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.

  • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
    ·
    11 months ago

    If a car hits a pedestrian or cyclist, the car is always legally at fault. At least here in the Netherlands. Is this not the case everywhere?

    • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      11 months ago

      Oh lord, no. Drivers are rarely held accountable for murdering cyclists. The "accountability" usually caps out at weekends in jail, picking up some garbage on the highway, and being real real sorry.

    • pbrisgreat@midwest.social
      ·
      11 months ago

      If you want a good sense of how bad it is in the states here are two episodes of Freakomomics that do a job of exposing the issue.

      "The Perfect Crime": https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-perfect-crime/ (From 2014)

      Then a follow-up episode: "Why Is the U.S. So Good at Killing Pedestrians?": https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-the-u-s-so-good-at-killing-pedestrians/ (from July 2023)

    • davi@lemm.ee
      ·
      11 months ago

      what matters most is who can afford expensive lawyers and if they cost enough; it doesn't matter whose legally at fault.