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Comment by craigmcnamara | Hacker News Reader

What you said, but I'm considering carrying a rock now. Drivers seem to think I'm disposable for committing the crime of walking somewhere. Middle fingers are only so memorable, but that ding in the paint or a window might help them remember I have the right to not be hit in a crosswalk.

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You most likely will be punished more severely by the law for denting a car with your rock than a driver would be for killing you with their car as long as they were not drinking or ran away from the scene of the crime.

Killing someone with a car effectively counts as not killing someone.

Or it may anger them into jumping a curb to explicitly hit you.

Road rage due to damage to their pavement princesses is deadly when your in a cage of steel.

Victim blaming.

If a driver can be goaded into murder, perhaps they shouldn't have the tools to commit that murder so easily.

I don't read that comment as victim blaming at all, it's just a statement of our sad reality: it's de facto legal to murder someone in a car so long as you're not inebriated and you stay at the scene and plead your innocence.

As a general rule I go out of my way to not piss off drivers, not because I think they're in the right, but because they can murder me with impunity and they know it.

But we live in the kinds of society where a person has rights until they prove they shouldn't. Not the potential, but the actuality. Now I think the middle ground might be better enforcement of near misses... "No harm no foul" needs to be removed from the mindset of traffic cops.

> Victim blaming.

A rock thrown at a vehicle moving at speed can be (and has been) charged as attempted first degree murder. There are not really any victims in this scenario.

https://jalopnik.com/blood-brothers-kill-woman-after-throwin...

An armed society is a polite society

The driver of the vehicle (vehicles cause a dozen 9/11s worth of deaths a year) is armed. Only person that can stop a bad guy with a vehicle is a good guy with a rock.

You will be quickly reminded by your local police force that throwing rocks at moving vehicles will result in at least a mischief charge.

Your edgy angst is better spent engaging with local levels of government.

I've always wanted some kind of throwable sticker that says "Watch out, I don't know how to drive!" That's close to what I yell when people playing with their phones almost hit me when I am bike commuting, "learn to drive!"

Something very similar to that was suggested about 35 years ago [1] but I don't think anyone tried it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLmIR6MOFiE

I doubt you would actually do this, but even if you did, I don't see how you could seize the opportunity. Meaning by the time you knew to strike, the car would have to be less than a few feet away, right? Once they pass you, its impossible to hit them. Unless you just wanted to fire on anyone who didn't obey the ped xing (which isn't usually the same thing as a close call).

Toss some caltrops in the road in front of drivers who would choose to kill you for their own convenience. Or use one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N3D4J58

"The referee only sees the retaliation" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWixJl8VFLs

(Bill Burr clip, very adult language)

I want to carry a large illuminated weight on a fishing pole that I can hang at windscreen height in front of me, so I can claim the space I have the right of way to, without risking my body

That's a good way to get shot.

Pedestrians can conceal-carry.

Yep. As I lay dying on the ground, bleeding from every orifice, my organs and bones crushed to a fine pulp at the blunt end of a BMW X7 going 50mph. I will reach for my gun and shoot my assailant.

Yep definitely a real plan that solves real problems. /s

[edit] Or was the plan to prevent the collision in the first place? As I see the driver coming for me, murder in their eyes, I will smoothly draw my weapon, shoot the driver through the windshield, leap into the air and sail smoothly over my assailant's steel battering ram, executing a perfect three-point superhero landing as my fellow pedestrians cheer.

Was that the idea instead?

I'm not specifically advocating that everyone carry guns -- I was just responding to the phrase "that's how you get shot". Entitled drivers should recognize their own mortality in the event that they threaten pedestrians with a gun.

But I do prefer your scenario instead.

Only in uncivilized countries.

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