5 ms·

People are really trying to push this “traffic violence” thing lately and it feels like an organized campaign. Why?

lmm 5y ago
Because people gradually are shifting away from car-by-default and starting to notice how many people cars (or rather drivers) keep killing? (I started cycling to work about 4 years ago, around the time my city built some new cycle lanes, so of course I became a lot more conscious of how much reckless endangerment goes unpunished when it was happening to me). Because recent events have shown that we can make massive social changes to prevent deaths, so there's more hope that we could do the same for other major causes of death?
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  I know things in America are different, but as a lifelong pedestrian who owned a car for less than 2 years and walks all the time, I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. If an asshole shifts his ass from car to bike, he will start riding on the pavement in places that are absolutely unsuitable for that, or on hiking trails that are absolutely unsuitable for that. And I say "he", because it was 100 per cent men. (I am a man too, for the record.) Gals seem to be quite a bit careful.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > I know things in America are different, but as a lifelong pedestrian who owned a car for less than 2 years and walks all the time, I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. Bullshit. You notice reckless cyclists more because they're more unusual, that's all. The statistics for the rate at which pedestrians are killed or seriously injured show that it's overwhelmingly drivers who are putting you in danger.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      I cycle almost exclusively. I don't think reckless cyclists are more unusual that reckless drivers. I'd guess the fraction of reckless cyclists is about the same as the fraction of reckless drivers. However since cyclists and pedestrians are often forced to share space, pedestrians notice the cyclists more often.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        "However since cyclists and pedestrians are often forced to share space, pedestrians notice the cyclists more often." That is it. When you walk regularly, you find paths from A to B that minimize your contact with cars to a level crossing or two. (Might be different in the countryside or in cities whose walkability is poor). So your chance of getting hit by a car are fairly low and you only really need to pay attention when you cross the street. For the rest of the time, you can afford to daydream or wander in thoughts a bit. Once people learn to ride their bikes on pavements, it means the need for constant vigilance. Biking needs its own infrastructure, separate from both pedestrians and cars. The needs and speeds are just different.
    - themaninthedark 5y ago
      No, I notice bicyclists more because when they do reckless things because I am an attentive driver who makes sure he is not endangering others. Bicyclists often have this view that they are above traffic laws and break them: >he will start riding on the pavement in places that are absolutely unsuitable for that, or on hiking trails that are absolutely unsuitable for that. In my state, cars and bikes share the road and have to follow the same laws. There is a stop sign at the bottom of a hill near my house, I have never seen a car drive through it, plenty of bike don't stop.
      - zip1234 5y ago
        People in general are bad at driving and the potential for harm is much higher in a car than a bike due to the kinetic energy involved. Read about how complicated human visual perception is, how cognition changes at the slightest distraction, and how our 'clear' mental picture is often more interpolated than it is real. I mean, there are 6 million car crashes every year in the United States alone.
  - CalRobert 5y ago
    Would you rather be hit by the asshole's car or bike?
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Neither. The thing is, where I live, as a pedestrian, I almost never share the same surface with cars. Only when I need to cross the street, which is, say, three times a mile. For the rest of the time, I am in relative safety of the pavement. (Cars running into pedestrians on pavements, though not impossible, is a fairly rare occurrence and I have never seen one in my almost 43 years of age.) This is a major difference in the entire risk calculation.
      - maccard 5y ago
        How many collisions between bikes and pedestrians on pavements have you witnessed given that's your criteria for risk? Mine is 0, as a daily cyclist and pedestrian.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        I might be a bit bitter because I am sitting right now in my office, about 25 meters from a fairly dangerous corner where I really need to peek out carefully lest I want to be smashed down. In order to get to the office I need to pass this place at least twice a day and during the last years I avoided at least ten accidents with either bikes or shared electric scooters already. Some of the riders seem to consider themselves immortal as they zap directly into a place where they cannot see.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - himinlomax 5y ago
    > I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. They are similar in the same way being clawed by a cat is similar to being mauled by a tiger.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      > They are similar in the same way being clawed by a cat is similar to being mauled by a tiger. Please do not downplay the risks of being hit by a 120 kg+ object moving at, say, 10-15 mph. It is similar to the risk that the cyclist himself faces if he suddenly falls of his bike, namely, brain damage from cracking your skull against the pavement. Cyclists wear biking helmets to protect themselves against this possibly fatal event. Sudden falls can be fairly dangerous, especially for older individuals. Maybe not a tiger, but a cougar. Definitely not a home cat. Not everyone can dodge in time. Some people are absent minded (and I would say this is their right when walking on a pavement). Some are old and arthritic. Some are kids. Some are blind or deaf. They need to be reasonably safe on a pavement, which means not sharing it with another sort of traffic that moves much faster than them. I am all for biking/cycling, but it really needs its own infrastructure. Most developed countries can afford it, it is not expensive to build a dedicated biking lane.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - lmm 5y ago
        > Please do not downplay the risks of being hit by a 120 kg+ object moving at, say, 10-15 mph. It is similar to the risk that the cyclist himself faces if he suddenly falls of his bike, namely, brain damage from cracking your skull against the pavement. Please do not imply this is remotely comparable to the risks of being hit by a car. It is not. In that context, downplaying the risks of being hit by a bicycle is absolutely correct. > Cyclists wear biking helmets to protect themselves against this possibly fatal event. Cyclists in countries with decent road laws, such as the Netherlands, do not generally wear helmets. Cyclists in some countries wear helmets, mainly to protect themselves from bad laws passed by ignorant non-cyclists.
  - maccard 5y ago
    I live in a city and I frabkly disagree. Most reckless cyclists on pavements will not be travelling at any speed, and are definitely a nuisance, but not dangerous. It's also categorically not unique to men. Those assholes when driving are the people who ignore the no right on red junctions, undertake slow moving traffic, use the wrong lanes on roundabouts, park in blue badge spots, throw litter out the windows etc. They're going to be assholes no matter what their mode of transport is.
User23 5y ago
http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
ufmace 5y ago
I have a feeling somebody somewhere is paying for it. Who that might be and what their real motives are, I have no idea. But it's well known that modern marketing companies will buy or create social media accounts and employ people to post their line around the web. I don't know whether the parent post is such a thing or not, but it would be foolish to assume that things like that don't happen on this board. But it's also funny how, if the issue is framed right and promoted in the right places, you'll get some people who are genuinely into it and post about it on their own. The really weird part is, what are you to make of it if you genuinely like a position, but there is also a well-funded campaign to push it?
- riffic 5y ago
  You're absolutely right - many people are "paying for it": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
inglor_cz 5y ago
1. "Violence" is trendy. Words are violence, silence is violence, so some people start looking for other things that might be called violence. 2. Possibly the psychological need to overcome adversity. Someone living in a nice neighborhood, threatened neither by gangs nor by rogue cops, seeks surrogate problems to conquer. In a few weird cases, it turns out like this and Twitter will amplify it, because Twitter loves (even hostile) attention and engagament.
- himinlomax 5y ago
  Well traffic violence is actually appropriate, or at least more so than what you mention, as anyone who has been involved in or witnessed a traffic accident can attest.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >as anyone who has been involved in or witnessed a traffic accident can attest. This is a foolish statement. The outcome of the overwhelming majority of traffic accident was 100% property damage and 0% violence. Car on car and car on object fender benders where nobody is hurt outnumber accidents with injuries by an order of magnitude.
CalRobert 5y ago
Because I'd like to live somewhere my kids can cycle to school without having to move to the Netherlands.

lmm 5y ago

Because people gradually are shifting away from car-by-default and starting to notice how many people cars (or rather drivers) keep killing? (I started cycling to work about 4 years ago, around the time my city built some new cycle lanes, so of course I became a lot more conscious of how much reckless endangerment goes unpunished when it was happening to me). Because recent events have shown that we can make massive social changes to prevent deaths, so there's more hope that we could do the same for other major causes of death?

inglor_cz 5y ago
I know things in America are different, but as a lifelong pedestrian who owned a car for less than 2 years and walks all the time, I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. If an asshole shifts his ass from car to bike, he will start riding on the pavement in places that are absolutely unsuitable for that, or on hiking trails that are absolutely unsuitable for that. And I say "he", because it was 100 per cent men. (I am a man too, for the record.) Gals seem to be quite a bit careful.
- lmm 5y ago
  > I know things in America are different, but as a lifelong pedestrian who owned a car for less than 2 years and walks all the time, I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. Bullshit. You notice reckless cyclists more because they're more unusual, that's all. The statistics for the rate at which pedestrians are killed or seriously injured show that it's overwhelmingly drivers who are putting you in danger.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    I cycle almost exclusively. I don't think reckless cyclists are more unusual that reckless drivers. I'd guess the fraction of reckless cyclists is about the same as the fraction of reckless drivers. However since cyclists and pedestrians are often forced to share space, pedestrians notice the cyclists more often.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      "However since cyclists and pedestrians are often forced to share space, pedestrians notice the cyclists more often." That is it. When you walk regularly, you find paths from A to B that minimize your contact with cars to a level crossing or two. (Might be different in the countryside or in cities whose walkability is poor). So your chance of getting hit by a car are fairly low and you only really need to pay attention when you cross the street. For the rest of the time, you can afford to daydream or wander in thoughts a bit. Once people learn to ride their bikes on pavements, it means the need for constant vigilance. Biking needs its own infrastructure, separate from both pedestrians and cars. The needs and speeds are just different.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    No, I notice bicyclists more because when they do reckless things because I am an attentive driver who makes sure he is not endangering others. Bicyclists often have this view that they are above traffic laws and break them: >he will start riding on the pavement in places that are absolutely unsuitable for that, or on hiking trails that are absolutely unsuitable for that. In my state, cars and bikes share the road and have to follow the same laws. There is a stop sign at the bottom of a hill near my house, I have never seen a car drive through it, plenty of bike don't stop.
    - zip1234 5y ago
      People in general are bad at driving and the potential for harm is much higher in a car than a bike due to the kinetic energy involved. Read about how complicated human visual perception is, how cognition changes at the slightest distraction, and how our 'clear' mental picture is often more interpolated than it is real. I mean, there are 6 million car crashes every year in the United States alone.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Would you rather be hit by the asshole's car or bike?
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Neither. The thing is, where I live, as a pedestrian, I almost never share the same surface with cars. Only when I need to cross the street, which is, say, three times a mile. For the rest of the time, I am in relative safety of the pavement. (Cars running into pedestrians on pavements, though not impossible, is a fairly rare occurrence and I have never seen one in my almost 43 years of age.) This is a major difference in the entire risk calculation.
    - maccard 5y ago
      How many collisions between bikes and pedestrians on pavements have you witnessed given that's your criteria for risk? Mine is 0, as a daily cyclist and pedestrian.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        I might be a bit bitter because I am sitting right now in my office, about 25 meters from a fairly dangerous corner where I really need to peek out carefully lest I want to be smashed down. In order to get to the office I need to pass this place at least twice a day and during the last years I avoided at least ten accidents with either bikes or shared electric scooters already. Some of the riders seem to consider themselves immortal as they zap directly into a place where they cannot see.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- himinlomax 5y ago
  > I was endangered by reckless cyclists more often than by reckless drivers. They are similar in the same way being clawed by a cat is similar to being mauled by a tiger.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    > They are similar in the same way being clawed by a cat is similar to being mauled by a tiger. Please do not downplay the risks of being hit by a 120 kg+ object moving at, say, 10-15 mph. It is similar to the risk that the cyclist himself faces if he suddenly falls of his bike, namely, brain damage from cracking your skull against the pavement. Cyclists wear biking helmets to protect themselves against this possibly fatal event. Sudden falls can be fairly dangerous, especially for older individuals. Maybe not a tiger, but a cougar. Definitely not a home cat. Not everyone can dodge in time. Some people are absent minded (and I would say this is their right when walking on a pavement). Some are old and arthritic. Some are kids. Some are blind or deaf. They need to be reasonably safe on a pavement, which means not sharing it with another sort of traffic that moves much faster than them. I am all for biking/cycling, but it really needs its own infrastructure. Most developed countries can afford it, it is not expensive to build a dedicated biking lane.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - lmm 5y ago
      > Please do not downplay the risks of being hit by a 120 kg+ object moving at, say, 10-15 mph. It is similar to the risk that the cyclist himself faces if he suddenly falls of his bike, namely, brain damage from cracking your skull against the pavement. Please do not imply this is remotely comparable to the risks of being hit by a car. It is not. In that context, downplaying the risks of being hit by a bicycle is absolutely correct. > Cyclists wear biking helmets to protect themselves against this possibly fatal event. Cyclists in countries with decent road laws, such as the Netherlands, do not generally wear helmets. Cyclists in some countries wear helmets, mainly to protect themselves from bad laws passed by ignorant non-cyclists.
- maccard 5y ago
  I live in a city and I frabkly disagree. Most reckless cyclists on pavements will not be travelling at any speed, and are definitely a nuisance, but not dangerous. It's also categorically not unique to men. Those assholes when driving are the people who ignore the no right on red junctions, undertake slow moving traffic, use the wrong lanes on roundabouts, park in blue badge spots, throw litter out the windows etc. They're going to be assholes no matter what their mode of transport is.

User23 5y ago

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

ufmace 5y ago

I have a feeling somebody somewhere is paying for it. Who that might be and what their real motives are, I have no idea. But it's well known that modern marketing companies will buy or create social media accounts and employ people to post their line around the web. I don't know whether the parent post is such a thing or not, but it would be foolish to assume that things like that don't happen on this board. But it's also funny how, if the issue is framed right and promoted in the right places, you'll get some people who are genuinely into it and post about it on their own. The really weird part is, what are you to make of it if you genuinely like a position, but there is also a well-funded campaign to push it?

riffic 5y ago
You're absolutely right - many people are "paying for it": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

inglor_cz 5y ago

1. "Violence" is trendy. Words are violence, silence is violence, so some people start looking for other things that might be called violence. 2. Possibly the psychological need to overcome adversity. Someone living in a nice neighborhood, threatened neither by gangs nor by rogue cops, seeks surrogate problems to conquer. In a few weird cases, it turns out like this and Twitter will amplify it, because Twitter loves (even hostile) attention and engagament.

himinlomax 5y ago
Well traffic violence is actually appropriate, or at least more so than what you mention, as anyone who has been involved in or witnessed a traffic accident can attest.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >as anyone who has been involved in or witnessed a traffic accident can attest. This is a foolish statement. The outcome of the overwhelming majority of traffic accident was 100% property damage and 0% violence. Car on car and car on object fender benders where nobody is hurt outnumber accidents with injuries by an order of magnitude.

CalRobert 5y ago

Because I'd like to live somewhere my kids can cycle to school without having to move to the Netherlands.