more dangerous you are, the more careful you want to be as well.
Yes, everyone should take precautions to keep themselves safe. Everyone should also advocate for safer roads and stiff penalties for vehicular violence.
You must always exercise safety and pragmatism, but that doesn’t mean that the “stronger” vehicle deserves the right of way more. I’d argue that the more dangerous the vehicle is, the greater the obligation to operate it with care and due regard for others.
I mean I’m pretty sure this is exactly why trucks over a certain tonnage require and additional license to operate. At least here in the US they do. I’m sure many other countries have something similar.
Ya know it’s not that anyone “deserves” to get hit by a car. I will say there are definitely circumstances I’ve seen where it was an incredibly predictable outcome
Standing in a parking lot and get hit? Drivers fault.
Sprinting across four lanes of traffic on a busy street in rush hour, at dusk, in black clothing? I mean… still the drivers fault technically, but cmon.
I’m not talking about people who throw themselves under wheel. I’m talking about legitimately crossing the street at a stop and some asshole honks you or attacks you for being in the way. There seems to be a general consensus that traffic flow is more important than people’s life. Just see how many were begging for protesters to get run over, on reddit for example.
In reality all of the people I know who are cycling got hit by a car. Hell in this very thread you can see people talking about it. What’s your point exactly?
Two of the links are discussing lawful fact, not morality, and even if they were, the commenters are saying “no, you can’t use your car to ‘encourage’ people to move”. The other two have commenters saying the driver committing vehicular manslaughter is crazy and obviously in the wrong. Particularly the last link has people expressing sympathy for the victims and animosity to the driver.
Nothing here suggests that victim blaming is common when someone driving does something illegal and injures a pedestrian.
Yeah yeah I get it. You do not want to see the problem, so there is no problem. Again, I guess my friends getting hit by car, or the several attack I personally had been subjected too for cycling too slow or crossing the street counts for nothing.
No it doesn’t count for nothing, and I’m sorry you and your friends went through that. But if people blamed you when the drivers were clearly in the wrong, that takes a special kind of being an asshole that the average person just isn’t.
Not sure. Like yeah ramming into someone intentionally is not the norm, you are right. But I have seen most of my friend and family being negligent on the road as well. It’s a norm here.
My ex girlfriend was like that. There was this piece of road when entering the city where pedestrians could cross the road. It was symbolised by some waves on the road (because it was over a bridge that's why i guess) my girlfriend would always yell at me or the pedestrians that we (in the car) come first. I don't know how true that was, she said she asked someone. And the conversation was always that i don't care, because i'm not running over people.
She would always accelerate or honk or yell out of the window. Congratulations, now you sit over there in traffic instead of back here. And you only had to endanger 10 people
I think you’ve gone off the rails a bit. This could have been an interesting retrospective about how jaywalking actually became criminalized, for example.
It’s the same principle. It’s the idea that the flow of traffic must go on and that people convenience are more important than anything else - climate, public spaces, pollution, freedom to use the vehicle you want, even people’s life.
Just to clarify: is it your belief that the editorial position of the cartoonist is that they approve of prioritizing motor traffic above everything else?
No, I haven’t heard this “general opinion”. Any conversation I’ve been a part of or observed (which, to be fair, is less than a few dozen) has always defaulted to the driver being at fault.
I’m not sure where you live that the general opinion is victim blaming, but it doesn’t sound like a pleasant place.
I’m just trying to gauge the roughness of your area, it seems you don’t want to be specific which is fine.
I live in Manchester in the UK, healthy level of gangs, knife crime etc. yet I’ve never felt the need to walk around with a hammer. Like I’ll walk through moss side with no issue.
I guess my point is I am wondering if you’re just being worried about nothing or you’re living in hell.
I mean my city is a rust belt and it’s kinda rough crime-wise. But drivers, especially, are fucking crazy. I lived in other places and people were actually quiet on the wheel. Here, I have a friend who had a case for homicide attempt after a truck rammed him “for fun”. He won. Pretty much every cyclist I know got hit by a car.
Too many people live in la-la-it-cant-happen-to-me-land and take that attitude with them behind the wheel. I think that to qualify for a drivers license one should be required to watch car crash footage and see pictures of the aftermath like you do in a good forklift safety video, because people really do not understand the relative forces involved with moving at a high rate of speed.
Does it look like your friend will ever recover his mobility?
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