Cars (and the distrust of the ability of the people driving them) are the cause of so much worry and concern.
- There’s anxiety over walking, biking, or running places (not even that far away) because of the worry over cars.
- No parents I know want to let their kids ride their bikes across the neighborhood to their friends’ houses or to/ from school because of the worry over cars.
- Some people even drive their dogs to the park instead of walking around the neighborhood because of the worry over cars.
Cars basically monopolized the idea of transportation, and in effect it is also hard to separate from them. “Sharing the Road” doesn’t work in practice, as the sharing is never enough to make anyone not in a car feel comfortable about it.
We need some kind of government initiative or legislation or something meaningful to equip cars and safety features to mitigate the dangers of cars for the rest of the world around them. It’s going to take forever to be implemented if car manufacturers just roll out these things as “premium features” - that’s like enabling a system of charging extra for a car to come with seatbelts.
I’ve heard, “Well, I grew up in the {60s, 70s, 80s} and we would play in the streets and be ok around cars.” Yea, well, go look at the specs of cars from those decades. People weren’t driving around in F-150s, Chevy Surburbans, and 260hp 140mph sportscars like they are today.