 Read this at my funeral. For nearly all of my life, I've known how I was going to die. Not from cancer, or diet, or drink, but by being crushed under a car. I will be mangled and bleed out painfully. The driver, distracted on their phone, will say that I "came out of nowhere". The police and the DA will call it an "accident". There will be no consequences of any kind. Except for my death, of course. [...] 79 comments
 @jwz additional context as this is getting boosted: Pedestrians (particularly those using mobility accommodations like a knee-walker, wheelchair, etc) are the most vulnerable users of a traffic system. We have no airbag or exterior frame that will protect us in a collision. Further the infrastructure in America often works against us. Cyclists don't fair much better. The onus of safety responsibility should be on policy makers, traffic engineers, & the people who are operating multi-ton vehicles When I first moved into my hood, there was a community meeting about the local park. I am not kidding a man stood up and objected to some structures meant for either quiet reading or outdoor play depending on how you want to interact with it. He said "I live right across the street and I will have to listen to children playing all day" Not sure why he bought a house across from a park but the entitlement isn't just drivers.  @ReticentTurnip @jwz @chu People moved in across the road from a relative's farm yard and spent several decades complaining that it was smelly and noisy and had animals... @jwz non-cyclists that are confused by activism think that activists are attracted to cycling, when the reality is that becoming a cyclist very quickly radicalizes one into becoming an activist. Nothing crystallizes strong opinions as being frequently threatened with death by at best indifferent and at worst aggressive and antagonistic people.  I just wanted to bicycle back and forth from work. Resent that I pretty much had to become an activist because I was being hassled by police for bicycling legally and they kept making up their on laws I was supposedly breaking. Opened my eyes to a lot of other problems that I didn't ignore, but my privileges kept me unaware of.   @cainmark @marcprecipice @ekuber @jwz The one bike lane in my neighborhood has three parking spaces right next to it, but twice now I've seen all three empty with a car blocking the bike lane just ahead of them... I guess the car driver didn't want to walk across the bike lane...? I wonder if they can get tickets or if they face zero consequences for needlessly blocking traffic @semitones I see this constantly with delivery trucks -- pulling over into an available parking space right in front of them is too much of a hardship. @jef posts examples of this kind of thing all the time.  @jwz @semitones I wish more people in this country understood "can't be arsed" because that's an exact description of their thought process. @jwz @jef Yeah exactly. Thanks for linking to Jeff's account -- this picture is almost exactly what I'm talking about (but with passenger cars) https://flic.kr/p/2pWTh31 People wonder why I wear so much armor when I ride my bike. Partially for cars and collisions, partially for defense. People are like allergic to bikes out here. I purposely got an ebike that looks like a motorcycle just because it does so well in the snow and because cars don't bat an eye at it. Playing chicken with lifted Ram trucks isn't very fun. Neither is "stray" bullets on rural back roads. By the way, those people shoot like stormtroopers. Everything you said is spot on.  Here in the Netherlands activism isn't associated with cycling because the activists won long ago. I see cyclists abroad on roads full of cars and I feel intense fear. @divclassbutton @ekuber @jwz like rice screaming at water for getting through the sieve first @ekuber @jwz @temptoetiam How many do have spikes and others hazardous equipments on their bicycle(s) ? How many are happy with stupidly made cycling ways because « at least, they did one » ? @gduchaussois @ekuber @jwz This is why I always kept my bike lock in my belt loop. I broke *many* car mirrors off in the bay. Actually did one on the way to my first anger management group meeting and gave the guys a chuckle. There were 8 of us, 4 were cyclists.  @jgordon @ekuber @jwz This is why I really like the MSP metropolitan area! I like how being able to bike to every part of the whole metropolitan area is mostly pretty decent. The ability to do that makes it where I don't only survive but thrive without a car. I don't feel hemmed into the pocket of the city I live in. I had jobs in the past ask if I wanted to move to a couple of other places and the added expense of a car and housing wouldn't offset the increased pay so I declined. And then there are all our parks. MSP is a pretty amazing place thanks to some visionary city planners back in the 19th century. St Paul has lagged MPLS but recently we are coming on strong. MPLS is #1 nationally but #4 ain't bad.   @jwz This one cuts deep. Years in I still get anxious & super nervous on windy days "just" because my worst cycling accident - a hit'n'run full-on @ full speed from the side - happend to occur on a windy day & it haunts me to this day. Not consciously, I was back on my bike with chipped bones, blood seeping out of my body covered in bruises as soon as I could, but my base stress and adrenaline is dialed up to 11 whenever I hear & feel wind on my skin and memories of life leaving my body creep in  @jwz@mastodon.social I used to be a Freenode staffer. I still remember the day I got an early-morning call that turned out to be one of the senior admins asking what to do because lilo, Rob Levin, had just been killed in Houston by a hit-and-run driver while cycling. To the best of my knowledge, the driver who killed him was never found.  @jwz Glad you’re still with us — we had a close friend get actually hit (concussion, broken bones, PT needed, trashed bike) and she’s also thankfully still with us.    @jwz this was exactly our reality when we lived in Toronto, but once our kids became old enough to ride a bike it was too much for us. This was one of the top reasons we left Canada and moved to the Netherlands. I've talked about this in several videos, in particular this one: Toronto is shockingly bad. Then there's Montreal -- among the best cities in North America. Toronto's crash from a livable city in the 90s to the current state is a good cautionary tale. I think it was because the city swallowed up too many suburbs, tilting elections towards suburban priorities. |
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@jwz went to my local city's traffic and transportation meeting last night to comment (positively) on a complete streets project and some bozo was there telling the council that they should spend the money instead on educating pedestrians and cyclists on how to avoid getting hit by a car. the entitlement of some folks who drive cars is so depressing.