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Within the past few years, its gone from about 10% of people looking at their phones while driving, to easily about 40%.
for. real.
i have been doing a lot of pedestrian action for the last probably 10 years, and that slow style of commute lets me see exactly what the hell car drivers are doing. i thought it was fucked 5+ years ago already, because i would almost get hit by someone (usually once or twice a week) by a driver who was on their phone. just looking one way, gabbing, and about to run over me while i’m in the crosswalk with the signal. or witness a near collision where the cause was someone driving while on their phone. because so many of these people were on the goddamn phone.
now it’s everybody.
this story was related to me by someone being super charitable: i had a dumbass family member “get into a fender bender” where they “rear ended someone” and it “totalled the car”. Unreliable Narrator Mode Activated.
i said, “sounds like it was their fault if they hit someone from behind.” and the story was relayed, “all of a sudden they looked up and cars were stopped and blammo.”
because on the fucking phone.
the immediate environment, the climate, the biosphere, the deteriorating geopolitical situation around oil, the fossil capital formations and the political economy that protects it… there are so many reasons to get away from reliance on cars, but seriously self-preservation should be the one that spurs americans to at least try and make different choices. the highways and roads are fucking thunderdome.
Simply being in a car is the most dangerous thing the average person does in their life.
it’s a literal orphan crushing machine and they just let anyone drive them
driving a car is guaranteed by the first amendment \s
running over an entire funeral procession is FREE SPEECH
First amendment is ridiculous. Now second amendment, you might be able to make a case…
Sorry. The specific trajectory I drive my Truck^{TM} at is my unique expression in the Public Sphere that is the road
Its really scary out there for pedestrians now. I stare everyone down now when I’m in a crosswalk. Learned to do this when I used to ride a moto when going through any intersection, and it definitely cut down on people creeping out or just ignoring the road.
Same, i live in a city with lots of bad drivers and i always make direct eye contact with the people who are supposed to be stopping (not to mention people blowing through the protected crosswalk with lights flashing)
The funny thing is that some drivers take offense to this because as soon as the solid red turns to flashing red they gun it past me, revving their engine as much/loudly as possible lol
not to mention people blowing through the protected crosswalk with lights flashing
A few years ago I read a story about a black teenager killed by a cop who was driving (fast) the wrong way down a 1-way residential street, about 25 mph limit, until T-boning. The cop was not charged, because he had lights on, while the teenager’s friend who was driving was arrested for driving with a suspended license.
Driving on the road in America means watching out for yourself because the rules will not actually protect you.
40% might be on the low end, riding on a motorcycle you can look right into people’s cars and so fucking many are just staring at their phone in their laps
I used to ride all over the place on a bicycle on dangerous roads even with drivers mostly paying attention, now I wouldn’t dream of sharing road space with cars on a bicycle. At least a motorcycle can move with traffic and get away from dangerous drivers, you’re just fully at their mercy on a bicycle at 18mph.
After my last moto died, and due to too many close calls from dumbass phone-addicted drivers, I ended my moto-ing era. Its just too dangerous nowadays. I don’t want my obit to read: “killed by an SUV driver scrolling instagram.”
DWD - Driving while doomscrolling
I occasionally do stupid shit while driving (I’m bad at judging gaps sometimes because idk I get lost in my head/zone out a little) but I’m NEVER on my phone. How do people do this ??
I gave up on commuting by bike for this reason. I’ve had too many close calls. I never felt particularly safe before the pandemic but it got so much worse after 2020. The last time I went for a ride around my city I almost got hit three separate times. I don’t want to become a ghost bike.
maybe instead of “no distracted driving” they should do “only distracted driving” and you can only get your license if you can navigate a deadly obstacle course while having an IMPORTANT interview over the phone
In Norway they make you fill out your taxes while driving on an ice lake as part of the exam. They shoot your dog if you fail.
I would REALLY trust drivers with that sort of strict licensing procedure
Yeah it’s a whole thing where you pick a puppy from a big group of them when you register for driving school and you care for the puppy while you’re taking classes and all that. You get a collar for the dog when you pass the written exam.
They even hand you the gun to do the job yourself if you fail the practical exam. They make the instructors wear bulletproof armor just in case you turn on them, but it’s a social democracy so if you fail the test and use the one bullet on the instructor in an act of dramatic protest they just charge your credit card for an ebike with a dog basket and send you off. Fat tires for the snow conditions of course.
you’re going to give happybadger a run for the money for tagline creation with posting like that comrade
Sometimes my job requires me to work on the highway or do traffic control. It is terrifying how little caution some people drive with. This one person came around a bend on a mountain road doing probably 75 (there was a sign a ways back saying work zone, speed limit 45) and they smashed through cones near me, one of which flew and hit me. That kind of work is Possibly the only time I appreciate the presence of a cop, as it gets people to slow down a little bit
I’ve long maintained that road cops (highway patrol style) are the most necessary cops because drivers are psychos who must be brutally oppressed.
I’m calling for a dictatorship of the pedestrians/cyclists
Seems to be the only time chuds are against the cops as well.
Chuds when they get a $20 fine for doing 120mph through a school zone:
Chuds when someone gets executed for stealing a bag of potato chips:
Dangerously anti social activity should be allowed if you claim you ‘know the road and can actually drive!’
California drivers are having a conniption over mobile speed cameras about to be deployed to road work sites, even though they already have a 11mph tolerance above the limit. No interaction with cops seems like a plus to me.
They talk about how their appeals are going to be “auto-rejected”. I used to work for a DOT and the reason most of them are rejected is because most of them are bullshit lmao.
speed and red light cameras are part of the panopticon and in some states they’re considered a violation of your right to face your accuser.
I would rather that than dealing with an ego driven armed killer at the side of the road. These were mobile cameras deployed to work zones and the workers seemed to appreciate them. Although I would definitely not trust the US government with that information…
TLDR China should annex the US and do their traffic thing here
Yeah, traffic control is just about the only good thing the cops do * .
Says a lot about how fucked of a system car-centrism is, that injecting random patrols by armed men actually improves it.
* Of course they’re cops so they’ll use this as an opportunity to promote racism
so if we get rid of cars we can get rid of road cops?
Reminds me of the people I’ve seen pass on the double yellows near my town on windy mountain roads where every turn is a blind curve and there’s no shoulder for 90% of it. Those lines are yellow for a reason but it doesn’t mean I haven’t had to dodge suddenly because somebody was passing and came flying around a turn all the way inside my lane. If I had been looking at my phone at that moment they’d have knocked me off the side of the mountain and I’d be fukken dead.
country with a soft mandate on vehicle ownership
no one can drive
HOW!?!
if you make it so everyone believes (accurate or not) they have to drive to survive, they will be on the roads. doesn’t matter how shit they are at it, if their license is suspended, their insurance is bananapants, they have had tons of near accidents or actual accidents.
they will be back on the road tomorrow and most of them will shift the blame as the absolute worst drivers think they are the best drivers.
“I’ve been driving for 40 years I’m the best driver on the road for miles around” mfs trying to explain their monthly crashes and the daily speeding camera tickets they get:
speeding tickets don’t count
If you’re getting them daily it’s kind of your own fault for not learning where the speed cameras are.
honestly it’s your fault for not flex sealing the lens
I cant afford insurance and i also cant wake up 3 hours before my work begins every day and hoof it there, work on my feet, then head back.
Not only that, it is legally impossible to cross my city on foot. The city is bisected by a highway that once it reaches the side of town where my work is at, there are no sidewalks, no crosswalks, no bike lanes, literally nothing. In order to cross you have to wait for a lull in the constant traffic of cars doing 45-50 in a 35 in order to cross 3 to 4 lanes. Either that, or you stay on one sidr for the whole walk via walking over private property of homeowners or businesses.
So basically you jaywalk or tresspass to get around town.
Growing up in the state with the most DUI’s in the USA, I learned very quickly that people just do not give a shit
We had a campaign, Zero Deaths, where the idea was that we could prevent all deaths on the road if people were careful
There were like five deaths the week that campaign started
The meaninglessness of Vision Zero pisses me off so much. It’s a pre-emptive self-congratulatory exercise for a goal that nobody is going to hit for as long as cars around, followed by nothing fundamentally changing. It basically boils down to “if we get close to midnight on December 31st and nobody’s been smooshed by a car yet, I’m not going to leave the party early to run over somebody to bring it to one.”
Yeah, really the thing that helped with the DUI’s was making the busses run later and for free so that people could get around without driving
Of course, they only did this for the big music festival and refused to extend it to a year-round thing
Every Vision Zero initiative is basically:
Step 1: Beg drivers to slow down
Step 2: They don’t
Wisconsin?
Yep, go Pack!
something wild about just not braking at all, and slamming full speed into shit
A legendary at confrontation friend of mine almost got hit by a dude making a left turn when he was crossing the road. He yelled at the dude, and in the pre fight peacockimg he circled towards the other guys car got in and locked the doors cause the guy was mad and left the keys in. The guy who started it called the cops and had to explain how a guy who was in his car but not moving was stealing his car and why the guy was in there in the firsr place. They both just kinda got sent home with a court date and the judge considered it self defense, he went to the closest safe plsce he could instead of fighting the guy. I dont recommend this course of action, pr really most actions this guy has taken, but irs a good story.
- You’re goddamned right I smashed into that thing! Ain’t NO WAY I’m gonna let the government tell me where or how I can drive my ten-ton kid killer!
Missouri drivers are the grand champions of crashing into state and municipal vehicles. I don’t even drive and I’ve been in multiple collisions in Missouri because dip Missourians just hit busses.
I love it when absolute fuckwits pass me 10 miles over the speed limit just to stop at the same red light as the rest of us
The satisfaction of rolling a car length or two past them as well when this happens.
Surprised they didn’t apologize for having the truck there with the amount of ‘both sides’ (pedestrians need to pay attention!) shit that you see from DOTs from all over the country.
mount reactive armor to the crash pad
problem solves itself
if they were driving Cybertrucks they’d be fine. Problem solved. Gimmie trillion buckaroos please
Looking into it
In Georgia the signs about this say “Let ‘em work. Let “em live,” and for some reason that always makes me laugh enough to count as a distracted driver.
We simply didn’t evolve the ability to drive. Elephant would probably do fine.
