You were riding during rush hour. Why were you riding then? There are way too many cars on the road. If you were commuting, you should have contact...

McSweeney’s bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.

You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.

  • Polymath@gehirneimer.de
    252·
    11 months ago

    Thank goodness this reads, at least to me, as largely satire. But then again Poe’s Law is certainly a thing.

    I have been hit twice by motorists/cars while road cycling, and will die on the hill that US motorists are entitled asses, too self-absorbed to care that, LEGALLY, on just about any roadway bicycles are allowed to take up one entire lane, as a full-fledged vehicle.

    Drivers can piss off and cry, that the whole world isn’t cars like the auto manufacturer lobby and oil magnates/giants have tried to force us all to become dependent upon and addicted to.

    • dnick@lemmy.world
      8·
      11 months ago

      Well it kind of has to be satire, since it’s suggesting time travel as the shortcoming, but yeah, it is ridiculous how little care motorists pay to cycles. On the other hand, I’ve met plenty of cyclists acting just as entitled, blowing through signs and pedestrian crossing as though they have the same rights as a car, but for in situations where it’s more convenient, as though they don’t have to obey the same rules. And, of course, the situations where they are completely in the right, but so outmatched by tons of steel that being right only matters to their family in court. Operators of cars and bikes can both be distracted or make a mistake, but only one of them is likely to face life ending consequences in an interaction between the two of them.

      • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
        2·
        11 months ago

        Man, cyclists/pedestrians like that crack me up

        “The law says I have right of way!”

        “Not the laws of physics, so you should still look both ways and be prepared.”

        “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

      • Polymath@gehirneimer.de
        1·
        11 months ago

        I’ve definitely run into my fair share of folks like that, and to a degree I think they infuriated me even more than just-car drivers, since they were making us cyclists look bad as a whole; giving reasons to motorists to hate us all. I totally hear you, and thank you for your thoughts that are right on, about the discrepancy in consequences

    • Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world
      72·
      11 months ago

      If cars don’t want bicycles on car lanes, then they should build more bike lanes. shrug-emoji.

      Bike lanes and sidewalks are car infrastructure that lets cars go faster.