Is this true? I see many, many people on welfare food stamps driving nicer, newer cars than mine.
Keep it up, old girl, just imagine if those 30,000 people survived.
āWelcome to the Disney Gridlock Experience! Get ready for 40 minutes of fear, anguish and boredom as you attempt to complete the last hundred yards of an historically accurate Rush Hour commute.ā
Nope. In the UK pedestrians have right of way on all roads except Motorways which are the only roads they are explicitly prohibited from. Of course you have to be sensible: if you step off the pavement out into the road and get hit by a car, then (a) the car is at fault for not driving at a speed at which they can stop (this gets hammered into you during driving lessons and during your driving test) but also (b) youāre a complete idiot for not looking and checking the way is clear so while technically at fault no court is likely to find in favour of the pedestrian.
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Itās only you lot in the US that criminalise jaywalking. Over here in the UK we all have a common right to the road. Frankly your argument reeks of āmy right to drive at a speed thatās convenient to me without pausing trumps your right to lifeā.
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Bicycles donāt kill people. But cars and trucks do.
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The article is interesting, but it seems to whitewash a lot of material and equates dissent with populist opinion. It cites things like opinion pieces and editorial cartoons as if they were proof that THIS was the prevailing public opinion. It certainly was AN opinion, but citing the newspapers in an age when yellow journalism was in full swing without recognizing the fact seems a little optimistic. Listing every egregious marketing move by the involved parties and implying that people were just plain duped into using cars seems to forget how popular they were and how much freedom they offered to people who didnāt previously have them. They seem to forget that things like inter-state travel were once the exception, not the norm.
Do cars kill a lot of people? Sure they do. But they kill far fewer than they have in a long, long time. Cars cause a third of the fatalities they did in 1921, but with triple the population. Unless weāre proposing taking cars out of private hands, there will always be people who are careless, reckless or break the law.
People are not up in arms and outraged over road fatalities because of several reasons:
- Other more common forms of fatalities are more likely to kill them
- Unlike the Flu, Cancer or accidents, most motor fatalities are considered (factually or not) to be partly the fault of the drivers involved: the average person doesnāt expect HE will be the result of an accident and they are generally considered preventable to āsafeā drivers
- The likelihood of dying by automobile is unequally distributed by age and location, getting less likely as you age.
- Unlike smoking or drinking, there are legitimate and tangible benefits to automobile usage beyond just personal pleasure - even urban dweller occasionally need a car (hence zip car and other such services)
Iām sure thereās a case to be made for a reduction in automobile usage, but the implication that the (relatively weak) auto industry of the first half of the 20th century somehow snookered America into loving cars is just silly.
Bicyclists can kill pedestrians too. It doesnāt happen that often but it does happen.
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I think that is TTās point. In my observation at least one car runs a red light on virtually every traffic light cycle at every intersection where there is traffic still moving through as the lights change.
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That only counts the people killed by mechanical means; those killed by chemical means dwarf that number but are of course much harder to tally accurately.
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Bloody. good. point.
How does one determine the welfare status of the owner of a passing car? Do they issue special license plates where you live?
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Good news, everyone!
I have invented a device that gets me to work quicker and more conveniently. Of course, it will shorten the lifespan of everything it passes, but it has heated leather seats!
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Are those nicer, newer cars also filled with lobster and caviar?
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Thanks, I guess irony is like satire ā gotta know the context. And since Iām not an urban cyclist, etc.
I hope you fess up here, Mister ā just how do you determine that many of the people you see driving newer, nicer cars than yours are on welfare?
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Those strapping young bucks are eating T-bone steaks, also too.
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You can tell this because theyāreā¦ black? Hispanic?
Were they driving Cadillac with a bumper sticker saying āIām a ghetto queen and this car was paid with your hardworking tax dollars, now excuse me while I buy some fillet mignon with my food stampsā?
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I get so mad when I see stuff like this because I realize if I werenāt so vigilant I could possibly hit a cyclist who was breaking a couple of traffic laws at the timeā¦and I donāt care about that, I care about the fact that my car hitting a cyclist means s/heās going to get hurt.
I promise you, it scares responsible drivers when we see cyclists taking life-threatening chances. We donāt want to hit you.
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Indeed. Car repairs are expensive.
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