Michael Tae Sweeney: Shitty drivers think speed and red light cameras are revenue generation schemes because they think all other drivers are as shitty as they are. Most drivers do not speed down 10+ over the limit on residential streets or run red lights. It's very easy to just not do that, in fact.

Shitty drivers think speed and red light cameras are revenue generation schemes because they think all other drivers are as shitty as they are. Most drivers do not speed down 10+ over the limit on residential streets or run red lights. It's very easy to just not do that, in fact.

Many people are taught by parents or peers that like "yellow light means speed up, you have a grace period after it turns red" etc and you can just... Not do that. It's fine!

Shitty drivers not only believe that this is fine they believe doing the opposite, slowing down for a yellow and stopping at a red, is shitty driving that's "slowing everyone down" and run reds in part because of perceived social pressure.

Yes and then traffic engineers take note and install larger dead periods and yellows to make sure the red light runners don't hit cross traffic. bsky.app/profile/mr-i...

the irony of course is that this practice is what actually slows everyone else down. once red light running becomes pervasive and drivers get more and more flagrant about it, other drivers feel like they have to wait a second before going on green or risk getting t-boned.

at intersections with quick light cycles, this sometimes means only two or three cars get through, which backs up traffic. or worse… now the people stuck at the light feel like they ALSO have to run the red if they ever want to get through the intersection.

it’s gotten so bad around me that I wait to see that the first car(s) are actually stopped or slowing down before going on green. people will blow lights by more than a second. (ppl have really bad senses of time, so I feel like I should point out that a sec is a long time in this context)

As a cyclist I have to do that and like to get eye contact with as many drivers as I can, so I feel as if they’ve seen me. I also wait before turning out onto a main road when approaching cars signal left to make sure they do turn left. Been caught out too many times.

THIS. I cannot get off the line when it turns green - I will 100% get hit, at least once a day. The practice of waiting and looking for that red light runner has slowed me and everyone else down, but it's undoubtedly saved my life, because that creep is also doing 70 in a 40 zone to beat the light

Not to mention the jagoffs three or four cars behind who don't have a clue what is happening at the intersection but feel the need to honk the instant the light turns green.

there’s a tradeoff between giving people time for the intersection to clear and alerting a distracted driver who doesn’t realize the light changed. for me it’s 3 sec (which, once again, is much longer than most people think. some signals use variable durations based on how many cars are lined up)

I’ve sat at lights where no one honked and the only person who got through the light was the distracted driver.

I love those people when I'm next to them with the top down, really pleasant experience for my eardrums

You could print this skeet on a banner and make it the official flag of Houston.

Welcome to Atlanta!

Exactly!!!

Corollary to “good drivers sometimes miss their exist, shitty drivers never do”

ever since i learned about impact attenuators I can't help noticing the temporary replacement trucks on interstate exits all the time

christ the number of times I've seen someone zip across 3+ lanes to make an exit is infuriating, everyone's so pressed for being "on time" to something that they can't just zip to the next exit and whip around to the other side of the highway to get back to where they're going, and it's easy to do!

hey can I get your take on driver education real fast, seems from your analysis here like shitty drivers might be a problem that can't fully be constrained by infrastructure and harsher punishments alone *dusts off an adjacent seat on the Bench of Car Take Cancellation*

Good way to teach people what's allowed and not is to give them light punishments for breaking the rules and make the rule breakers feel like chumps and idiots for once instead of the law abiders

so you would say that carceral solutions are education, interesting

I'm not an abolitionist. Jails should exist and we should put people this in them www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Rebecca Grossman: A split second that changed two families’ lives foreverwww.independent.co.uk Mike Bedigan examines the horrific incident just northwest of Los Angeles in 2020, in which two young boys were killed in a hit-and-run collision. The case would stretch on for almost four years and t...

not everyone online is playing the "i can use more leftist rhetoric than you" game, some of us just want to not get killed by speeding SUVs

Man, you are for real turning into a corn cob right before everyone’s eyes right now

A fine is not a carceral solution. Revocation of a repeat offender's driving licence is not a carceral solution.

"let people who harm others avoid consequences", wonder what kind of person desires that

A pretty basic element of criminology is that the deterrent effect is based on the swiftness severity and certainty of punishment and of the three certainty probably has the greatest impact (as long as the severity isn't so minor as to be meaningless)

If you build a society where all economic activity depends on everyone driving all the time it becomes very difficult to limit driving privileges to people who are careful and competent enough to do it safely. I have no idea how to fix this problem in a reasonable time frame

good take IMO, people often take the depth of America's car-related problems (vs somewhere like Europe) as a reason to do something (which it absolutely is!) without also recognizing that the very same depth and interconnectedness makes every practical step extremely difficult to implement

You need to have an easy, simple, black and white take on how to fix the problem, small enough to fit into a tweet or sigline.

We should probably revoke everyone's license. Seems like the only option

Maybe they should learn to be conscientious and safe so they are not inconvenienced.

Ok but in huge swaths of the country not having a license is tantamount to house arrest (ask any teenager or old person who can’t drive anymore), and in many of those places that problem can’t be remedied in a practical timeframe. If you have a <300 character way to reconcile this I’m all ears

This is true, but it shouldn't stand in the way of speeding/red-light cameras. Many people need to drive to get to work; nobody needs to run red lights to get to work.

Oh I have no objection to that stuff. The deeper problem is that I believe that there is a significant percentage of the adult population who are just incapable of consistently driving safely, but if we take away their licenses we’ll be essentially confining millions of people to house arrest

i mean "fully" is doing a lot of work here, one problem is we barely attempt constraints via infrastructure or punishments in the US!

personally I'd like it if we required full driver's license recertification every, say, 5 years, including a written and road test. Any politician proposing it would be lucky to survive to election day though.

The road and written tests are a terrible proxy for driving ability tho. But ya id settle for just demanding regular eye exams for elderly drivers

imo we should be approaching this problem more from the “make sure we have viable alternatives to driving” angle more than the “be more selective about who can drive” angle. We should be WAY pickier about who can drive, but since 90% of the country is unusable without a car it’s not a solution atm.

The thing I wonder about: is driver’s ed actually effective? Driver’s tests don’t seem to be (cf. article). The way people drive is going to be influenced by culture and instituting predictable, consistent punishments for dangerous driving will push that to change

Abolish the Driving Testwww.vice.com For almost a century, U.S. drivers have performed a ritual that supposedly serves as the linchpin for road safety efforts. But we have no evidence it works, and a lot of evidence it doesn't.

my only drivers' ed take is that they should teach everyone how lane discipline on freeways (not driving in the left hand land except to pass) works because americans drivers are completely ignorant about it and it causes a lot of danger and congestion for no reason.

see, this brought a smile to my face, this is how you do it folks

I have repeatedly scolded my son and wife about this, with real-time examples of how they are making traffic worse, and they do not care! I now look at left lane travelers as disobedient narcissists and not merely ignorant. Son and wife are usually so nice and thoughtful too.

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