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Comment by Lammy | Hacker News Reader

Cities that were "designed for humans" would have open businesses and activities for people to do at night. Here in SF for example businesses start closing around 7PM. There's one restaurant near me open later than 10PM, but it has no indoor seating. Golden Gate Park is covered with signs telling me not to be there after sundown. The roads aren't the problem — there's nothing else to do.

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I can absolutely assure you there is plenty to do in Los Angeles at 7pm. It’s not San Francisco. The problem is the seven and nine lane residential streets with no traffic lights for a mile.

I think part of what "not designed for humans" is probably suggesting is that you shouldn't have to drive away from your nine lane residential street in order to go find something to do.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the number of lanes directly, it’s just a bunch of opportunistic assholes taking advantage of a bunch of lazy cops.

I have little insight into LA because South Pasadena isn’t known for street races but here in San Diego, the intersection between my house and the I15 (in an immigrant/family oriented suburb at the outskirts of the city) regularly gets taken over by these assholes on Friday nights. They not only do donuts in a four lane intersection but use it as a launch point for late night freeway races which regularly break triple digit mph [1].

The cops are fucking useless [2]. There’s at least three squad cars every time and all they do is a half assed attempt at crowd control.

At this point I’m hoping my alibaba bulk order of caltrops doesn’t get held up by customs.

[1] a few years ago “in my youth” I pushed my Toyota Corolla to the max racing one of these fellows at midnight going west on the 52 right before the warped asphalt (which has sadly been fixed). If I managed to reach the limits of my speedometer you can bet the guys with turbos are even worse.

[2] a few months ago I was driving down the freeway a few cars behind a cop right as they received a call. For the next five minutes I watched several dozen cars completely ignore the flashing lights, forcing the cop car to weave in and out of traffic like a street racer.

I don't think it does either. The article even mentions this:

Drivers became more brazen during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, which cleared normally clogged streets and freeways of traffic. Suddenly, many streets were empty and drivers believed they had a newfound freedom to speed, either for takeovers or street racing.

Actually this is a nation wide phenomenon and not just in LA. Road deaths/accidents and road rage incidents are increasing since 2020. I believe The article mentions the takeovers in Arizona also.

I personally think that quote is exactly correct. The empty streets in 2020 caused people to start going faster and taking advantage of the roads and they haven't changed their mindset.

Although in fairness to the police, pulling over a person for a traffic ticket can lead to a gun fight so it's possible police have decided it has a high risk and low reward as far as their time goes.

Also don't dismiss the fact that cops are less likely to intervene since the 2020 defund movement.

I guess you mean designed for today's humans.

Before the late 1800s, cityfolk did not have to go get entertained at night or do other business -and they lived and they prospered for thousands of years. Nor do people in small villages have to.

This is such a silly argument. Before the late 1800s cityfolk didn't even have electric light :p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Street_Station

Only pointing out those are wants and not needs. And living in a city does not necessitate the ability.

I live in inner city Portland where street racing is a huge problem. I live in an area designed for humans.. the area was great until the lockdowns came

Lockdowns of any kind are not designed for humans.

It's not lockdowns. They had lockdowns all over the world. The US is almost the only countries in which roads became more dangerous during the pandemic (see second chart here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/upshot/road-deaths-pedest...).

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