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Thank God. People on the roads are extremely reckless and we don't do anything about it. Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however th

Thank God. People on the roads are extremely reckless and we don't do anything about it. Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. If you kill someone sober though, it's totally fine under our current system. In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, and only allowed to operate light 2 wheel vehicles like scooters where you will only kill yourself and no one else.

CalRobert 1y ago
What's remarkable is that we already effectively banned kids from playing outside and drivers still kill many of the few that still try.
- jjulius 1y ago
  >... we already effectively banned kids from playing outside... Do what now?
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    Once upon a time crossing the street meant walking across a 20 foot road with the occasional small car going 20-25 mph. Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad full of 6,000 pound trucks that can't see anyone shorter than 5 feet past the hood going 50 mph. How far will you let your kid walk from home alone? Anyway my point is just that pedestrian deaths have gone up even as the number of miles walked and biked (_especially_ by kids - the modeshare for biking to school has absolutely plummetted) goes down.
    - Aurornis 1y ago
      > Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad People weren’t letting their kids play near 8 lane freeways back in the day, either.
      - skyyler 1y ago
        You missed the point, which is that many roads that used to be easily crossable roads are now 4-8 lane stroads. Yes, people didn't let their kids play near freeways in the past. But now a much larger number of streets are freeway-style roads.
        kubectl_h 1y ago
        Is this a California or Texas thing or something? The hyperbole in this thread is wild to see.
        CalRobert 1y ago
        Maybe? I grew up in California. The streets where my dad lives are ludicrously wide
        const_cast 1y ago
        Texas checking in here - yes, it's Texas, and no, it's not hyperbole. Don't know what rinky dink town you're from, but here most roads are 6-8 lanes across. Yes, that includes in our small cities. They're essentially highways but with signal lights. Go to Arlington, Grand Prairie, Richardson, Fort Worth, Roanoke, Southlake, you name it, and it's just roads after roads like this. Trying to cross them is extremely dangerous. Stroads is a correct description.
        vel0city 1y ago
        Another Texas resident, confirming yes this is largely the experience for a lot of Texas. But its not just Texas; I've seen the same in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and other places. Practically every neighborhood development since the 1980s is probably like this. You'll have smaller streets inside of neighborhoods which are islands of nothing but houses, then massive busy streets in between. Sidewalks directly abutting these very busy streets, if even there. Usually no bike lanes.
        kubectl_h 1y ago
    - jjulius 1y ago
      >How far will you let your kid walk from home alone? Pretty damn far, actually, as the parent of two.
      - rightbyte 1y ago
        From what age? I think people are talking past each other here. There is a point in time between infant and adulthood were you have to start letting them play unsupervised.
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    If you want your kids to grow old and you live somewhere where cars are priority you don't have much choice but your backyard, a park or wilderness. And a backyard might not be super fun/big and parks and wilderness aren't accessible without an adult. I remember vividly when I was a kid and we were biking on the street and someone drove too fast, dad went out in the road and yelled him down, which was reasonable.
    - CalRobert 1y ago
      Or move to the Netherlands. But even here it's getting worse fast.
      - lillecarl 1y ago
        Or Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Japan (I think?) and parts of many other countries as well. If you chose to live in a car friendly suburb in Sweden that's on you rather than "society" I'd say.
    - jjulius 1y ago
      As I said elsewhere, my neighborhood had a whole copse of kiddos, including my own, playing out and about throughout the streets this weekend. /shrug Edit: I don't care about upvote tallies or karma count, but it does seem pretty silly to downvote a comment for pointing out that areas like this, and play in those areas, still exist.
  - mperham 1y ago
    Every single residential street in America is full of cars parked or moving at 25+ mph. It's a miserable experience for anyone outside of a car and dangerous for smaller children who don't pay attention and can run into traffic.
    - jjulius 1y ago
      >Every single residential street in America... Even the largely carless (read: not many cars parked on the street) ones like my neighborhood that had a whole bunch of kids happily playing outside and in the street this weekend without issue? Every single one?
      - vel0city 1y ago
        The street directly in front of my house is largely like that. I don't even feel very safe doing the edging standing in the street, people turn down the street off the 40MPH (probably going 45-50MPH) main road next to it and blindly start heading down the residential street at 25-30mph. The cul-de-sac behind my house through the alley is a good bit calmer. That's where my kids go to play.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  As a parent, these comments are always so weird to read. Kids play outside, including unsupervised still. Kids getting hit by drivers is statistically very rare (though no less tragic) Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    Having a toddler who’s a runner radicalised me. Every walk outside required a death grip.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      It is like the road has some sort of lure for them.
    - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
      > Having a toddler who’s a runner radicalised me. Every walk outside required a death grip. Ha. I had twins. One was a sprinter/climber and the other was One Slow Plodding Step At A Time. We took most of our walks at 10pm.
    - ozim 1y ago
      I think I have seen in the news at least 3 separate instances where parent drove over and killed their own child in their front yard while just trying to drive out. It is like over my entire lifetime so I may made up and it was 2 or once - but I cannot forget it as I imagine such tragedy even writing about while never been nowhere close to such an event it makes me feel uneasy in my chest and stomach.
      - CalRobert 1y ago
        https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/facts https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/facts has more data
  - rightbyte 1y ago
eftychis 1y ago
I think allowing 2 wheel is not a good idea in those cases. In fact you should be even better to be allowed for 2 by I digress. You can still kill pedestrians and passers by. The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted. States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.
k4rli 1y ago
Speed isn't the issue. Lack of education to get license in USA is, and of course DUI.
- ryao 1y ago
  Education is required in NY: https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/complete-pre-licensing-requirements https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/complete-pre-licensing-req... Other states could adopt the same requirements.
Aurornis 1y ago
> In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location. Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.
- DCH3416 1y ago
  >Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Your scooter wouldn’t even clear the snow here, let alone stay upright on the ice. I think some folks need to realize the world is a big place that doesn’t always look like their local area.
    - jlarocco 1y ago
      Meh. If a person can't be responsible while driving, then I don't really care what the consequences are for them; they shouldn't be on the road. In fact, I hope it does make life difficult for them - maybe they'll think twice and not drive like an idiot and put innocent people's lives at risk.
      - danaris 1y ago
        Did you miss the part where this can be highly dependent on the officer's judgement? If you take away someone's ability to get to their job because a racist/corrupt/grumpy/power-tripping police officer decided to perjure themselves to declare that they drove recklessly, you have given police a tool to destroy the lives of anyone they dislike.
1970-01-01 1y ago
>Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/section46.2-862/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/secti...
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  > Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws. Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.
austin-cheney 1y ago
This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us. Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.
- akaru 1y ago
  We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.
  - austin-cheney 1y ago
    The wild west is as equally misunderstood. There were far far fewer guns carried by people then compared to now and laws were well enforced even in sporadically populated areas. The exceptions were boom towns, like gold rushes, where the populations grew faster than norms could be established. I guess if you don't see it then it must never happen to anybody ever. That isn't valid data.
- kube-system 1y ago
  Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).
98codes 1y ago
Where do you live where vehicular manslaughter is not being prosecuted?
- kube-system 1y ago
  It often isn't charged when a driver is sober. eg: https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-time-rarely/story?id=61845988 https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-t...
AngryData 1y ago
Thats really only true for people with money. The problem isn't that current laws are insufficient, it is that the US justice system is largely based on profit motives, and people with money can make prosecutions against them unprofitable to push. You can bet your butt that if you went in to those same cases without the money to draw everything out for years that they would hammer you with fines and fees and programs and jail time.

CalRobert 1y ago

What's remarkable is that we already effectively banned kids from playing outside and drivers still kill many of the few that still try.

jjulius 1y ago
>... we already effectively banned kids from playing outside... Do what now?
- CalRobert 1y ago
  Once upon a time crossing the street meant walking across a 20 foot road with the occasional small car going 20-25 mph. Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad full of 6,000 pound trucks that can't see anyone shorter than 5 feet past the hood going 50 mph. How far will you let your kid walk from home alone? Anyway my point is just that pedestrian deaths have gone up even as the number of miles walked and biked (_especially_ by kids - the modeshare for biking to school has absolutely plummetted) goes down.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > Now it's a 4-8 lane stroad People weren’t letting their kids play near 8 lane freeways back in the day, either.
    - skyyler 1y ago
      You missed the point, which is that many roads that used to be easily crossable roads are now 4-8 lane stroads. Yes, people didn't let their kids play near freeways in the past. But now a much larger number of streets are freeway-style roads.
      - kubectl_h 1y ago
        Is this a California or Texas thing or something? The hyperbole in this thread is wild to see.
        CalRobert 1y ago
        Maybe? I grew up in California. The streets where my dad lives are ludicrously wide
        const_cast 1y ago
        Texas checking in here - yes, it's Texas, and no, it's not hyperbole. Don't know what rinky dink town you're from, but here most roads are 6-8 lanes across. Yes, that includes in our small cities. They're essentially highways but with signal lights. Go to Arlington, Grand Prairie, Richardson, Fort Worth, Roanoke, Southlake, you name it, and it's just roads after roads like this. Trying to cross them is extremely dangerous. Stroads is a correct description.
        vel0city 1y ago
        Another Texas resident, confirming yes this is largely the experience for a lot of Texas. But its not just Texas; I've seen the same in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and other places. Practically every neighborhood development since the 1980s is probably like this. You'll have smaller streets inside of neighborhoods which are islands of nothing but houses, then massive busy streets in between. Sidewalks directly abutting these very busy streets, if even there. Usually no bike lanes.
        kubectl_h 1y ago
  - jjulius 1y ago
    >How far will you let your kid walk from home alone? Pretty damn far, actually, as the parent of two.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      From what age? I think people are talking past each other here. There is a point in time between infant and adulthood were you have to start letting them play unsupervised.
- lillecarl 1y ago
  If you want your kids to grow old and you live somewhere where cars are priority you don't have much choice but your backyard, a park or wilderness. And a backyard might not be super fun/big and parks and wilderness aren't accessible without an adult. I remember vividly when I was a kid and we were biking on the street and someone drove too fast, dad went out in the road and yelled him down, which was reasonable.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    Or move to the Netherlands. But even here it's getting worse fast.
    - lillecarl 1y ago
      Or Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Japan (I think?) and parts of many other countries as well. If you chose to live in a car friendly suburb in Sweden that's on you rather than "society" I'd say.
  - jjulius 1y ago
    As I said elsewhere, my neighborhood had a whole copse of kiddos, including my own, playing out and about throughout the streets this weekend. /shrug Edit: I don't care about upvote tallies or karma count, but it does seem pretty silly to downvote a comment for pointing out that areas like this, and play in those areas, still exist.
- mperham 1y ago
  Every single residential street in America is full of cars parked or moving at 25+ mph. It's a miserable experience for anyone outside of a car and dangerous for smaller children who don't pay attention and can run into traffic.
  - jjulius 1y ago
    >Every single residential street in America... Even the largely carless (read: not many cars parked on the street) ones like my neighborhood that had a whole bunch of kids happily playing outside and in the street this weekend without issue? Every single one?
    - vel0city 1y ago
      The street directly in front of my house is largely like that. I don't even feel very safe doing the edging standing in the street, people turn down the street off the 40MPH (probably going 45-50MPH) main road next to it and blindly start heading down the residential street at 25-30mph. The cul-de-sac behind my house through the alley is a good bit calmer. That's where my kids go to play.
Aurornis 1y ago
As a parent, these comments are always so weird to read. Kids play outside, including unsupervised still. Kids getting hit by drivers is statistically very rare (though no less tragic) Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.
- CalRobert 1y ago
  Having a toddler who’s a runner radicalised me. Every walk outside required a death grip.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    It is like the road has some sort of lure for them.
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    > Having a toddler who’s a runner radicalised me. Every walk outside required a death grip. Ha. I had twins. One was a sprinter/climber and the other was One Slow Plodding Step At A Time. We took most of our walks at 10pm.
  - ozim 1y ago
    I think I have seen in the news at least 3 separate instances where parent drove over and killed their own child in their front yard while just trying to drive out. It is like over my entire lifetime so I may made up and it was 2 or once - but I cannot forget it as I imagine such tragedy even writing about while never been nowhere close to such an event it makes me feel uneasy in my chest and stomach.
    - CalRobert 1y ago
      https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/facts https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/facts has more data
- rightbyte 1y ago

eftychis 1y ago

I think allowing 2 wheel is not a good idea in those cases. In fact you should be even better to be allowed for 2 by I digress. You can still kill pedestrians and passers by. The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted. States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.

k4rli 1y ago

Speed isn't the issue. Lack of education to get license in USA is, and of course DUI.

ryao 1y ago
Education is required in NY: https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/complete-pre-licensing-requirements https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/complete-pre-licensing-req... Other states could adopt the same requirements.

Aurornis 1y ago

> In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location. Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.

DCH3416 1y ago
>Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Your scooter wouldn’t even clear the snow here, let alone stay upright on the ice. I think some folks need to realize the world is a big place that doesn’t always look like their local area.
  - jlarocco 1y ago
    Meh. If a person can't be responsible while driving, then I don't really care what the consequences are for them; they shouldn't be on the road. In fact, I hope it does make life difficult for them - maybe they'll think twice and not drive like an idiot and put innocent people's lives at risk.
    - danaris 1y ago
      Did you miss the part where this can be highly dependent on the officer's judgement? If you take away someone's ability to get to their job because a racist/corrupt/grumpy/power-tripping police officer decided to perjure themselves to declare that they drove recklessly, you have given police a tool to destroy the lives of anyone they dislike.

1970-01-01 1y ago

>Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/section46.2-862/ https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/secti...

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
> Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws. Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.

austin-cheney 1y ago

This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us. Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.

akaru 1y ago
We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.
- austin-cheney 1y ago
  The wild west is as equally misunderstood. There were far far fewer guns carried by people then compared to now and laws were well enforced even in sporadically populated areas. The exceptions were boom towns, like gold rushes, where the populations grew faster than norms could be established. I guess if you don't see it then it must never happen to anybody ever. That isn't valid data.
kube-system 1y ago
Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).

98codes 1y ago

Where do you live where vehicular manslaughter is not being prosecuted?

kube-system 1y ago
It often isn't charged when a driver is sober. eg: https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-time-rarely/story?id=61845988 https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-t...

AngryData 1y ago

Thats really only true for people with money. The problem isn't that current laws are insufficient, it is that the US justice system is largely based on profit motives, and people with money can make prosecutions against them unprofitable to push. You can bet your butt that if you went in to those same cases without the money to draw everything out for years that they would hammer you with fines and fees and programs and jail time.