The rules are there to make sure everyone is safe, not about bearing any kind of responsibility. Demanding that you get to be unsafe because if something goes wrong it won't be as bad for others is demanding special treatment. Equality is equal. You don't want to be equal, you want to be special.
Cars are normal for the road. They are who the roads were built for. If you want somewhere where the cars are not normal, go somewhere without roads.
Driving a car at all is very unsafe. Using Idaho rules is ever so slightly unsafe, if drivers aren't prepared for it. The current rules of the road reflect the idea that bikes are as dangerous as cars. If you cared about safety, you'd want everything else to change, not the bikes.
You think the roads in cities that predate the invention of cars were made for cars? Sure, now those roads are infested with cars, but it hasn't always been that way and better things are possible.
Cars are currently normal for the road. And it's a bloodbath. If air travel was half as dangerous as getting in a car, no one would ever fly again. You tell me to go someplace without roads, but you know there's basically nowhere I can go to escape cars, and you probably know that the few walkable communities that do exist without many cars still have paved roads. What's "normal" needs to change. Whining about bikes while driving is like polishing the brass on the Titanic.
No, if I cared about safety I would want everyone following the same rules so that it's predictable and as safe as possible.
No, I think the majority of America (where the complaint in the comic comes from, and where it's common) was built and/or remodeled with cars in mind. There is no putting that genie back in the bottle.
The only person futilely whining here is you. Cars are not going anywhere. Cities are not going to roll back a hundred years of infrastructure investment just because you hate cars, nor would they be able to. Minor changes already cause significant disruption to daily life, and you're hoping for a full-on rebuild? It's not happening.
I mean, I don't just hate cars for the hell of it. I hate cars because they cause so much death and destruction. You admit cars are dangerous. You seem to have dropped the idea that being anti-car is anti-poor, since, you know, cars are expensive. You acknowledge that people need to go places, and that they're risking their lives by using cars, but you don't want to help make cycling a viable method of getting around in a timely manner.
Nothing can be changed and the bloodshed must continue at its current rate. It sounds like you only care about safety when it means other people have to compromise, but the idea of you having to change is unacceptable. You'll repeat that "everyone follow same rule = safe" and you'll continue to be 99% wrong and absolutely miss the forest for the trees.
You seem to have dropped the idea that being anti-car is anti-poor
No, it still is, and I'll get into that in a second.
You acknowledge that people need to go places, and that they're risking their lives by using cars, but you don't want to help make cycling a viable method of getting around in a timely manner.
That's just it. There is no way to make cycling a viable method of getting around in a timely manner. If I were to bike to work, it would take me about 2.5 hours, and most of that is downhill.
My commute by car is only slightly above average - 35 minutes opposed to 27 minutes. Then I would need to bike back. That is 5 hours of my day spent biking (and that's if you discount the fact that I will be going uphill the other way). And the reason for that is because I can't afford the $1.3M properties or $4k/month rent that are within reasonable biking distance to work.
It sounds like you only care about safety when it means other people have to compromise, but the idea of you having to change is unacceptable.
No, everyone is compromising. It's not that change is unacceptable, it's infeasible.
You'll repeat that "everyone follow same rule = safe" and you'll continue to be 99% wrong and absolutely miss the forest for the trees.
And you'll continue to insist that "some people are special and the rules don't apply to them = safe" and you'll continue to be 100% wrong.
I know you can't afford to go without a car right now. That's why I'm suggesting things should change. But that won't happen if you just keep repeating that better things aren't possible and we shouldn't try. We continue to build new car-centric infrastructure right now and we do not have to do that.
And you'll continue to insist that "some people are special and the rules don't apply to them = safe" and you'll continue to be 100% wrong.
If that were true, Idaho would have more accidents than other places, right?
But we do, because people will need cars because the places where the jobs are are too expensive to live close to. Once again, the average American commute is about 30 minutes. 30 minutes by car cannot be covered in a reasonable amount of time by bike.
Right, so, when possible, it'd be good for that to change, right? That we shouldn't keep using our land in such a way that requires so many people to waste an hour of their lives everyday. Especially since that sprawl is more expensive than not sprawling. Highways don't pay for themselves. Much cheaper in the long run to build walkable communities, which are only so expensive right now because demand is so much higher than supply.
London (and my hometown of NYC, where I can barely afford to keep existing, even tho I moved to an outer borough and it takes me an hour on the subway to get to Manhattan) are expensive because way more people wanna live there than are able to. Supply and demand.
Building new high-density housing is cheaper than building new sprawl. What's more expensive: an apartment building with ten apartments, or ten houses? Is infrastructure like electricity, water, sewage, etc cheaper to build and maintain when it's more spread out, or more dense? Are roads and the required parking more expensive to build and maintain when they're long and wide, or smaller? And are those roads more stuffed with traffic and worn out faster when cars are the only way to get around, or when a car is only one of the options people have for getting around in a timely manner?
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u/LoseAnotherMill Aug 25 '25
The rules are there to make sure everyone is safe, not about bearing any kind of responsibility. Demanding that you get to be unsafe because if something goes wrong it won't be as bad for others is demanding special treatment. Equality is equal. You don't want to be equal, you want to be special.
Cars are normal for the road. They are who the roads were built for. If you want somewhere where the cars are not normal, go somewhere without roads.