Just need to vent...

I tend to keep reimagining close calls. I think to myself, "I could have just ended that poor young woman's life," or "taken out that family," or "maimed that guy for life."

It's not that I think I'm a worse driver than others. Simply put, nobody is a perfect driver including me. And while aspiring to become better drivers is good and all, the possibility of severely injuring or killing someone is still very real even with the upmost care in the way we drive.

Then add to that that most people don't really care all that much about safety, at least the safety of people outside of their vehicle. They just want a way to get around. And you can't control what other people do.

I had a good friend who she and her mother died together leaving her young son orphaned and with brain trauma for life. They were hit by a guy in a Suburban who was high on marijuana (which is now legal in this state). Most people blame her for driving a small car.

 

I drive a Subaru Outback for a few primary reasons:

1) One of the safest affordable cars in an accident
2) It holds my zoo of kids and two 100 pound dogs, plus the runt 50-pounder mutt.
3) It holds up to the backroads I am forced to drive.

Safety has turned into my A1 issue with what I drive/ As an aside, make sure you carry LOTS of uninsured motorist coverage. Lots...
kris

 

I feel like if society can't convince you to buy a car for the purpose of impressing your friends then society tries to shame you into buying a car because you're negligent if you don't.

This is one of the main reasons we decided to buy the Avalon, because it was supposedly safer. It was much more expensive than any car we had ever owned before by leaps and bounds. Yet it's 4,000 lbs of steel and plastic that's sole purpose is to move my butt around town. What a waste. I hate it.

1. Safe neighborhoods would be ones void of personal vehicles. They would have mostly pedestrian traffic.
2. All forms of vehicular traffic would be separated far from pedestrian traffic, except those necessary points where people get on and off public transportation.
3. Sure, let people who want cars to have their cars. But make our communities pedestrian first communities.
   
4. We shouldn't build cities that interfere with pedestrian traffic. Crosswalks shouldn't exist. Pedestrian bridges shouldn't exist. If you're going to make a street for cars then put it far from pedestrians, even if that means burying it underground.
5. Personal vehicle amenities should be given the lowest priority in city planning.
6. We shouldn't bulldoze neighborhoods just to build freeways.
7. Cities shouldn't have to provide parking. Let businesses and homeowners figure that one out.
8. And while building streets with traffic away from ones with pedestrians will cost more to figure out, tax it out of the car owners. Don't bow down and worship the car owners by asphalting every street for them and making big fat freeways for them at the expense of pedestrian safety and ease. If they want to have the freedom to drive their cars then put those asphalted streets somewhere where they do not detract from normal pedestrian traffic. Make the car owners pay whatever it takes, even if that means coming up with the money to bury every asphalted street below ground in a system of tunnels where cars can never come into contact with pedestrians and cyclists. Just DO NOT interfere with pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
9. Or make every street a single-lane one-way street and lower speed limits to 5mph nationwide. Put speed governors on cars. Put curfews on driving.
10. If a pedestrian has to stop and look both ways and wait to cross, then we're doing things wrong, period. The only reason driving is a freedom is because we've told the drivers that they are free to drive down streets at speed but we've told the pedestrians they have to stop and look both ways and wait. We've taken the freedom from the pedestrian and given it to the car driver. It should be the other way around. Car drivers should creep down streets looking both ways and stop immediately any time a pedestrian might cross. Or just drive slowly, far behind pedestrians who are walking down the street.

 

agree that none of us are perfect, and that includes driving, no matter how conscientious