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by balfirevic 1847 days ago
> I don't on a daily basis do things that could get me or my family members killed if I did them wrong.

Do you drive?

4 comments

Point taken.

Though currently during the pandemic the amount of driving I'm doing is limited and tends to low speeds and short distances.

I found it ironic a few years ago when I did a bungee jump that the jump crew had no significant jump injuries after more than a 100k jumps, but they had lost several crew members to road accidents.

The most dangerous part of a ski day is usually the drive.
Driving is certainly the most stressful activity I’m doing on a regular basis - the stakes are really high, death is just a few seconds away. It feels strangely archaic to have this level of risk built into day to day life. I recently got a car with modern safety features and life really feels safer just because of that. I know that the car will start beeping if I drift off course, and on the highway it’s quite unlikely to crash into the car in front of me.
On a daily basis? No, I don't. And I live 15 minutes outside of the nearest town, a mile from my nearest neighbor, so if I get by driving once or twice a week, surely those who actually live in cities can get by without driving as well.
Less than 5% of the people I've known didn't have significant driving associated with their work.

This is over decades, across different metro areas.

This really depends on location. For me for example that number would be inverted.
Me, too. In my 30 years of works across numerous metro areas, I've been able to commute by train, bus, bike, or walk for 25 out of 30 of those years. Most people I worked with likewise could do it without a car. Some people chose to drive, but it was not at all a requirement.
Understood. I can't speak to outside the US, for example.

In any given moment in the US, I know people who live inside major cities, inside metro areas and in rural areas.

Of that group, the number of working folks w/ little to no work-related driving time is very small.

rarely, but biking is even more dangerous (though typically this is because of other people doing the wrong thing).