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> How the hell did you people let it come that far? I.e. how do people keep voting for these moron politician with their war on XYZ narrative. I hate to say it
by 0942v8653 12y ago
> How the hell did you people let it come that far? I.e. how do people keep voting for these moron politician with their war on XYZ narrative.
I hate to say it, but… we don't really have a choice. You choose either the Republicans or the Democrats, neither of which actually care about the things that matter but instead have, as you mentioned, this odd form of bikeshedding that is intended to make people feel "safe". Not that it actually works, because now we are scared of the government. It's funny how we technically have more freedoms than people in other countries but we have to work so much harder to keep any of them.
Japan and Europe different from the US in lots of ways, but at least Europe in general seems to be less concerned about "safety" especially when it's so impractical.
And helicopter parenting seems to come easily, just as much a part of culture and social norms as it is necessitated by these laws. It's not something that's exactly forced on people but rather something that's accompanied naturally by the decisions of these "moron politicians".
> How come the US doesn't use studies from abroad when doing CP regulation? Boggles my mind.
The US doesn't care about studies from abroad. The US is too US-centric; it thinks it's too different from the rest of the world for those studies to apply.
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoBy Europe, you aren't including the UK right?
- pjc50 12y agoEven in the UK this stuff varies by location. I went to school by train in Croydon about 20 years ago from age 13 and only had two very minor incidents (both caused by other kids from different schools). Lately I moved to Edinburgh and was surprised to see occasional kids that were clearly under 10 taking the bus on their own.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Pxtl 12y agoEurope is absolutely concerned with safety... but actual safety. Look at the Netherlands/Sweden "vision zero" initiative - the goal is to get highway/traffic fatalities down to zero. Compare vs. the USA where over 30,000 Americans die on the road every year. That's like if 9/11 happened 10 times per year, instead of once per century. My kids don't walk to school alone... and it's not because of my worries about paedophiles lurking around every corner, it's the very real risk that they could be hit by a car - the leading cause of death for their age-bracket.
- mcphage 12y ago> Look at the Netherlands/Sweden "vision zero" initiative - the goal is to get highway/traffic fatalities down to zero. > Compare vs. the USA where over 30,000 Americans die on the road every year. That's a lot more complicated than you're making it sound. For starters, the US has over 320 million people—Netherlands has less than 20 million, and Sweden half of that. In addition, the US has a lot of heavily used, very long distance roads. It's a lot bigger than both countries, and so a lot more driving is required to get around. The number of driving deaths in the US is depressing, but trying to compare it to what's happening in countries a fraction of its size is not useful.
- m_mueller 12y agoIt isn't more complicated. Just look at the numbers [1]. Sweden has between 2x and 3x less deadly road accidents, depending on whether you look at it per mile driven or per capita. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... edit: deadly
- dagw 12y agoSo let's ignore the numbers for while and just look at the difference in attitude. The US implicitly accepts road deaths as a reasonable price to pay for keeping their car based society, Netherlands and Sweden have explicitly stated that no road deaths are acceptable and are willing to pay the price necessary to work towards that goal.