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I drive for my job, so like... daily. Lol. People do genuinely dangerously stupid things on the road and a lot just ignore it because of how dangerous driving already is. I think some of it can definitely be chalked up to honest mistakes but there have been many times I've seen a driver danger my own life, their own, or other people (or a combination of the three) out of what appeared to just be total and complete ignorance. I feel so incredibly lucky to have yet to be involved in a crash or to even witness one, but usually at least once a shift I do witness a close call that sometimes does involve me.
And I'm not much of an urban planner so I genuinely don't know what I can contribute to fix this, but so much of it seems to be an insane impatience and a treatment of driving as some kind of race. I see people hourly roll through stop signs, speed through red lights, ignore right-of-way in roundabouts, shove themselves into lanes, cut people off, etc. When I'm driving in my city's downtown I usually see drivers come within INCHES of pedestrians who are crossing the street just to get to the next red light 2 seconds faster. And people have this inherent obsession with speeding. It's like some kind of cult. If you don't speed they treat you like utter garbage. I've definitely driven on roads that felt 10 mph or 20 mph faster than the speed limit, but most of the time I feel like the speed limit like makes sense, you know? I speed due to the nature of my job (pizza delivery) but I usually only go 5 over at most. 9 times out of 10 though I get tailgated by some speed junkie who needs to go dangerously above the limit just to get to the red light 10 seconds faster.
And you know I've made mistakes too. I'm not perfect. I've rolled through stops, failed to signal, ran a few reds when I spaced out, etc. It's just shocking on the daily to see sheer ignorance to the rules of the road. At this point I'm almost numb to it. Just the other day I was driving to a store on my off time and witnessed somebody come within inches of a head-on collision because they creeped into the intersection to make a left turn (this happens every time I drive). The near-victim of this insane stupidity had some really quick reactions otherwise with that speed they might have hit me too. All I was thinking was that I wish I had my dashcam plugged in.
TL:DR: I drive a lot for my job. I deliver pizza. I am constantly shocked by the sheer stupidity on the road and it's probably from impatience and ignorance of speed limits. I witness people almost dying on a daily if not weekly basis. Just yesterday I almost got involved in a head-on collision by somebody who couldn't be bothered to wait behind the painted white line at a left turn.
Cars are fucking deathtraps and a massive waste of public and private resources.
I've always been a proponent of cutting down their use. Also, more stringent licensing requirements until we invest in effective public transportation (which is a hard fight already as manufacturers and even police have interest in dangerous vehicles being sold to the public).
Also, why the fuck do we have so many gigantic trucks on the road for shipping? Invest in fucking rail freight.
And, on a personal note, my grandmother still has her license and there's no fucking way that's safe for anyone.
As a MASSIVE fan of cars, there is literally no reason to have any cars in a city centre.
Wanna get to the other side of the city? Bus/team
Need private transport? Bike
Cars suck for city transport
Totally, I mean a lot of my gripe with cars is about how they're currently used and their safety and environmental impact.
I recognize the need for low occupant vehicles, but definitely also see that we've blown past any reasonable projection of their use.
As far as cutting cars out of cities goes, it's pretty important to cut commuter cars as well. Commuter trains are safer, way more easily regulated and keep cars out of the city.
I shed no tears for the owners of parking lots and ticket writers who would lose out with an increase in commuter trains. They bet on the continuation of inefficient forms of transportation and sought to capitalize on convenience, let 'em fail like commercial real estate and have the cities restructure their downtowns when the prices on those buildings plummet.
I agree with most everything you said. My store actually even allows us to use mopeds but man... not doing that with the way these roads are.
With the licenses, I actually kind of find it crazy how lax we are about them in the US. Like, I'm in Washington and we're kind of known for having the hardest test in the country, and all I did was parallel park, park on a hill, back around a corner, and park in a parking bay. That's it. And it's so easy in fact that you can fail all four of these sections and still pass as long as you're fine when driving to and from each section, with the way the points system is set up. You start at 100, each section is 5 points and you need 80 points left over to pass. Looking back on it now those things are definitely like some of my least worries on the road. It's nice that I can parallel park, but I think it was much better that I learned lane changing, you know?
Exactly! When I took my test way back when, they didn't even have me drive on a highway... Like, most of the crazy shit I see happens on or entering/exiting highways. I feel like mandating that in a test would keep a lot of people from danger.
And I get that people need to get to work and do errands, but the standard for getting a license is so low that their convenience comes at the expense of public safety and increased private costs, medical, legal, tickets to police vultures that just fund further oppression.
We treat driving as a necessity and cut all corners to keep selling environment destroying death traps to every member of the public. Driving is very convenient, but also inherently dangerous and the testing involved needs to accurately reflect the fatal consequences that occur wayyy too frequently.
Even if the consequences aren't fatal, victims end up with significant injuries and even life changing disabilities. Then they're compensated fucking pennies by greedy, profit pinching insurance companies and any actual burden for their treatment, rehabilitation, or stabilization is then borne by the victims and eventually the state.
It's lazy, demented, and cruel, all the way around. I feel like states should have standing to fuck up auto manufacturers and insurance companies for the massive costs they shift over to the public, but we've never really had a justice system so that's a ways away if it's even possible.
Dude no kidding, I drove for a living for a while and before I did I loved driving. Since then I get ridiculously anxious on the highways, I hate driving in the city and I even moved away partly to avoid the traffic.