AI6YR Ben(Paint does not protect you against road raging drivers)
KTLA: Competitive cyclists nearly run down by raging Orange County drivers
John
can everything be outside now?@buckfiftyseven yeah drivers are definitely worse than they v used to be in both moral and skill related ways @ai6yr
@thesquirrelfish @ai6yr I guess. When I think about it, every couple freeway trips I see somebody maximizing their commute by cutting a few feet from every car. That psychology, that you're more important than everybody else, is going to be especially dangerous to bicyclists and pedestrians.
@buckfiftyseven @ai6yr yes, and there's very few people left from the generation before cars were dominant. Like for my grandparents and great grandparents they grew up in an era where pedestrians were the default. (This may also be related to the fact that elders are being hit at much higher rates than younger adults.)
It's probably a shifting baseline thing - as driving gets worse, the expectation of driving skills are lowered, and as driving becomes more mandatory, worse drivers drive more often, further lowering the expected standards of drivers.
And then you have the social stuff like less free time, larger cars, more expensive cars and gas, longer commutes, worse traffic, more addictive gadgets, more multitasking, plus there's probably some subliminal element of "I'm killing the planet and harming the people I drive past anyway, why should I care more about this specific other road user?".
It's probably a shifting baseline thing - as driving gets worse, the expectation of driving skills are lowered, and as driving becomes more mandatory, worse drivers drive more often, further lowering the expected standards of drivers.
And then you have the social stuff like less free time, larger cars, more expensive cars and gas, longer commutes, worse traffic, more addictive gadgets, more multitasking, plus there's probably some subliminal element of "I'm killing the planet and harming the people I drive past anyway, why should I care more about this specific other road user?".
@thesquirrelfish @ai6yr One of my theories was that beach cities are a bit safer for bicyclists just because it is more common there. It's a common way for kids to get to the beach etc.
I'm thinking of a particular elementary school in Costa Mesa that has a bike parking lot with like 200 bikes everyday.