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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

Just this morning I was walking down the street on a sidewalk and as I crossed in front of a driveway - having checked first - a car pulled out of the garage right up against my leg and stopped, and when I stepped away they started moving again to get close. The stuff people do in cars when they don't have right of way is absolutely deranged sometimes.

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Yesterday I was at the four way stop in the parking lot next to the corner of the Costco building in Mountain View, after coming down the driveway from Rengstorff. As usual, many people were crossing the far side of that intersection as they left Costco, and of course I waited for them.

After I'd been there 30 seconds or so, a big SUV pulled up to the stop sign on my left. He was wanting to make a left turn toward Total Wine. Obviously, I had the right of way over him, and the pedestrians pushing their grocery carts out of Costco had the right of way over both of us.

After another 30 seconds, the SUV driver had had enough. He barreled through his left turn as shoppers were still crossing the driveway, barely missing one of them by a foot or two.

For some reason, driving a car causes a strong desire to move forward quickly in most people. Even for me, a person who hasn't owned a car in over a decade and always bikes or walks everywhere, whenever I get behind the wheel of a car, I get incredibly anxious when I'm stopped waiting for something, and I have to consciously tell myself it's OK if I wait for 30 seconds.

I have no idea what causes this, but I've noticed it in many others. Maybe because if you do wait a bit, some drivers behind you will get irritated and honk, flash their lights, tailgate, and pass you via some dangerous maneuver? That might be enough to associate waiting with anxiety for people who'd normally be ok with waiting.

You could be on something, as I must tell my wife all the time that she should focus on what's in front of her, not on what is behind her. She'd do silly things otherwise, like speed if she thinks the driver behind is too close, or miss turns to not bother... why??? For me it's the other way around - I was once stopped by a police barrage because a patrol followed me half the town with their lights on to tell me a stoplight was broken and I ignored them (didn't look back once)

Please try more actively not to be a bad driver and don't encourage others to be bad drivers too. You should always be aware of what's going on behind you. It could be the police or it could be an ambulance that you haven't heard because of the radio, it could be a tailgating driver ready to smash you into pieces unless you drive extremely defensively until they leave the road, it could be someone in an emergency, a truck with malfunctioning brakes hurling down the street and many more.

The road is a place when generally incompetent people are forced to operate heavy machinery and no one is really safe there, even inside a car.

It seems like people get irrationally anxious and angry having to wait behind people moving slower in general. On paths that cyclists share with pedestrians, cyclists are usually even more angry and aggressive with pedestrians than drivers are with cyclists (pedestrians are expected to move out of the way and often get yelled at if they don't). There seems to be this almost atavistic response people have to something in front of them impeding there movement.

A lot of people have no idea of the destructive power of the three ton death machine they are in command of. For that reason I think it should be mandatory to volunteer in a crash recovery ward at a hospital for 100 hours before getting a drivers license.

I’ve had a few bike accidents (usually me vs a trash can that suddenly rolled onto the bike lane, or similar obstructions of the road) where I had to go to the ER.

I obviously had to wait a few hours, because while I may have a concussion and broken some bones, there are people with far worse injuries in the ER.

One time I had to wait 12 hours because a major car accident had happened, and I saw them move the victims of that into the ER.

I was instantly reminded of the difference in danger, and very glad that my injuries happened with a 20 kg vehicle at 20 km/h, and not a 2000 kg vehicle at 100 km/h.

These people never consider the possibility they will actually hit something, their driving skills being so above average and all..

Personally I think they don't think about this. They want to feel safe and that's where the thinking ends.

Which is why we should force them to see the reality of what happens when people do. And they'll talk to those people who are severely injured, who will say "it was never going to happen to me either".

I'd bet the number of licensed drivers would drop, people wouldn't want a license after seeing the harsh reality.

A lot of people buy these three ton machines to feel "safe". In turn they don't feel the need to protect others from that machine. In my LA neighborhood I saw a lot of moms barreling through the neighborhood in their big SUVs with their kids while talking on the phone or texting. I have had several occasions where I had to jump out of the way to not getting run over. I don't think the drivers even noticed me.

when I had my motorcycle most near misses were also with SUV drivers not paying attention when changing lanes. The more expensive the SUV the more dangerous.

And the worst thing is: when they do run someone over the DA won't prosecute because they want to be re-elected, and when it does end up in criminal court the jury won't convict because they know it might have easily been them.

How do you square the "three ton death machine" with the whole "recreationally gallivanting across Africa in a Jeep and blogging about it for internet points" thing? Your words say a car usage should be minimized. Your actions say another thing. It comes across a lot like taking your private jet to a climate summit. I'm genuinely curious how you reconcile this apparent conflict.

There are two answers to this:

1. The person you're responding to is clearly aware of the responsibility required when driving a large car (their comment says this explicitly);

2. An outbacking trip through Africa is not meaningfully comparable to daily automotive commuting. It's probably safe to assume that the GP practiced outsized caution, given the logistical and legal complexity of such a trip.

I think that there is less traffic in Africa, and therefore, there is less chance of a dangerous collision.

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