[throwaway914]

My counterpoint to this is there have always been a ton of bad drivers. The most important skill to have is to be a predictable driver. Bad drivers will always exist. You cannot change them, and the great number of them is not likely to drop to 0 overnight.

The best thing you can do is drive in a way that even bad drivers expect. Be a speed-limited, blinker-indicating, cautious log in the river. They will parkour around you and you will be fine. Greatly limit your reactions to things. If you freak out, others around you will freak out. Bad drivers cause okay drivers to perform worse. Herd mentality.

(Obvious disclaimer: The best defensive driving in the world won't prevent all accidents)

[genocidicbunny]

Both you and the parent post are correct. There have always been bad drivers, a lot of them, and defensive driving is the best thing for that. But at the same time, I have anecdotally been observing a serious breakdown in people following the rules. All the things the parent mentioned have become more frequent in my experience -- the number of times I see blatant bad and malicious driving behaviours has increased significantly in the last few years, except I drive maybe a 3rd of the miles per year that I used to 5 years ago. The density of terrible/self-absorbed drivers has significantly increased.

It's gotten to the point where even defensive driving doesn't do much. How do you defensively drive against someone just blasting through a red light 15 seconds after it turned red and cross traffic is moving steadily? Or the guy in a lifted truck who decides to force you into the shoulder because he thinks it's funny?

[hutzlibu]

"How do you defensively drive against someone just blasting through a red light 15 seconds after it turned red and cross traffic is moving steadily? Or the guy in a lifted truck who decides to force you into the shoulder because he thinks it's funny?"

Probably upgrading to a tank at some point. Or bringing a gun. Or bribe politicians, that they urge the police to focus on maintaining sanity on the roads and take away the licence(and at some point the cars) from those drivers eagerly.

Honestly, if I can, I drive a bicycle, even now in wintertime. But I often indeed wished for a gun, to bring awareness to my fragile self. To express, that I also have rights on the road, despite being lighter. But I am aware, this might not be the best solution overall.

[HenryBemis]

A gun won't save you from the stupidity of bad drivers. And you understand (in your anger) that it won't solve anything. At best (not really) you shoot and kill (?) one of them. You will then go to prison for many-many-many years, you will lose everything and everyone.

Meanwhile there is a million equally bad drivers out there. We can't be doing "a purge" every weekend. It's either policing, or self-driving cars. I am looking forward to the latter.

[mikepurvis]

Altering the built environment helps too. Narrow the streets, reduce turn radii and sightlines, protect crosswalks and bike lanes, use more "uncontrolled" configurations like 2 way stops rather than full stoplights.

It's counter intuitive on one level, but making the road feel less like a racetrack causes most drivers to slow down and treat it less like one:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/11/8/public-health-...

[pmontra]

I'm uneasy about reducing sightlines. There are drivers that will turn blindly into a corner at excessive speed because they feel lucky or invulnerable except they are not, nor the people on the other side of the turn. Small radii reduces speed no matter what, but keep the line of sight. At least one of the two parties have a chance to prevent a collision.

[alistairSH]

There are drivers that will turn blindly into a corner at excessive speed because they feel lucky or invulnerable except they are not

Making the corner tighter helps solve this.

I walk to work in the suburbs. I have to cross a 6 lane highway. It's signaled properly. But the one thing that nearly kills me every few months the road has very smooth radius corners. Drivers can easily carry 40mph through the corners. Between red-on-red being legal, right-on-green-even-though-pedestrians-crossing-is-active, and generally driver fuckery, I'm amazed nobody has been killed at this intersection.

[hutzlibu]

Speed bumps are brutally effective, like I just experienced driving through spain and france. I also do not like them too much, as they punish everyone and some of them are kind of hidden (by design) and you do not want to hit them even with just 20 mph. So they do prevent speeding in rural areas. But there should be better solutions ..

[throwworhtthrow]

Surrounding my child's school are blind s-curves and streets barely wide enough for 2-way traffic. All densely lined with parked cars. And yet I people speed through these areas on most days during pick-up time, and often they looking at their phones (or whatever else they might be up to behind blackout-tinted windows).

The only thing narrow streets and turns do is make it harder for parents to check for oncoming traffic before crossing. No amount of "traffic calming" will protect us from these rotten drivers. We need at least a modicum of enforcement.

[Noumenon72]

If you get the speed limit wrong with a sign, you can change the sign. If you get it wrong after throwing built obstacles all over it, we are stuck with it. And you're going to get it wrong sometimes, because neighborhoods and safety technology changes (and because safetyism gives low-speed-limit people too much political influence).

[hutzlibu]

"and because safetyism gives low-speed-limit people too much political influence"

Some of us have children, and some of us will hopefully always going to have children, so sorry, but we won't go away with our safety concerns as death on the road is the number one safety issue in everyday life.

[bluecalm]

There are many readily available technical solutions to limit danger from cars and drivers. The problem is that there is zero political will to do so. I think mainly because of car manufacturers playing this on two fronts: bribing or blackmailing politicians (think what happens to economy if we don't sell faster, bigger, stupider cars!) and influencing pop culture - driving a car in irresponsible manner is still seen as cool and manly thing to do. It's cigarettes all over again and it will take a monumental effort to change it.

[hutzlibu]

"It's either policing, or self-driving cars. I am looking forward to the latter."

But till they are there, policing is the only other option to self justice (aside from changing the road environment like the sibling commentor mentioned). There are drivers who intentionally drive close to cyclists - if one of those will have his tyre shot (without him then crashing into other bystanders, or crashing at all) he likely will have some respect in the future. He also might invest into a bulletproof design, further escalating the whole thing, so like I said, I am not advocating for road warfare. Just expressing my anger.

[financltravsty]

It’s interesting. I finished reading the Amazon PIP thread. There was a comment about the double standard of at-will employment dishing out immediate firings, but employees must give 2 weeks notice; how employees have become accustomed to getting the shorter end of the stick.

At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own desires through violence? The one real tool we have for making any tangible change, just stripped away from us at some point.

[jjav]

> At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own desires through violence?

You can even today join a gang or the mafia, you will find that this is still a very common use case.

If you do, you might also find out that it's not a lifestyle anyone wants, thus realizing why most of civilized society doesn't work that way.

[financltravsty]

In my experience, that's usually only because the people that inhabit the gang or the mafia are not themselves civilized.

Dueling, boxing, and so on used to be common among the upper crust. I still get into fights with some of my immigrant friends whenever we reach some total impasse on conflict. We're all civilized, educated, and generally good people. But violence always seems to be the quickest way towards a resolution to certain problems, where simple communication will not do.

[kashunstva]

> At what point did we lose our ability to enforce our own desires through violence?

Judging by reports of violent crime, it would be a stretch to say that the “right” to exercise violence when your individual will is otherwise thwarted is very much still possible. I mean if someone wants to gun down their Amazon HR person or manager, there is little to stop them. It won’t end well for anyone though.

[collyw]

I always thought it was a good idea to assume all the other drivers around me were likely to be incompetent idiots. Obviously not the case, but it means when you do encounter one you will be ready.

[benjijay]

My first driving instructor gave me the greatest line on this; "expect other drivers to be idiots, you will never be disappointed"

[episiarch]

Use of signals is the single most important consideration in my opinion. Other drivers cannot read your mind. Using signals protects you.