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Yikes, you wouldn't catch me on a bike on most roads in any of the rural areas that I've ever lived in (northeast). Good way to get creamed by a pulp truck - m

Yikes, you wouldn't catch me on a bike on most roads in any of the rural areas that I've ever lived in (northeast). Good way to get creamed by a pulp truck - maybe 25% of roads have a paved shoulder, and those that do are typically high-speed (55mph), high-traffic routes.

isostatic 9y ago
Why is it culturally acceptable to murder people in the US?
- acdha 9y ago
  Part of it is that we make a lot of excuses for drivers since car ownership was a key part of the American self image for the 20th century. That also meant that there was an assumption that bicyclist meant poor and often non-white, adding that pressure to assume the victim was at fault. The self-image and idea of what a successful American is supposed to look like wasn’t something I thought about until my cycling group had unpleasant encounters with bitterly resentful drivers in San Diego county. All middle-aged or older white guys driving expensive vehicles, clearly unimpressed by California law if it involves sharing with people unlike them. I should also note that our group was rather scrupulous about the rules of the road so it wasn’t a case of escalating bad behavior.
  - CalRobert 9y ago
    I used to commute via bicycle from South Park to Clairemont Mesa. It was horrendously unpleasant, with close-passes and swearing all. the. time. Tellingly SD will put in really nice bike lanes where there's already tons of empty space (Genesee in the middle of nowhere) but where you really need it, like University ave. in Hillcrest, they fight tooth and nail against it. They like pretending to be bike friendly, at least! Nobody loves a good render more than them, and tour de fat is good fun.
    - acdha 9y ago
      That really drove me up the wall - near perfect cycling weather year round, tons of space for long connector routes (I used to do San Carlos to Torrey Pines), and then bitter opposition to any attempt to make key intersections or neighborhood access easier.
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    When you have nothing left to reach for, what card gets played? True or not, it's like clockwork. And using CA cities as an example is downright funny/offensive to most Americans (including most CA'ians) btw.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  Because when someone does it with their car, the jury empathizes with the driver over the victim. The person who was killed is the "other". In countries where more people cycle and walk it can be the driver who is the "other" but that's rarely if ever the case in the US.

isostatic 9y ago

Why is it culturally acceptable to murder people in the US?

acdha 9y ago
Part of it is that we make a lot of excuses for drivers since car ownership was a key part of the American self image for the 20th century. That also meant that there was an assumption that bicyclist meant poor and often non-white, adding that pressure to assume the victim was at fault. The self-image and idea of what a successful American is supposed to look like wasn’t something I thought about until my cycling group had unpleasant encounters with bitterly resentful drivers in San Diego county. All middle-aged or older white guys driving expensive vehicles, clearly unimpressed by California law if it involves sharing with people unlike them. I should also note that our group was rather scrupulous about the rules of the road so it wasn’t a case of escalating bad behavior.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  I used to commute via bicycle from South Park to Clairemont Mesa. It was horrendously unpleasant, with close-passes and swearing all. the. time. Tellingly SD will put in really nice bike lanes where there's already tons of empty space (Genesee in the middle of nowhere) but where you really need it, like University ave. in Hillcrest, they fight tooth and nail against it. They like pretending to be bike friendly, at least! Nobody loves a good render more than them, and tour de fat is good fun.
  - acdha 9y ago
    That really drove me up the wall - near perfect cycling weather year round, tons of space for long connector routes (I used to do San Carlos to Torrey Pines), and then bitter opposition to any attempt to make key intersections or neighborhood access easier.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  When you have nothing left to reach for, what card gets played? True or not, it's like clockwork. And using CA cities as an example is downright funny/offensive to most Americans (including most CA'ians) btw.
CalRobert 9y ago
Because when someone does it with their car, the jury empathizes with the driver over the victim. The person who was killed is the "other". In countries where more people cycle and walk it can be the driver who is the "other" but that's rarely if ever the case in the US.