Decked By a Lav Truck

[SteveC]

I sure wish we could ingrain the importance of yielding to pedestrians like they do in other places of the world. I really noticied it again when we were in the Baltics earlier this year. In those countries they are always actively watching for pedestrians, and give them the right of way. If you're walking towards a mid-block coss-walk the oncoming cars will be stopping as you get to the curb.

 

[Roger Roger]

I sure wish we could ingrain the importance of yielding to pedestrians like they do in other places of the world. I really noticied it again when we were in the Baltics earlier this year. In those countries they are always actively watching for pedestrians, and give them the right of way. If you're walking towards a mid-block coss-walk the oncoming cars will be stopping as you get to the curb.

That would require having actual standards for driving, and enforcing said standards via recurrent training and checking. And none of that will ever happen in the US.

 

[Boris Badenov]

In Germany in 1997 (?, something like that) my host-family bro had to do a $3000 driver's-ed course in order to get a license. Unsurprisingly, he didn't drive around like an effing loon. I'm still a Libertarian by nature, but maybe we could have a two-tiered system where if you do something insane in a car *without* any training at all (which, again, would not be required), the penalties are much greater than if you had the training and just screwed up? We ought to incentivize training in operating stuff that can kill someone else, without making access to these things impossible for $$$ reasons.

And yes, I see the potential class-barrier problems with this idea, but IMHO drivers have gotten loony-toons since (and probably before) the pandemic. People run red lights in my neighborhood at 3am (when I tend to be going to work) *regularly*. Like I practically stop at GREEN lights.

 

[derg]

Doesn’t matter how close you follow the rules, if you’re a pedestrian or a cyclist in the US like 80% of the driving population views you as a second class citizen.

This is true.

It's especially bad in certain regions of the country. It's like "How DARE they have sidewalks and crosswalks!"

 

[Skåning]

This is true.

It's especially bad in certain regions of the country. It's like "How DARE they have sidewalks and crosswalks!"

When we lived in Glendale (CA) it was BAD. Like weekly peds getting hit in crosswalks.

I sure wish we could ingrain the importance of yielding to pedestrians like they do in other places of the world.

Not in italy!

 

[dustoff17]

Not in italy!

Or Nigeria!

 

[Wardogg]

I sure wish we could ingrain the importance of yielding to pedestrians like they do in other places of the world.

Not in italy!

Or Nigeria!

Or in Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia.

Hawaii was the worst I've ever seen state side.

 

[Apophis]

I remember in my Caravan days, those suicidal Southwest catering trucks flying down the roadway that cuts through the Cargo alley at BWI.

Seen those idiots almost hit FedEx aircraft pushing back, and also almost hit me as well.

 

[Roger Roger]

This is true.

It's especially bad in certain regions of the country. It's like "How DARE they have sidewalks and crosswalks!"

My brother and his now ex spent a summer living in southern Minnesota and walking a lot of places as young broke people are wont to do. Apparently it was not uncommon for people to floor it while driving past them and yell “get a truck!!!”

 

[ChasenSFO]

My brother and his now ex spent a summer living in southern Minnesota and walking a lot of places as young broke people are wont to do. Apparently it was not uncommon for people to floor it while driving past them and yell “get a truck!!!”

What....granted I've spent most of my time between Minneapolis and Duluth and never been to Western or Southern MN, but what the hell? That does not sound like the rural MN I know at all lol. And I've seen a cop pull my grandpa over who was drinking a beer and warn him not to get on the freeway because highway patrol "will be jerks about it"...so...that kind of rural.

 

[Roger Roger]

What....granted I've spent most of my time between Minneapolis and Duluth and never been to Western or Southern MN, but what the hell? That does not sound like the rural MN I know at all lol. And I've seen a cop pull my grandpa over who was drinking a beer and warn him not to get on the freeway because highway patrol "will be jerks about it"...so...that kind of rural.

Austin MN….parts of rural MN are peak trump country….my old home town made I think the Wall Street journal as an epicenter of racism/anti-immigrant sentiment.

 

[form810]

In Germany in 1997 (?, something like that) my host-family bro had to do a $3000 driver's-ed course in order to get a license. Unsurprisingly, he didn't drive around like an effing loon. I'm still a Libertarian by nature, but maybe we could have a two-tiered system where if you do something insane in a car *without* any training at all (which, again, would not be required), the penalties are much greater than if you had the training and just screwed up? We ought to incentivize training in operating stuff that can kill someone else, without making access to these things impossible for $$$ reasons.

And yes, I see the potential class-barrier problems with this idea, but IMHO drivers have gotten loony-toons since (and probably before) the pandemic. People run red lights in my neighborhood at 3am (when I tend to be going to work) *regularly*. Like I practically stop at GREEN lights.

COMPETENCE is the ultimate class differentiator, and likely the only one that's actually real in any way that materially transcends cultural boundaries. Sadly, in our culture, we tend to value and pay competence in domains such as manipulation, deceit, accumulation, and looking good in a suit. In a culture built on those norms, another high-value competence is the ability to inject gullibility into the masses.

When you live in a culture normed around those reward structures, your reality becomes "every man for himself". So it's no wonder that individuals assume the roads belong to themselves alone, and it's their riiiiagght to do what they want.

So, yeah, I say your inclination not to trust people's adherence to red light rules is well founded.

 

[form810]

My brother and his now ex spent a summer living in southern Minnesota and walking a lot of places as young broke people are wont to do. Apparently it was not uncommon for people to floor it while driving past them and yell “get a truck!!!”

As a former rural midwesterner and westerner who was a runner and bike racer and, therefore, spent a lot of time on rural roads... YES. I confirm.

I'll add that that "get a truck" is tame. Tossed beer bottles and cut-off swerves were very common as well. In some places, it was chained-to and dragged-behind a truck incidents. And all that was already very clear and present 30 years ago.

 

[form810]

Austin MN….parts of rural MN are peak trump country….my old home town made I think the Wall Street journal as an epicenter of racism/anti-immigrant sentiment.

Austin! Jeebus! That's just the place I was thinkin' 'bout. How in the heck do you know Austin, MN? About the only contra message Austin ever got from anybody was that the last Hormel scion, James C., was gay and very active in the movement. And that's sad, too, 'cause before James C. was, or could be anything else, he was just another entitled billionaire. So, you know, any message from him isn't really going to stick. (Unless it comes from the uncanny con-man abilities of a pseudo-billionaire like TrumP, whom the rural berefts seem to worship.)

There's parts of the upper midwest that have become the most densely populated hives of provincial inbreds outside Appalachia.

 

[Roger Roger]

Austin! Jeebus! That's just the place I was thinkin' 'bout. How in the heck do you know Austin, MN? About the only contra message Austin ever got from anybody was that the last Hormel scion, James C., was gay and very active in the movement.

My brother and his ex lived there for a year or maybe a summer, he was doing teach for America or something similar for minority kids whose parents worked mainly in ag around there.

 

[form810]

That would require having actual standards for driving, and enforcing said standards via recurrent training and checking. And none of that will ever happen in the US.

MAKING BABIES and BECOMING A US CITIZEN.

The two most unregulated activities in 'Murica.

A complete eff-tard can acquire a drivers license in most states; It's not hard. Not at all. Still it's infinitely more difficult to get a driver's license than it is to reproduce an opiate- or meth-baby in one's own image. And that meth-baby, if born within arbitrarily writ borders based on real estate larceny, WILL BE, uneducated, uninformed, and unquestioned... a Citizen of the United States of 'Murica. So s/he can grow up to piss on those citizens who were born elsewhere and had to study and pass a test in order to acquire the same raaaaiiiights and private laws (privileges).

Go USA!

Y'all soooooo great!

Again!