McSweeney’s bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.
You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.
Meh–old people. People who don’t drive very often and are afraid of cars. There are definitely people who drive carefully and timidly because they just don’t trust the car or the traffic they’re in.
But not too many. Aggressive driving and speeding are the norm.
Reasonably sure anyone who doesn’t speed because they are afraid of driving is committing driving violations left right and center out of timidity rather than speeding.
Yeah those are THE most dangerous people on the road. They hesitate and make things very unpredictable. Driver predictability, I would say, is a huge part of how I don’t end up a red stain on the road on the daily.
I agree. Being safe means being predictable and going with the flow, even if it means speeding a little to match the relative velocities of the cars around you. Being predictable is better than being right.
Turn signal indicator at least a full second before switching lanes or changing directions, braking at a constant deceleration when stopping, not cutting off other drivers or tailgating, and giving yourself a good amount of space behind the vehicle in front of you is all super important.
Oh man I saw a wreck just a week ago, right in front of me, because some moron decided to come to a FULL STOP on a freeway on-ramp, turn their blinker on, wait until there were literally no cars in the entire freeway, then scurry over across all lanes into the far left lane and start doing 30mph
Guess who came up behind them doing 65mph?
Guess who panicked and swerved directly in front of them?
The shitty thing is, because it’s technically a rear-end, there’s a good chance the driver doing everything right will be found at fault.