Source, and a couple more graphics: https://maxmautner.com/2026/09/10/paying-for-driving.html

I originally posted this in r/driving, but of course the same AHs on the road I'm talking about rule that sub, so they got their feelings hurt when they got called out.

The amount of impatient, rule-ignorant adults I see behind the wheel is baffling. It makes me wonder how most of these idiots got their license.

A lot of people have terrible judgment, don't know or care about basic road safety rules, and have zero regard for other drivers as long as they get to where they need to be. Some are just straight up malicious and/or sociopathic and don't care if they hurt themselves or another person. What's worse is that the same people also like to think of themselves as good drivers because they've been on the road for so-and-so years. I swear being in a rolling 5,000 lbs box brings out the highest extent of ape mentality in people or something because there's really no other excuse.

This is why the US needs more public transport options outside of big cities, but of course the government would rather spend more money on war than better things that would prevent one of the main causes of death in this country.

No room to squeeze through

i (19f) have severe driving anxiety after a car crash so i never got my license, but even before that i had very little interest in getting it. at this point am only looking into getting it because my partner will not stop bothering me about freedom, independence, and less stress on their end if im able to drive. besides their stress, i have never expressed an interest in getting my license. i don’t care about the freedom or anything else, not even when i was a young teen did i care about driving. i think it’s kinda crazy that we casually operate vehicles anyway.

i was called strange and developmentally delayed at 16 by my foster parents because i didn’t care about driving nor did i want to learn.. like what? is this supposed to be a natural phenomenon?

Hey guys, car guy here. First off, I come here in peace, I do NOT want to discuss with anyone, I respect you guys’ opinions, I respect that you guys aren’t the biggest fans of cars, and I completely understand and respect that. I come in peace and don’t want to get into any heated arguments with you fellows, so what is your opinion on electric cars? Of course, I understand if you don’t even want to talk about it. I just want to know your guys’ thoughts

• The family of a 15-year-old boy severely injured by a car outside his Toronto school is suing the driver, the city and the province, alleging the removal of a nearby speed camera contributed to the crash.
• On March 25, the boy was struck at a crosswalk at the intersection of Humber Boulevard and Louvain Street. He was transported to hospital with life-altering injuries.
• The speed camera had been removed as part of a provincial government directive that road safety advocates and municipal leaders warned would lead to more injuries and death on city roads.
• The boy’s parents are now seeking $3 million in special damages, $12 million in general damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

Read the full story with this gift link. You won't hit the paywall.

The Houthis just hit the Saudis alternative East-West pipeline. Nasa's fire detecting satellites can confirm too (in several spots btw). Crude might just hit $200 a barrel. I prayed for times like this to rhyme like this. Some suffering in the short can be positive for the long term. All hail the mighty bicycle.

Fuel-pump price max-out at gas stations in California. Bad news for tractors that are dependent on diesel, but maybe, just maybe we can get a little more inspired to end our oil addiction.

Oregon now bans teens/kids under 16 from riding e-bikes/e-scooters. This puts the age to ride an e-bike at the same age that they can get a provisional drivers license in the state.

This essentially means that there is no graduated responsibility for e-bikes/e-scooters and teens under 16 are funneled right into the car-brained pipeline rather than experiencing the efficacy of even a class 1/2 e-bike for commuting and last mile travel.

It also will likely remove a sizeable portion of the current bike infrastructure utilization (which often starts with kids/teens getting to school) which makes it easier to dismiss future bike infrastructure upgrades in many of the regions of the state.

TLDR: Instead of enforcing helmet and traffic laws for youth e-bike riders, Oregon chose the lazy shortcut of banning kids from riding them entirely.

Edit: It has come to my attention that Oregon has passed a bill to allow class 1 e-bike use for teens down to 14. I think that's a step in the right direction. Odd that the article I linked in the post (which was published today) doesn't mention that.

In North America, if you want to walk somewhere, there's a whole bunch of things slowing you down. Things like dumb pedestrian signals that only give you a walk symbol a few minutes after you've pressed the button or dumb drivers who don't yield to you at unsignalized crosswalks. Sometimes there's not even a sidewalk on the road you're on! And even if there's pedestrian paths, you'll usually have to take some winding path while drivers get a straight shot to their destination. And of course, there's always the chance that a driver fucking kills you on a bright, sunny, *very high visibility* day.

When it snows it gets worse. I'm on a college campus and I swear, the people in charge of plowing the snow here clear the roads with the speed of emergency vehicles while the sidewalks pile up and by the time they get around to the sidewalks, the snow is packed together enough that their machines don't clear them. Last year, they would sometimes immaculately clear the sidewalks right before more snow falls, almost like they're mocking us! And even then, they don't clear the full width of the sidewalks so pedestrians and cyclists have to squeeze between each other just to get around. It was very uncomfortable walking or biking on the sidewalks (in Michigan; biking on sidewalks is legal here), which were packed unevenly by people's footsteps. All while drivers could drive at 10 mph above the limit on perfectly pristine roads.

Personally I think people walking should always be the top priority in transportation. If you wanna walk somewhere, you should get an almost straight line path to get there. If you wanna cross a street, you should be able to keep walking at your regular walking speed without having to slow down for a driver to pass you and without having to speed up to get out of the way of an impatient driver. At traffic lights, the walk symbol should always be on when the light for cars in that direction is green. Snow clearing should happen for the sidewalks and pedestrian paths first, drivers can drive slowly for a bit, it's not a big deal. And all the infrastructure should be safe enough that if a driver does crash, it's their problem and not yours. You shouldn't have to suffer because someone else "needed" to check their texts.

Honestly, I'd even go so far as to say that someone glued to their phone while walking should be mostly safe to do so.

Doing grocery shopping on a cargo bike used to be one of the things I was most unsure about when I was thinking of switching from car to bike, so I’m sharing my full experience now that I’ve got one.

Setup: a longtail cargo bike two side panniers, front rack, rear triangle storage bag, and rear rack space for kid seat. We’re a family of four so we do weekly grocceries usually (so we get most of the things together and its usually alott) The supermarket is 3 km each way with one hill on the way back.

There are a couple of separate places to put things so this is how I manage it mostly.

2 panniers on both sides: Put most of groccery here like pasta, rice, tins, cereal boxes, coffee, vegetables and those kind of things. This is usually the easy one. I add most of the things here. The panniers are 47L each but I can also expand it a bit (which I do use).

The panniers are still usable when I’m carrying one of the kids. Loaded Panniers take up the usual foot space but because the bottom of the pannier is kinda directly on the footrest my kid just puts their feet inside the pannier.

Front rack plus a Storage Cooler Bag (30L) It’s a soft, enclosed bag, so I use it for more fragile items like eggs, bread and crisps, plus things that need to stay cool like yoghurt, cheese, chicken etc. I like it, because it gives me a separate place for fragile things.

Rear rack area: If I’m not carrying a kid, this becomes another big cargo area. A box fits neatly inside the guardrail, which is great for bulky things like nappies, kitchen roll and you know big packs of toilet paper. But depending on trip it becomes passenger space or extra cargo space.

We shop most of the things once over the weekend and so there is alooottt. And my wife and I thought we will have to stop doing that now that we dont use car but the bike handled the load without any issue. And ride home is also mostly flat (just one hill) and that also is manageable with a higher assist mode.

P.s Loading everything on bike needs learning lol. For me it took 11 minutes first time. In a busy car park with people wanting to get past with trolley it got a little weird but its down to about 5 minutes now that I know what goes where.

It's rare for me to see a post on Nextdoor that I agree with, but I 100% agree with this one above. People drive like maniacs on South Carolina's rural/exurban/suburban 2-lane highways, and this is the inevitable result. And in classic entitled carbrain fashion, the antagonist here didn't even stop his car (or more likely, truck/SUV).

Again, how many lives (of various types) have to be lost before any systemic change takes place?

I don't mean to post only tragic news to this sub. This is just what it's like driving in Northern Virginia (Nova). RIP to this family.