Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 451 posts

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#211

Post by saiya-jin »

mkagenius wrote: post #131
lukeqsee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, if you strike a pedestrian outside a crosswalk, the same might happen to you depending on the jurisdiction. Pedestrians create their own right of way, practically speaking (if not judicially). :-)

In India if you strike a pedestrian anywhere, you can yell at him for being a nuisance and be on your way. Pedestrians have 0 value in terms of life in India.

Aren't there some videos of some drivers in China doing reverse to make sure the person they hit is dead to not having to cover medical bills? People can do horrible things once money get involved.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#212

Post by pindab0ter »

systemtest wrote: post #149
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what!? In Europe if you strike a pedestrian on the crosswalk you'll definitely loose your license and be looking at manslaughter charges too while your insurance company will murder you after paying the victim's medical/disability/court bills.

I have hit a pedestrian. Instead of using the nearby crosswalk she walked in between the cars and when she walked in front of me it was too late for me to brake. She flew a couple of meters and landed on the crosswalk. In the police report is was stated that I hit the person on the crosswalk as I couldn't prove otherwise. The woman was taken away in an ambulance due to a broken leg. I was 16 at the time. Really shake…

How were you driving when you were sixteen?

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#213

Post by sokoloff »

bluGill wrote: post #203
coredog64 wrote: post #133

> Those who walk or bike to work receive no commuter tax benefit False. It’s possible to pay for mass transit with pretax dollars.

Is that in a theoretical sense, or is it something I could do now? If the latter can you be more specific - how do I use pre-tax dollars to pay for my bus fare?

Not for an individual fare, but an employer can offer monthly/annual passes on a pre-tax basis (up to $265/mo for 2019)

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15b.pdf

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#214

Post by pixl97 »

pindab0ter wrote: post #212
systemtest wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hit a pedestrian. Instead of using the nearby crosswalk she walked in between the cars and when she walked in front of me it was too late for me to brake. She flew a couple of meters and landed on the crosswalk. In the police report is was stated that I hit the person on the crosswalk as I couldn't prove otherwise. The woman was taken away in an ambulance due to a broken leg. I was 16 at the time. Really shake…

How were you driving when you were sixteen?

Because that's when you can get a license in many states.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#215

Post by gavia1 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #111
sokoloff wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are moved by electric vehicles to some remote place (where they might also be more efficiently handled), but even as an electric car driver, I don’t think of them as eliminated.

They are eliminated and electricity production does not have to produce any of them: The short term goal is total elimination across the whole chain.

I think the parent was referring to the mining and manufacturing of lithion ion and other components that go into a car.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#216

Post by pixl97 »

gavia1 wrote: post #210
ElKrist wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A relative in France hit a pedestrian outside of a crosswalk, the aged man died after a few days at the hospital. It was night time, rainy and the victim popped out from the space between two parked cars and ran just in front of the motorbike to quickly cross the road. There was automatically a trial anyway for manslaughter and my relative was not found guilty of anything. I think it's a good thing to automatically h…

What do you mean by "full control"? The average driver does not have the experience nor the training to maintain full control at all times. For example, consider a situation where the driver has to correct understeer, or lift-off oversteer, both relatively easy to achieve in cold, wet conditions.

That is exactly what full control means. Your lack of training is no excuse in the eyes of the law.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#217

Post by pavel_lishin »

wycy wrote: post #147
methodover wrote: post #43

“Given New York’s lax enforcement record, the Freakonomics podcast described running over pedestrians there as “the perfect crime.”” I was driving in Oakland when the car in front of me didn’t slow down for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The pedestrian disappeared in front of the car. I stopped my car, got out, found the struck young woman trembling and bleeding in the street. The speed limit was 30 miles per hour. I…

It seems like absolute common sense that as abilities degrade as you age you should have to retest for drivers licenses periodically. Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age. However, any politician who proposed or approved such an idea would be immediately voted out of office, because old people are very reliable voters. So it's not going to happen.

There's no way to pass such a law without it seeming agist - because it would be.

It seems to me, probably naively, that the easiest way around this would be to require yearly tests for everyone. You're driving a huge honking piece of metal at 60+ miles an hour down the street; a yearly verification of your ability to do so doesn't seem excessive.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#218

Post by pavel_lishin »

unwrap wrote: post #73
chronolitus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me float you a hypothetical situation: you're in command of a few tons of steel, and your priority is to get to some arbitrary location. Your second priority, I assume, is to not murder anyone. Here's what you know about the environment : it is populated with (harmless fleshly) people who are also going about fulfilling goals 1 and 2. You know with high probability that at any given moment one might quickly cross…

I see no point in wasting words seeing how differing viewpoints are received here. Somebody has even bothered to go over my comment history and downvote everything. I think you'd see it in a very different light if you were living here. I am honestly very worried for my friends and relatives who drive, most of whom do it very, very carefully, and still they have yearly encounters with adults who behave like feeble-mi…

> I am honestly very worried for my friends and relatives who drive

Any worries about friends and relatives who walk?

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#219

Post by pixl97 »

u801e wrote: post #157
acdha wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m certain that the police officers the original commented mentioned actually said that they had no grounds even though it is completely incorrect just because the United States is so heavily built around people driving everywhere (and that public transit is for poor, distasteful people). Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death because there’s so little you can do with driving in ma…

> Older people losing their cars is often the start of a decline unto death because there’s so little you can do [without] driving in many neighborhoods. The solution is to replace their car with a vehicle that's less dangerous for others like an electrically assisted tricycle. That can serve their local transportation needs and won't cause nearly as much damage if they hit someone or something.

They are very apt to be hit and killed by other bad drivers in that slow vehicle.

Re: Cars took over because the legal system helped squeezed out alternatives

#220

Post by gavia1 »

pixl97 wrote: post #216
gavia1 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "full control"? The average driver does not have the experience nor the training to maintain full control at all times. For example, consider a situation where the driver has to correct understeer, or lift-off oversteer, both relatively easy to achieve in cold, wet conditions.

That is exactly what full control means. Your lack of training is no excuse in the eyes of the law.

Well for example, in the U.K, neither understeer nor oversteer is taught when learning to drive. Whose fault is that? The 30 million drivers who have never heard of it or practised it, but have otherwise satisfied the legal requirement to drive; or the legislation that mandates the procedures that must be taken to pass a driving test?
Post reply on HN