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.
Seems pretty unlikely. If yours actually being a reasonable driver, even if someone suddenly steps out into the road without warning right in front of you, you won’t hit them. The only exception would be if they were doing something like hiding behind a sign at night and jumped out in front of you. Almost anything else and you actually weren’t driving carefully.
If you’re going at a slow speed maybe. A lot of cyclist infrastructure is next to roads with speeds of 40, 50, 60 mph.
I gave an example in a comment below. The driver just rolled out, expecting to stop smoothly at a red light when he had to make a really serious emergency brake and it did work out. Barley. I just don’t think you can just assign blame in such a general way.