***Official Political Discussion Thread***

oh my god lol

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You realize you are about to make the same kind of lazy argument gun owners make regarding gun control

If you are going down the user error road, then what is the plan to improve people's driving ability regarding SUVs and other large vehicles to make them less dangerous?

I may be open to requiring people get CDLs to own an SUV.

And no matter if someone does follow the law, hitting something with a large SUV cause more damage than getting hit with a sedan. The height of the car, moving the strike higher on someone's body, will make it more deadly
I don't really agree with your argument here. The rules of the road are not as ambiguous as the rules around gun usage. People just don't follow them, and there are few consequences for the offending parties (drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians).

In addition, our approach to road design (and transportation) is extremely poor: there's no reason we should have a bike lane merged with a 30 mph lane. Most bikers don't travel that fast, and that slows down car traffic. Build dedicated bike lanes instead. I'm a big fan of public transit, and we should have more of it, especially subway/tramway options instead of buses.

The article TooOlfForThisIsh TooOlfForThisIsh posted shows that pedestrians safety drove the increased size of cars, which has done little in addressing the issue. At some point, we have to stop trying to compensate for people's lack of attention on the road and focus on making folks better users by enforcing the rules of the road (which can be automated) and being more rigorous about awarding drivers licenses.
 
In addition, our approach to road design (and transportation) is extremely poor: there's no reason we should have a bike lane merged with a 30 mph lane. Most bikers don't travel that fast, and that slows down car traffic. Build dedicated bike lanes instead. I'm a big fan of public transit, and we should have more of it, especially subway/tramway options instead of buses.

Downtown Copenhagen has really great bike lanes. They are truly separated from the road by so low, but significant divider, and are also separated from pedestrian traffic. Moreover the Metro stops have more than ample bike storage.

And the public transportation is just as great serviced by 3 kinds of rail as well as busses. The inner city metro runs every six minutes off peak!

The approach is coherent and comprehensive. It really shows what could be done.
 
People don’t take driving serious in America.

If I get hit by a Altima or pickup at 60 mph I’m dead either way. Like stated a lot of bike lanes are on actual highways with no separation but a fog line.

There’s no real risk to driving like a selfish d head here. You might get a ticket for 400 bucks. Big deal… in Germany a tailgating ticket is proportionate to your income and could cost you 20k so nobody tailgates.

People don’t even understand how roads work here and basic signs. It’s a joke.
 
I don't really agree with your argument here. The rules of the road are not as ambiguous as the rules around gun usage. People just don't follow them, and there are few consequences for the offending parties (drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians).

In addition, our approach to road design (and transportation) is extremely poor: there's no reason we should have a bike lane merged with a 30 mph lane. Most bikers don't travel that fast, and that slows down car traffic. Build dedicated bike lanes instead. I'm a big fan of public transit, and we should have more of it, especially subway/tramway options instead of buses.

The article TooOlfForThisIsh TooOlfForThisIsh posted shows that pedestrians safety drove the increased size of cars, which has done little in addressing the issue. At some point, we have to stop trying to compensate for people's lack of attention on the road and focus on making folks better users by enforcing the rules of the road (which can be automated) and being more rigorous about awarding drivers licenses.
The article talks about the change in the designs of Sedans, my comments were about large SUVs and pickup trucks

Not all accidents happen because of driver error, or error of the driver of a large truck. One of the points of my argument is that these large vehicles make accidents more deadly in general.

Automation can only handle some driving violations, mainly speeding, to handle all of them you are going to need a higher human presence will have to be used too, a lot of people. While some reformers suggest a separate transportation unit to ticket bad drivers, most cities will just increase police budgets to do so.

Even then, it is hard for me to believe we can automate drivers not properly checking for pedestrians

So yeah, we should build roads better, and we should be harsher on enforcement, licensing should be stricter. I mentioned all those things in prior posts and the one you quoted. But that won't remove the fact that these large vehicles are more deadly to the other person when they get into an argument. A ton of people don't need them to buy them, are not skilled enough to handle them, and certainly don't drive defensively when they have them

At some point large cars being on the road in such large numbers, all things else considered, is still an issue
 
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:lol:
You can and probably should plead the 5th though, even in the absence of a criminal investigation.
 
[Editing to fix link. Not sure what happened]

Pretty good article on truck size below. But the most salient point is this last bit. Much like with guns, there’s no hope of reform when half the country derives so much of their identity from ownership and a knee-jerk reaction to any kind of regulatory safe-guards.


But any such efforts can’t be merely “technocratic,” Daggett says — they must grapple with the broader societal forces that these supertrucks have tapped into.

“A lot of things are attached to fossil fuel culture because they are symbolically a part of a certain way of life or an identity,” she says. “It’s no longer possible to operate in the world and not understand that fossil fuels are violent. It’s a kind of spectacular performance of power.”
 
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The overall study period covered five presidential elections from 2000 to 2019 and included data for 99.8% of the US population.


Between 2001 and 2019, mortality rates decreased by 22% in Democratic counties (from 850 to 664 per 100,000), but by only half that (11%) in Republican counties (from 867 to 771 per 100,000).


Consequently, the gap in mortality rates between Republican and Democratic counties jumped by 541%, from 16.7 per 100,000 in 2001 to 107 deaths per 100,000 in 2019.


Over the study period, male and female residents of Democratic counties experienced both lower mortality rates and twice the relative decrease in mortality rates than their counterparts in Republican counties.
 
Wait a minute. Republicans fight tooth and nail to remove environmental regulations then when **** goes bad from it they still get upset and blame Dems? The hell do these people want and why have we allowed them to make decisions for this long?
Because there are more stupid people voted in that district. Republicans are doing a lot to keep their voters stupid and even promoted changing how kids are being educated. The u.s. needs some form of dictatorship to flush out the garbage. We can't rely solely on the voting public just by seeing these nuts being elected by their supporters.
 
Problem is what happens when the bad guys get control with dictatorship powers.

I've heard people use Singapore as an example of a benevolent dictatorship, but I don't really know much about that place. I'm sure they still have their problems.
 
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