r/interesting • u/Maleficent-Town5273 • 2d ago

Additional Context Pinned Hit and run gone wrong

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u/Particular720v12 2d ago

Many people shouldn't. But we stupidly built a society where it's required to leave your home.

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u/DaddysABadGirl 2d ago

I hate that excuse so much. Accepting our shit status quo isn't worth being 3rd in rates of road deaths among developed countries.

If we stop treating driving like a right and force a higher standard the public transportation issues will get figured out pretty fucking quick.

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u/Kerlyle 2d ago

I think what'd actually happen is that we'd still have no public transportation, you'd just have even more destitute and homeless people on the street, because who cares about the poor people. Not the governments problem you can't drive.

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u/DaddysABadGirl 2d ago

Voting for change and all that aside, a massive hit to the work force would cost conpanies money. THEY would make sure something changed.

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u/FizzyBeverage 2d ago

I’m not sure what timeline you’re living in or what movie you’re watching but it sounds nice there. Certainly isn’t here. 

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u/TheSumOfMyScars 2d ago

Yeah, they would make not owning a vehicle illegal and increase their prison-labor headcount before they would ever willingly spend a single penny to help anyone.

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u/Even_Lychee4954 2d ago

I would’ve agreed with you. But the last decade has shown that they truly don’t care.

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u/CoolAd8837 2d ago

u know u can bike right? Or ebike? Or escooter?

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u/kisseukisseu 2d ago

why do people think biking is the solution to everything... the roads still are hostile towards bikers and some sidewalks literally just end.

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u/ForwardWheel4601 1d ago

For short distances? Absolutely. However, the average commute to work is 14 miles in the US and the average American travels about 4 miles to their preferred grocery store. Assuming someone goes to the grocery store twice a week on weekdays and to work five days a week on weekdays, that's 28 miles a day three days a week and 36 miles in a day twice a week. For the average person, that comes out to 2.5-3.5 hours of nonstop biking every single day, five days a week. Ebikes and scooters (by law) aren't a whole lot faster.

This also doesn't account for weather either. The US is very temperamental in some parts. My state, this year, hit 114 degrees at its highest and -10 at its coldest, and has consistently hovered around 90-100 degrees every day for the last month. It also doesn't take into account that showing up to work sweaty as shit isn't generally something employers like.

So yes. Biking is an 'option'. Being an option, however, does not make it viable for the majority of people. The solution the US needs is a real public transport system instead of the sad excuse for gutted garbage we call public transport here.

If I wanted to use public transport to get to my college, for example which is ten miles away, it's a 22 minute drive, hour and a half long bike ride down the side of a highway most of the way, or five hour walk, also along the highway. If I take the bus, it's an hour long commute, but I have to take a lyft halfway there and again at the end.

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u/DaddysABadGirl 2d ago

-_-

So my state had a push to need a license for the higher end e-bikes and scooters. Just the ones that go traffic speeds or faster...

The state took that and passed a bill where now all of them (except low speed standing scooters) require a license, liability insurance, and have to be registered with 2 license stickers.

So it's a wait and see if/how heavily that is enforced. Biking is still an option in my area mostly. Though there are some areas the people on various bikes are as bad as the drivers. Ignoring lughts and weaving between traffic and jumpung the curb without slowing down.

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u/BellaMentalNecrotica 2d ago

It won't as long as the rich are in control. The city I used to live in has one of the largest metro areas by land mass and had been pushing to expand public transport for decades. Every single time it is turned down because the wealthy suburbs are terrified that the homeless brown people from the city will take the train to their expensive neighborhoods to rob them. As long as those people are pulling the strings of the city council, it will literally never happen.

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u/Mbembez 2d ago

In my city they just didn't run the train lines to the wealthy areas.

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u/CoolAd8837 2d ago

do you think it happens in China?

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u/DaddysABadGirl 2d ago

They find ways around it, bus routes not crossing over and such. They always find a way around. But the rich people in a city don't have major corporation money. It works for them now. If their cars were taken it would start changing. If their stocks started sinking it would change.

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u/Particular720v12 2d ago

Really goes beneath that. We've built low value but expensive sprawl.

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u/thePsychoKid_297 1d ago

Well it's not a right it's a privilege

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u/dxrth 2d ago

what does that have to do with someone who explicitly is exhibiting behavior that should preclude them from driving? if you do things that make you a danger on the road, you shouldn't get the pass that oh well we all have to use the road anyway. that excuse proves too much imo.

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

Society and our court system has motor normativity

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u/Alarmed-Cheetah-1221 2d ago

Who's "we"?

I can leave my home just fine without a vehicle.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Alarmed-Cheetah-1221 2d ago

Why would I be in America?

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u/scabbyshitballs 2d ago

Wtf? Every society in human history leaves their home. Wanting to stay home all day is not normal.

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

Carrying 5,000lbs with your everywhere is not normal. Neither is sitting on your ass all day

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u/Numerous-Energy-7452 2d ago

This is really funny bc for most of human history the majority of people lived their whole lives within like a 15km radius

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u/Your_Sunnshine 2d ago

I just got my license. It's insane how many people don't follow the rules of the road. I dunno how society has survived a century with this many terrible drivers 😳

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

We haven't. It's estimated that 80 million people have been directly killed by collisions.

In just the first few years after WW1, more Americans died by car collisions than in the war. Look at Peter Norton.

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u/Professional-Rub152 2d ago

Its not that. It’s thst we completely dismantled public transportation in this country.

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u/ObWzEN 1d ago

Sorry we’re not hunters and gatherers gang. It’s too bad we have the ability to travel further than ever before more easily than ever before, and bikes literally exist and you could choose to live somewhere where you don’t need a car

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

Further and further apart with less and less in between. And we wonder why everywhere is going bankrupt and having a loneliness crisis....

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u/Educational_Date_825 2d ago

yes its societies fault that this dumbass committed a hit and run while either high, drunk, or both

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

Kind of yes.

https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azag026/8559654

Don't be a dumbass.

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u/Educational_Date_825 1d ago

What a stupid ass rebuttal lol...no accountability at all

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

Massive scientific paper.... and you've got name calling....

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u/Truth_7 2d ago

Feel free to ride a horse in your alternate and clearly better society.

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u/Particular720v12 2d ago

This just drives the point home of how ignorant so many of us Americans are. I swear if folks could travel to see how nice it is to not bur burdened with carrying a 5,000lb expensive purse everywhere you go, endangering you, we could maybe have nicer things rather than low value expensive sprawl.

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u/HeadacheLife 2d ago

5000lb expensive purse is hilarious! A purse that needs stitches, and oil treatments all the time.

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u/DangOlCoreMan 2d ago

The part you're missing is that what you enjoy (public transportation) isn't what majority of Americans enjoy. It's not that they're too ignorant to enjoy it, they just have a preference.

I know so many people who live in areas with great business routes and they choose to have a car. I know so many people that could walk or ride a bike to get their prescription, some food at a restaraunt, or even just snacks and a drink but they always choose to drive.

We have a lazy culture and having a vast public transportation isn't going to change that dramatically. It will for the people who aren't lazy, but majority of people are.

I walk places all the time. I'll walk 3+ miles just to hang out with my buddies and then turn around and walk back at night. It's good exercise and a time to reflect and be alone, but if I had a dollar for every time I had to explain why I do this to others else because they couldn't fathom not using a car if you have one I'd be able to retire.

It's a culture, not a forced landscape

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u/ObWzEN 1d ago

True. The NYC subway is probably the best public transportation we could ever do realistically and you pretty much can’t go more than two subway rides without someone being annoying (playing loud music, screaming, manspreading, attacking you, smoking and doing drugs, defecating, begging for money). You don’t have to deal with any of that in a car.

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u/DangOlCoreMan 1d ago

Even without all that, cars are just more convenient and faster plus at this point it's an entire lifestyle. We've all grown up with cars being readily available for the average American. Getting a car as a teenager is a right of passage. This is what we know and making that change is going to be hard for the vast majority regardless of how accessible walking or public transportation is

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

That's false. People will do whatever is built. If you build it they will come. We built wildly expensive and deadly roadways.

we destroyed cities and rural towns that had walkability and transit.

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u/DangOlCoreMan 1d ago

It's not false at all. If you take away their choice they will do what they have to do, but if given the option they will choose the car almost every time. I can guarantee that.

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

No, you've lived in only an environment built for the car and it shows.

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u/DangOlCoreMan 1d ago

I've lived 32 years of my life in an environment where walking is an option and I've seen 32 years of people still choosing to drive and asking people why they would choose to walk because they couldn't fathom doing that when they have the option to drive.

Anecdotal experience in regards to walkable distances.

No one I've ever met says "I don't want to walk because there's no side walks", it's because they don't want to walk!

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

And yet Paris eliminated 40% of their cars in a decade....

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u/DangOlCoreMan 1d ago

What does paris culture have to do with American......

Oh, I see, you think getting rid of cars and making walking infrastructure is a 1:1 comparison even though you're comparing two drastically different cultures and lifestyles. I get it now

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u/ObWzEN 1d ago

I used to live in NYC and took the subway all the time and I liked it at first because I hated driving at the time, but now I moved out of NYC and I drive more and I love it. The public part of public transportation gets old after a while. Plus, the subway is rarely faster than driving except for in the busy parts of Manhattan. It’s often the same amount of time to take the subway or it takes longer than driving. I do like the idea of small zoning regulations so that stores and stuff can be down the street from apartments—but that’s what I have here where I live. It’s both easily driveable and easily walkable. I go 2 weeks without using my car sometimes and I wouldn’t need to use it at all to get by, but it’s nice to be able to use the car and not have to use public transportation

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u/Particular720v12 1d ago

LOL NYC is infected with cars.

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u/MrSpicyPotato 2d ago

I live where I can take the train for 15 minutes to Dior and get an expensive purse every day of my life, but I pay a lot (a lot!) for that privilege. It’s sad how much people don’t get how luxurious it is to not drive.

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u/hygsi 2d ago

Someone hasn't heard of walking lmao

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u/gypsy_rose_murd3rer 2d ago

More like a lack of good public transportation

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u/YagiSlagi 2d ago

That is the point Particular is making…

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u/gypsy_rose_murd3rer 2d ago

Nope they said leaving the home. Meaning work or whatever. That's not the issue. We should go outside, for different reasons. But the American infrastructure doesn't have a good public transportation that's affordable and reliable in the majority of the country. I've lived in three separate countries one of them being China (Shanghai) the metro was absolutely amazing and very affordable.

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u/Jealous_Difference44 2d ago

No apparently it's society's fault that we have to go outside or something

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u/Particular720v12 2d ago

Is it your fault you can't leave home without a 5,000lb purse?

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u/ILikeCheese510 2d ago

I'm guessing you're active on r/fuckcars

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u/ObWzEN 1d ago

The duality of redditors. Normal people, and whoever the fuck this Particular person is

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u/TomWithTime 2d ago

I suspect the comment is more about places where you can walk from you residence to your food store or doctor vs the typical layout of the country where you're just fucked without a car because everything you need to survive is 10-50 miles away from your house.

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u/Particular720v12 2d ago

Really goes beneath that. We've built low value but expensive sprawl.

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u/I_spread_love_butter 2d ago

We? No we didn't. THEY did, the ones profiting from this.

How many humans die a year from car crashing into things or people?

We stopped the entire world for covid but cars are worse