I disagree. If it is, it’s really subtle and hard to spot. Looks legit to me!
IME the chance of something happening to me on a bike I can’t do anything about is vanishingly small.
Negligible.
Except when I used to hang onto trucks; I was obviously living on borrowed time doing that…
But normally? Pff. You know how you don’t wear a bike helmet when you walk down the street, or ride in a car? Right, so given the risk of sustaining a serious head injury per million hours is pretty much the same for these three activities, believe it or not (it’s the drunk pedestrians getting hit by cars), and the fact you don’t hear people banging on about the ‘many external factors that can kill you’ if you’re riding in a car or walking down the street, it seems to me that most folks’ judgement of risk isn’t worth a pinch of shit.
Particularly if they’re total noobs at whatever they’re judging.
I worry more about my safety when I’m driving over 60km/h or so, as is actually appropriate.
I’m certainly going to have to watch out for getting old; a lack of humility on that score could be fatal.
Folks with an optimistic opinion of their abilities aren’t just annoying, they’re dangerous.
But come to think of it, what bothers me more is all the people who never do anything to improve their ability; it feels like the majority from where I’m standing.
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Ow.
What happened? Did the driver run a red light?
Yes, you’ve made quite evident that you’re exceptional and have every right to behave in such a way that everyone on the road is to react to you. Not that you have entitlement issues or anything.
Go to track day, kindly get your jollies there
That’s an utterly pointless suggestion; the context here is normal transport and the practise of everyday kung fu.
I’m not touting my exceptionalism here. I’m bemoaning the fact that despite driving a car is the most dangerous thing most people do, and that they do it so often, very few people actually seem interested in becoming any good at it. They’re apparently not interested in reducing the carnage, let alone time and petrol wasted sitting behind incompetoids paying insufficient attention (a Japanese study found one bad driver could cause city-wide gridlock).
People really do suck at judging risk, and it’s no accident IMO. It’s just another avenue for manipulating anyone who doesn’t think for themselves; politicians, insurance companies, advertisers etc all seek to create unrealistic perceptions about all kinds of things. Schools often seek to instil far more respect for authority than spirit of enquiry, and so on. Motivate them with fear.
As an anarchist, my core message is think for yourself. Keep it up long enough, and you discover that most people are effectively fuckwits in thrall to those who would control them. Following the herd is so much simpler than evaluating everything in your own terms… and the muddier the waters, the harder it is to see a way out of the murk.
So no, I don’t see myself as anything special. I just see the majority of people as almost subhuman, in one important respect: they haven’t stood up and claimed ownership of their miraculously powerful cognitive hardware and their role as equals, along with the attendant responsibilities of global citizenship. They’re effectively functioning as a botnet serving the wants of the few.
I seem to have wandered off the subject, but IMO pretty much everything comes back to this situation. I can’t see much improvement happening in any avenue until more people start thinking for themselves.
So you suggest that people should improve their driving skills by taking ever in increasing risks? That’s a recipe for disaster.
Yes, I picked up on that when I said you seemed entitled.
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