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Comment by pipes | Hacker News Reader

I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

I was in a mates car recently and it scared the hell out of me, he was tail gating for most of a 3 hour journey. Eventually we got to a bit with chevrons and he wasn't obeying the rule staying N chevrons away from the car in front. I told him and he replied "nonsense, my car beeps if I'm too close to the car in front" I didn't have the energy to point out that is a collision warning not a safe distance measurer type device.

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The recommended 3 second gap is a much bigger distance than most people recognise, especially at high speed.

On another note- I feel sad that you could tell your mate "the way you're driving is making me uncomfortable" and be met with basically "your discomfort isn't valid because [technology] so I won't change my behaviour".

As someone who continues to mask in public shared-air settings for my own health, I am entirely unsurprised by that response and get it all the time.

Recently heard from a friend that also continues to mask when sharing air, they had arranged car pooling for one of their children. And just this morning the other parent texted saying "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable so we can no longer car pool".

So … yeah. Entirely unsurprised by that attitude. "Every person for themselves but also not if it's something I personally dislike."

> "your child wearing a mask makes me uncomfortable"

What about that could possibly make someone uncomfortable. How does it have any effect on the other parent?

Isn’t all air shared?

Not in a way meaningful to assessing infectious risk, no.

I consider outdoor air to be unshared, except in cases of large dense crowds (such as say outdoor festivals or sporting events).

I consider risky shared air to be indoor air with one or more other individuals that are not known to be taking infection-prevention precautions.

One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.

For example, a CO₂ reading of 2300ppm (common in a small or medium room with a few others, or larger rooms with a crowd or conference room, or in a car) means 5% of your air is rebreathed (5% of your intake is output from another person's lungs).

A way to think about this is we take ~20 breaths a minute on average. So in that scenario, it would be equivalent to one breath every minute coming directly from someone else's lungs. If they happen to be contagious with an airborne contagion (such as Covid, or influenza, or RSV), there's a high likelihood that you will catch it if you're spending more than a short time in that environment.

There are nuances, such as maybe the air is being scrubbed (eg by a HEPA filter) which won't affect the CO₂ levels but will drastically lower the infectious risk of that environment.

More reading: https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/what-a-carbon-dioxide-mo...

> One can measure CO₂ as a proxy to rebreathed air fraction.

On this topic, I got a CO₂ meter fairly recently and was shocked how quickly it spikes with a couple of people in a car with the windows up and on recirculate. Easily over 2000 after a few minutes. I have to remind myself regularly when it's really hot or cold outside to keep the vent setting on fresh air.

I’d love for cars to get some sort of sniffer that will switch to recirc if it detects a spike in exhaust fumes.

I had a Jaguar that had an air quality sensor that would switch to recirc based on particulates and then back to fresh air when the threshold indicated.

Genuine question (as in not a passive aggressive question!) why do you and your friends child mask?

Not sure why you'd ask me that vs. use Google, feels like cornering a random driver to defend "Why do you use seatbelts?".

But I'll offer one reply at your word that it's genuine and not passive-aggressive.

1. I am currently dealing with the after-effects of a previous Covid infection that requires expensive, ongoing medical treatment. I'm not anxious to test what additional infections may cause.

2. Wearing an N95 respirator is a cheap and easy preventative measure that is highly effective.

3. I adjust my habits based on measured risk. In my part of the world (Alberta), the current risk forecast for November 8-21 is that approximately 1 in every 81 people are currently infected with Covid. I relax my masking when it's 1 in 10,000 or less (which is not an unreasonable number; it's been there in the past).

4. Recent medical studies suggest that repeated Covid exposure is particularly harmful for children. Long Covid is now the #1 chronic condition in children in the US (displacing asthma as the top chronic childhood condition). As a parent, I see it as my responsibility to give my children the best chance at a long, healthy, medical-intervention-free life.

A few links (or just use Google):

- Covid monitoring in Canada: https://covid19resources.ca/

- Long Covid overtaking asthma as top childhood chronic illness: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

- Rolling Stone on Covid's affects on children: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/long-c...

- Remarks by Violet Affleck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTjCqIxorw

- Tom Hanks: https://whn.global/youve-got-a-friend-in-me-tom-hanks-shows-...

- A longer answer than mine: https://whn.global/yes-we-continue-wearing-masks/

Thanks for sharing. I tend to think people wearing masks these days are a little loony, but these are solid reasons for specific cases and environments. I wouldn't shun someone because they're wearing a mask, though. It seems like a significant discomfort so I don't partake (and I get sick extremely rarely and stay home those few times).

I genuinely didn't think to use Google for this. I had no idea about the list of reasons. It wasn't passive aggressive, I was curious. Thanks for sharing this.

It's nice to see that my family is not alone in taking these precautions.

However as with the bright headlamps, there's no real solution coming anytime soon. I mean there are solutions - nasal vaccines and proper NHTSA regulation, but I have no hope in any of those to materialize.

I was with a friend who was driving and he literally said that the car in front of him was driving fairly close to him. I have a funny bumper magnet that says "sorry for driving so close in front of you" that mocks this inversion of cause.

It is funny, yet I wonder how many people actually get it. :D

This is amazing, ha

Yes on your last point, I feel exactly the same way. If anyone told me I was driving too fast and they were uncomfortable I'd immediately be apologetic and slow down, and I'd genuinely feel bad about it.

As I get older I've realised that most people in my life react negatively if I express emotion that what they are doing is upsetting. It is only recently that I've realised my sample size is small and this kind of gas lighting behaviour is not ok. I've actually reached a point where I'm thankful that the internet popularised the phrase because it had helped me diagnose shitty behaviour that I've tolerated my whole life.

> most people in my life react negatively if I express emotion that what they are doing is upsetting

Right. I guess they feel accused, as though you're attacking their behaviour rather than sharing how it makes you feel, and instinctively become defensive in response?

It's wonderful to meet people who don't think this way. My partner is incredible at this, I can tell her "when you X I feel Y" and know without a doubt her reaction will come from a place of trying to work together to understand whether the problem and solution exist in X, Y or both.

I'd say just in general people have become way more cavalier and oblivious as drivers. I frequently see people doing wild stuff like driving at night with no headlights, or driving for several blocks in a bike lane. Every single yellow light is pushed to the limit, with often at least one (and sometimes multiple) drivers running the red light as well. I feel like a lot of is connected to a more general post-COVID decline in awareness of how one's actions affect others. People are just fine with doing anything they can get away with. I suspect the trend won't be reversed without a major increase in enforcement.

I’ve noticed the same, and also people’s behaviour generally everywhere has bottomed out and not recovered. I was speaking to an ED nurse who said people have just forgotten how to relate and violence is through the roof every night in the hospital.

Did we all get subtle brain damage?

I have legitimately been wondering for quite some time if we are not in a leaded gas kind of situation where something is adversely affecting the global population as a whole and we are left in the dark. Plenty of contenders between industrially processed food, social media, mobile phones. It might just be me getting paranoid however.

Covid does long-term brain damage.

I do think there's oddly disproportionate silence on covid infection as a potential factor in the overall life-enshittification lately.

No. Too many just got a jab and some boosters.

People just don’t care about driving.

I get it. Maybe you're not interested in it. You’re at A, you want to arrive at B, and driving is just your tool for getting there.

But to misquote Trotsky, you may not be interested in driving, but driving is interested in you. Driving is the most dangerous thing most drivers do on a regular basis. Probably by a significant margin. Even if you hate it, respect it. Put in the effort to do it well.

My favorite is that if you try to follow a safe distance, some jerk will immediately move to fill the space

Just realize that the sort of people that move to fill the space are not the sort to leave even 2 seconds of following distance.

So once you restore your following distance, that person has cost you less than 2 seconds.

Is it a bit annoying? Sure. But it's not a reason to start tailgating (not that you were necessarily claiming that).

No, because once you to restore the distance, you have to go slower. The cars behind you then fill the restored space the moment they feel they can, because they perceive you as the slower car. If this happen with multiple cars and in practice it does, you are suddenly going very slow.

The fact is, you can have only so much space in front of you as other cars allow. I had to reduce the distance literally because of this. It then stopped happening.

The problem is, you move back to restore your following distance, and now another person moves in to fill it

My friend ended up in a hospital, when some jerk moved into the small space in front of him, and then had to jump on the brakes because the first car unexpectedly slowed down. My friend also jumped on the brakes but the distance was too small.

I leave plenty of distance and don't have that problem. Occasionally people do fill the space, perhaps because I'm providing a safer place than people tailgating. This reduced risk benefits me too. I just slow a little bit to re-establish my following distance.

About once a week I see someone cut in even though the person is literally tailgating. The driver at the back has to brake+swerve to not cause a high speed collision. There's actually nothing you can do to prevent these people from getting ahead of you. Don't worry about what they'll do, it's insane anyways. Just try not to die.

Or toot their horn and flash their lights behind you

Wow this gives me anxiety just reading. My 2012 BMW has a warning everytime I turn it on. "DO NOT RELY ON BEEPS" (I'm paraphrasing of course.)

And yeah, I don't let tooling on my car replace common sense driving habits. I still turn my head when reversing, even if I can see what's behind me on the camera. I think it's crazy that people rely so much on unreliable tech on their cars.

> I might just be getting old, but more and more I see people not using indicators and not understanding the rules of junctions. Tail gating also really annoying.

Same. I've also noticed that people entering the interstate seem to _expect_ that cars already on the interstate move over, or change speed to let them merge. Usually at 10-15 MPH slower than the speed of traffic.

I've made a point to, when I cannot move over, remain in my lane at the same speed. And I've had people just absolutely wait until the last moment of a long on-ramp to speed up, or slow down to merge. It's bizarre.

In my city, if you use your indicators, traffic is more likely to close the gap on you than coordinate you.

Isn't it great being able to rely on tech that isn't doing what we think it's doing.

I don't even need to keep an eye on my cooking anymore, the smoke alarm beeps when I get too close.

The N chevrons away on those roads are often ludicrously far apart. It it well over the 2 second rule and nobody follows it.

There is no common 2 second rule, afaik. There is a 3 second rule, which is probably why they feel too far apart to you.

“Only a fool breaks the two second rule.”

It’s a UK thing:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-highways-urges-d...

In the UK there often isn't really space for it. The M25 usually looks like https://i2-prod.mylondon.news/article14471160.ece/ALTERNATES...

...but you're often lucky to travel even a metre or so on the M25 in two seconds when it looks like that!

What are these chevrons?

Safe distance markers.

https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/Road_Markings/Chevrons_(...

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