The proportion of bellicose and outright dangerous drivers I’m encountering on a daily basis is way higher than it was a few years ago. People seemingly went insane during the COVID lockdown era and never returned to baseline levels. This isn’t just a feeling or a hunch, either. I have a dashcam in all three cars and ride with a GoPro on my helmet pretty much all the time. The number of clips containing insanity I’m saving nowadays far outstrips the ones in the old folders from the beforetimes, by a multiple of about five.
People are also driving much more distracted than ever. It’s apparently now socially acceptable to be driving with your phone in one hand Facetiming someone at all times, now.
Invariably these are also the selfsame people who will absolutely lose their shit over anyone else causing them any kind of perceived slight in traffic or indeed for running the same stop signs, speeding down the same streets, etc. as they do themselves.
Yeah and modern cars are getting worse. The computerized controls, the sound and vibration insulation, low visibility + giant car, constant digital alerts and buttons
They’re practically in a tank and it’s designed to divorce them as much as possible from physical reality
That’s the craziest shit to me. I’ll admit, I drove probably like an idiot when I was younger, but I’ve always been respectful of my neighborhood. Nowadays, if there’s a house on the street, I’m treating it like people are out walking. Every road in my town is 25 and I won’t go over 25. I watch the walk signal timers and end up stopping instead of trying to catch lights. It’s crazy.
I see parents drop their kids at school so I’m walking. There with my kids and they don’t look right coming out of the driveway. Yes, it’s unlikely that anyone crosses that driveway, as the sidewalk branches off to the left toward the school, but sometimes kids walk along the street to the next school driveway. And these are people with children. It’s mind-boggling that you’d drive with anything but the utmost care at the school you just dropped your kids.
I run in town and that’s my opportunity to take my liberties. When I reach a crosswalk, I’m going across, I don’t give a fuck, and so people better be ready to stop. And no, I don’t mean I’m running in front of traffic, but if it’s a reasonable distance, I’m going, whether it’s the walk on the bookends or the run in the middle. I absolutely can’t stand people failing to yield to pedestrians. A woman was trying to cross a street parallel to me and nobody was stopping, so I just pulled my car into traffic. It’s insane. And then I yelled at them. I’m going to get myself in trouble but I need people to be aware of pedestrians.
I love strong arming crosswalks and making drivers stop
Like you I’m not trying to ever put myself in real danger but I will just walk into the crosswalk and stare them down and gesture if need be but I will make those assholes stop.
I like the school analogy. People don’t give a shit if they run over your kid because the American narcissism has them believing they can do it all on their own and “community” is just there to put rules on them and cramp their style, after all, it’s all about them!
I think a lot of people are so busy thinking about themselves and can’t reach the simple conclusion you did: if I don’t want my kids run over I shouldn’t run over anyone else’s kids. More simply: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
You also have to look both ways at green lights now because people are selfish and careless enough that they will enter an intersection when the signal is fully red.
Not here. Our cops refuse to hear it. I’ve tried and they just keep parroting the hugely spurious argument, “If we didn’t see it ourselves we can’t do anything.” They only care about drugs and guns around here.
Using a phone while driving is being stupid, and there’s not really a good enough excuse to make it anything less and a new opportunity to exhibit that stupidity. Distractions are what get in the way of a good driver’s ability to drive well, like the insane amount of in-car brightness these days or the poorly adjust, ultra-bright headlights.
Soeaking of, I love that my 2015 BRZ has dimmable, red, seven-segment displays for everything and the new head unit I got for it can easily have its screen turned off. No distractions, just darkness and the road in front of me, even with my relatively “dim” headlights.
My car has capacitive buttons to turn on fog lights. That’s what I want, a button forcing me to look down when visibility is at its lowest. I’m sure there are hundreds of other examples of bad design causing driver distraction, but that one really pisses me off!
It’s honestly crazy how that happened. The only capacitive buttons I have are on the new headunit but I’ve muscle-memoried the power button and volume controls are mostly there but, like you say, they aren’t anything urgent so it’s chill. If I really wanted I could probably even buy a 2017+ steering wheel and get the buttons but I prefer the plain-jane one.
And for states with higher electric car adoption (like here in California):
Electric cars are heavy. Really heavy. People do not understand how heavy these cars are. A Tesla Model Y (the smallest one) weighs ~4,500 lbs, while a Model X weighs over 5,000 lbs. For comparison, my all steel body V8 powered 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 (with dimensions physically bigger than all Tesla models(*): 213 in long compared to the longest Tesla, the Model S at 196 in long) weighs just ~3,700 lbs. In a crash involving an electric car, all that kinetic energy has to go somewhere, and sadly that’s usually into the other non-electric car in the crash.
Additionally, people are too trusting of auto-pilot. The driver’s hands should never be allowed to come off the steering wheel unless they are repositioning their hand in a turn or for comfort, IMO. Turning on auto-pilot and trusting it enough to completely disengage from driving and do something else (like taking a nap or reading a book) is like trusting ChatGPT to give you factually correct information: its possible but pretty unlikely its going to be 100%.
(*) EDIT: Technically, this is wrong as I forgot the Model 3, which is 184 inches. However, the Model 3 weighs about the same or more than the Galaxie at ~3,600 lbs to ~4,000 lbs. The point is just to communicate how heavy these cars are.
Edit: I may have misread that you meant the smallest Tesla, not the smallest Model Y. You’re wrong if you meant Tesla, but if you meant Model Y that was my bad.
I don’t count the Roadster because A) there are not enough of them to be statistically relevant to this discussion, and B) its just a modified Lotus Elise.
I did totally forget about the Model 3. It does have a length that is smaller at ~185 inches, but the weight is about the same if not heavier as my Galaxie, ranging between ~3,600lbs to ~4,000 lbs.
Also, I should add the Cybertruck at ~6,700 lbs in its normal trim with the Cyberbeast being a staggering 6,900 lbs. It is about 10 inches longer than my Galaxie, but it is literally almost twice the weight. Absolute chonker.
Regardless, my point was just in pointing out how ridiculously heavy they are.
cars are getting bigger
drivers are getting stupider
headlights are getting brighter
laws are arbitrarily enforced
drivers are getting stupider
Mostly that last one.
The proportion of bellicose and outright dangerous drivers I’m encountering on a daily basis is way higher than it was a few years ago. People seemingly went insane during the COVID lockdown era and never returned to baseline levels. This isn’t just a feeling or a hunch, either. I have a dashcam in all three cars and ride with a GoPro on my helmet pretty much all the time. The number of clips containing insanity I’m saving nowadays far outstrips the ones in the old folders from the beforetimes, by a multiple of about five.
People are also driving much more distracted than ever. It’s apparently now socially acceptable to be driving with your phone in one hand Facetiming someone at all times, now.
I think it’s mostly their second point.
I think it’s mostly the one that says “drivers are getting stupider”
Some people in my neighborhood run stop signs on their own streets. They almost hit their own family members walking as well as school buses.
Yet everyday I see them continue to drive right through the stop sign.
These ones drive like they’re determined to be violent maniacs so maybe they just somehow grew up without developing a self aware soul
Invariably these are also the selfsame people who will absolutely lose their shit over anyone else causing them any kind of perceived slight in traffic or indeed for running the same stop signs, speeding down the same streets, etc. as they do themselves.
Lack of self awareness is certainly right.
Yep, seems they’re maximally enraged at all times with a degree of entitlement that makes it your fault if they hit you
https://www.jalopnik.com/study-finds-cyclists-are-better-people-than-drivers-1850964103/
Yeah and modern cars are getting worse. The computerized controls, the sound and vibration insulation, low visibility + giant car, constant digital alerts and buttons
They’re practically in a tank and it’s designed to divorce them as much as possible from physical reality
Modern comfort probably doesn’t help, but the act of driving turning people into fucking monsters has been a phenomenon for so long that Disney was making cartoons about it 75 years ago.
That’s the craziest shit to me. I’ll admit, I drove probably like an idiot when I was younger, but I’ve always been respectful of my neighborhood. Nowadays, if there’s a house on the street, I’m treating it like people are out walking. Every road in my town is 25 and I won’t go over 25. I watch the walk signal timers and end up stopping instead of trying to catch lights. It’s crazy.
I see parents drop their kids at school so I’m walking. There with my kids and they don’t look right coming out of the driveway. Yes, it’s unlikely that anyone crosses that driveway, as the sidewalk branches off to the left toward the school, but sometimes kids walk along the street to the next school driveway. And these are people with children. It’s mind-boggling that you’d drive with anything but the utmost care at the school you just dropped your kids.
I run in town and that’s my opportunity to take my liberties. When I reach a crosswalk, I’m going across, I don’t give a fuck, and so people better be ready to stop. And no, I don’t mean I’m running in front of traffic, but if it’s a reasonable distance, I’m going, whether it’s the walk on the bookends or the run in the middle. I absolutely can’t stand people failing to yield to pedestrians. A woman was trying to cross a street parallel to me and nobody was stopping, so I just pulled my car into traffic. It’s insane. And then I yelled at them. I’m going to get myself in trouble but I need people to be aware of pedestrians.
I love strong arming crosswalks and making drivers stop
Like you I’m not trying to ever put myself in real danger but I will just walk into the crosswalk and stare them down and gesture if need be but I will make those assholes stop.
I like the school analogy. People don’t give a shit if they run over your kid because the American narcissism has them believing they can do it all on their own and “community” is just there to put rules on them and cramp their style, after all, it’s all about them!
I think a lot of people are so busy thinking about themselves and can’t reach the simple conclusion you did: if I don’t want my kids run over I shouldn’t run over anyone else’s kids. More simply: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Hell yeah. King of the road. 👑
You also have to look both ways at green lights now because people are selfish and careless enough that they will enter an intersection when the signal is fully red.
Are you reporting the drivers you catch on can? Police here have been asking for footage.
Not here. Our cops refuse to hear it. I’ve tried and they just keep parroting the hugely spurious argument, “If we didn’t see it ourselves we can’t do anything.” They only care about drugs and guns around here.
Don’t forget the stupid implementation of literally a big touch screen tablet where the radio and AC knobs used to be. Now in most modern cars.
Replace one of the stupider with “more distractions”
The nearly 1:1 of iPhone launch in 2007 to rising accidents and non-vehicular injuries is undebatable.
People are also more stressed and depressed than ever.
Using a phone while driving is being stupid, and there’s not really a good enough excuse to make it anything less and a new opportunity to exhibit that stupidity. Distractions are what get in the way of a good driver’s ability to drive well, like the insane amount of in-car brightness these days or the poorly adjust, ultra-bright headlights.
Soeaking of, I love that my 2015 BRZ has dimmable, red, seven-segment displays for everything and the new head unit I got for it can easily have its screen turned off. No distractions, just darkness and the road in front of me, even with my relatively “dim” headlights.
My car has capacitive buttons to turn on fog lights. That’s what I want, a button forcing me to look down when visibility is at its lowest. I’m sure there are hundreds of other examples of bad design causing driver distraction, but that one really pisses me off!
It’s honestly crazy how that happened. The only capacitive buttons I have are on the new headunit but I’ve muscle-memoried the power button and volume controls are mostly there but, like you say, they aren’t anything urgent so it’s chill. If I really wanted I could probably even buy a 2017+ steering wheel and get the buttons but I prefer the plain-jane one.
And for states with higher electric car adoption (like here in California):
Electric cars are heavy. Really heavy. People do not understand how heavy these cars are. A Tesla Model Y (the smallest one) weighs ~4,500 lbs, while a Model X weighs over 5,000 lbs. For comparison, my all steel body V8 powered 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 (with dimensions physically bigger than all Tesla models(*): 213 in long compared to the longest Tesla, the Model S at 196 in long) weighs just ~3,700 lbs. In a crash involving an electric car, all that kinetic energy has to go somewhere, and sadly that’s usually into the other non-electric car in the crash.
Additionally, people are too trusting of auto-pilot. The driver’s hands should never be allowed to come off the steering wheel unless they are repositioning their hand in a turn or for comfort, IMO. Turning on auto-pilot and trusting it enough to completely disengage from driving and do something else (like taking a nap or reading a book) is like trusting ChatGPT to give you factually correct information: its possible but pretty unlikely its going to be 100%.
(*) EDIT: Technically, this is wrong as I forgot the Model 3, which is 184 inches. However, the Model 3 weighs about the same or more than the Galaxie at ~3,600 lbs to ~4,000 lbs. The point is just to communicate how heavy these cars are.
Edit: I may have misread that you meant the smallest Tesla, not the smallest Model Y. You’re wrong if you meant Tesla, but if you meant Model Y that was my bad.
I don’t count the Roadster because A) there are not enough of them to be statistically relevant to this discussion, and B) its just a modified Lotus Elise.
I did totally forget about the Model 3. It does have a length that is smaller at ~185 inches, but the weight is about the same if not heavier as my Galaxie, ranging between ~3,600lbs to ~4,000 lbs.
Also, I should add the Cybertruck at ~6,700 lbs in its normal trim with the Cyberbeast being a staggering 6,900 lbs. It is about 10 inches longer than my Galaxie, but it is literally almost twice the weight. Absolute chonker.
Regardless, my point was just in pointing out how ridiculously heavy they are.