Taking my son out for some ice cream and on the way back home I let him get behind the wheel and teach him how to hit and run pedestrians.
I live in the city and my folks live in fairly nearby burbs, pretty much just over the limit of what you’d call city but they do most of their shopping and stuff further away from the city in waaaaaay more car oriented shitty stroads. I can’t think of the last time they’ve picked me up here and he hasn’t gotten mad at bikers being entirely normal. He gets mad at people for biking on sidewalks when he’s driving, most recently he was mad someone biked through an empty crosswalk instead of getting off and walking it across and then resuming biking despite it not affecting him in any way. Drivers think that needing to look out for people is the fault of the pedestrian or biker they might kill. In his mind everyone should only travel by car so he doesn’t risk killing someone, which is way more of a burden than dying. The entire burden of traffic safety is shouldered on the victims and it’s insane.
Too real.
At first I could tell if this was a “drivers hate everyone who isn’t a driver” post or “adults hate it when children exist in public” post
Now do one for me on my bike and a tourist on their rented e-bike. It should be legal to lance them
From my experience in the UK, they don’t have a clue how to cycle safely. No awareness of what’s going on around them, weaving along and between the pavement/cycle lane/car lane at random, cycling as many abreast as can fit on the path expecting everyone else to make room for them, suddenly stopping in the middle of the path to look at their phone - basically, people who think of it as an alternative form of pedestrianism rather than controlling a moving vehicle. Things that would be inconvenient as a pedestrian become an active danger on a road or cycle path.
Imagine you live in a carcentric society and you take a person whose only conception of cars is gokarts they rode as a child. You then hand them the keys to a sportscar and send them on their merry way on the highway. That’s what it’s like to have a bunch of tourists on e-bikes in a city with bike-friendly infrastructure.
Tbh I’d rather they drove cars because at least then they’d understand they’re in traffic and not out on a fun little adventure. They’d understand they’re controlling a moving vehicle at dangerous speeds and not just doing (what they think) is an alternative to pedestrianism.
It’s incredible how I’m inches away from terrible disasters every day because of some dumb american who decides to suddenly break in the middle of a bike highway or something. When they tell me to “relax” for yelling at them in reaction to them almost killing me, I should be allowed to hit them with a stick, like it used to be legal to do to swedes.
Also the roads are small and there’s no parking and lots of zones where cars aren’t allowed, so it would all in all mean I’d interact way less with them.
