People aren’t asleep at the wheel – they are unconscious behind the wheel. The Safety Cult has done its vile work, turned most people into narcoleptics who operate in ultra slow-motion – like watching the Zapruder film frame-by-frame.
The light goes green – and nothing happens.
After awhile, they notice – and the herd creeps forward. Herd is exactly the right word, too. A herd moves as one. So do most drivers. The car in the left lane keeps pace with the car to its right. The car in the left does not move any faster – or move over to the right. This would open up the left lane – formerly known as the fast or passing lane – so that traffic could un-glut and people could get going rather than mooing along in vacuous, gadget-addled unison.
Just like a herd of ear-tagged bovines.
When they do move over, they almost never just do it. First, they wait for cars behind them to accumulate. So that those cars are forced to brake and slow down. After another while, they signal that they are thinking about a lane change. But not yet! After some more while, they gradually begin to drift over to the adjacent lane.
The process often takes several minutes. You can almost feel your beard growing.
It is as rare as sound money for a driver to neatly, cleanly move over to the right lane in anticipation of faster traffic coming up behind him (having noticed it coming up behind him because he is scanning his rearview) such that the faster-moving traffic isn’t forced to brake, slow and wait.
Anything quickly and efficiently done in a car is now considered “unsafe.” Hypercaution is the watchword.
This includes even slowing down itself.
As cars approach a red light, they taper to a crawl and then inch forward – leaving enormous gaps between them and the cars ahead. This effectively doubles the number of cars occupying a given space, due to the multiplication effect of the Ghost Cars in between the actual ones.
The conga line grows even longer than it has to – and you wait longer to access left and right turn lanes, which are routinely blocked by three or four cars taking up as much physical space as six or seven because of the great Air Gaps in between them.
Few will ever inch forward, even a little – so as to close the gap and make it feasible for you to access that oh-so-close (but so far away) turn lane. Even when they see you would like to squeeze past and maybe catch that left or right turn signal.
They are either grossly uncivil, indifferent to the inconvenience – or they are incapable of closing the gap due to a stunted sense of spatial relationships.
Each explanation seems equally likely.
On the one hand, people’s sense of their car in relation to other cars – and the physical environment – has been badly gimped by lack of development in the first place (new drivers are no longer taught/expected to become proficient at such things as parallel parking; the cars now park themselves) and by cars designed such that outward visibility has been badly gimped.
People are afraid to pull forward out of fear they might bump into something.
They are also afraid to pass anything.
Even in a legal passing zone. Multiple cars will back up behind one car whose driver won’t quite do the speed limit. But as frustrated as everyone obviously is, none will pass.
Because that would require speed in excess of the posted limit – even if briefly – in order to execute the pass (cue irony) safely.
But people are terrified of receiving a ticket for speeding.
This is is reasonable. Armed government workers have always been among us, but they didn’t used to be the mortal threat to us which they are now. Even if we’re not Tazed or otherwise physically brutalized, the fines are brutal. OJ can get away with killing people and not paying his victims’ families – but if you are caught “speeding,” you’ll pay.
And so, people are fearful of doing anything which might lead to an encounter with Officer No Longer Friendly.
This has led to a weird situation: Powerful cars in abundance – a family sedan such as a new Accord or Camry is quicker than most V8 muscle cars of the ’60s and faster on top than most Ferraris of the ’70s – whose power is generally wasted. It’s like a celibate supermodel.
What’s the point?
This, more than anything else, probably explains the general enthusiasm for the automated car. It will be possible to actually go to sleep behind the wheel – once there’s no longer a wheel to worry about.
. . .
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https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-detect-cyclists-bicycle-to-vehicle-communications-arent-the-answer.html
“””One solution presented by Ford, Tome Software, and Trek Bicycle at CES last month is a concept known as bicycle-to-vehicle communications. Instead of just autonomous vehicles (or all motorized vehicles) on the road being able to wirelessly communicate their position and intentions with one another, bikes would be able to join the party. The proposed technology would be brand agnostic, something any cyclist could affix to herself or her bike. The key safety aspect of this connectivity would be that drivers would be alerted when a cyclist is nearby”””
Not content to ruin driving, the “safety Clovers” are coming for cycling too. B2V, bicycle to vehicle communication. So now, if you’re riding a bike, you have to find a way to attach and power some gizmo that’s going to buzz at you and scold you whenever a car approaches. And similarly, when driving, your car is going to nanny and ninny you about some roadie lane-splitting at a red light.
Also, how long until a mandate that all new bikes come “standard” with this tech?
Hmmmm…..if I were more of a conspiracy-theorist type, I’d almost think that the cycling industry push to hook everyone up with electronic shifting, GPS, heart-rate monitors that interact with one’s smartphone; “apps” that track your performance and let you virtually “compete” with other cyclists, etc. were all designed to get bikes wired up with power sources and electronics; and to get riders used to the idea of techno-gizmos, for just such a scenario, so that people would be accepting of the idea of even their bicycles now being wired-up with radar/communications/tracking…..for their “saaaaafety”, of course… 😉
Personally, I’ve always hated how the vast majority of cyclists seem to be embracing all of this non-sensical gizmo-ology. The very thing I’ve always loved most about cycling, is the freedom which it enables. Get on a bike, and just ride around…ride for miles- it’s about as close as you can come to flying without leaving the ground, and about as free as you can be in the Western world these days.
The majority of cyclists though, seem to want to impose artificial restraints on themselves. They have to pretend like they’re training for the Tour De Frogland, or slavishly achieve some numbers that the quack crackpot “science” of the moment says will enable them to live forever if they follow it religiously…or they have to beat someone else’s Strava record up the mountain…..no enjoyment in sight…just “goals”……
Hi Mike,
Luckily bikes are pretty much immune to mandates. B2V may appeal to some techno geeks and maybe a few hardcore commuters. It probably won’t be very popular and it won’t be mandatory any time soon, if ever.
Lights are not mandatory, reflectors may be but most people take them off and bike shops rarely install them on anything but town bikes and kids bikes. Some cyclists are Clovers, but many more show a healthy disrespect for stupid rules. I think bikes are safe for a while.
Cheers, Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I sweat that at some point, Uncle is going to turn his attention seriously toward bikes. Having bought the saaaaaaaaaafety nonsense completely,how will “the public” argue the contrary when Uncle decrees bikes to be unsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe and outlaws them on “public” roads. Logically, it follows. And, I submit, it’s inevitable.
They already force us to wear helmets for saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.
On the same basis, why not just go whole hog and outlaw the bikes themselves?
I have to agree with Eric.
Especially if this self-driving car nonsense gets closer to reality- your bike will “have to have a transponder so the cars can see it”. And you know Uncle never allows us to determine our own level of risk…he just decrees what must be “for saaaafety” and then uses his armed goons to extort money from those whose papers are not in order.
In NYC, they’ve been proposing bicycle licensing schemes on and off for several decades….just a matter of time till they implement one. A few cities and towns already have laws requiring bicycle registration; and there’s even been talk of mandatory liability insurance for bikes!!!!!
There is NO aspect of life which will be left free in this country. Things that offer the most freedom, autonomy and independence, are usually the things which are attacked most vociferously.
One day you’ll wake up, and suddenly bikes will be being talked about in the media…. “Riders getting hit by cars….cyclists injuring and killing pedestrians…little kids skinning knees…bikes being stolen… Oh, something must be done to stop the insanity! We need more regulation…”….
And one can go to any road bike forum, and see that the majority of riders are already primed for this BS, with electronics already on their bikes and bodies. Those of us who eschew all of the gizmos are a distinct minority now.
Not much of a leap for them… “It’s just a small app to put on your fartsmone” or “it integrates with your GPS and keeps you safe”…..
Bicycling will simply be banned IMO.
I can’t stand bicycling people for the most part.
I’ve always hated most cyclists, but I thought it was just an NYC thing. Turns out, a majority of ’em are like that EVERYWHERE!
Morning, Brent!
This is just a generalization, so – with that caveat: Cyclists are a lot like Harley People. They ride in packs and have special outfits. They often seem to delight in impeding other traffic, by which I mean they won’t pull off or pull over to let faster-moving traffic get by even when they are traveling below the already low posted speed limit. They get angry when someone tries to pass them.
For some reason, it seems about 90% of cyclists are into “advocacy” (The authoritarian-collectivist version of “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”) and seem to think that the whole world should change to accommodate their sport/lifestyle/hobby.
The politicians in many places are capitalizing on that to further their anti-car “Let’s make driving suck more” agenda, so that now in many places, like NYC, you see they now have extensive bike lanes, which often eliminate an entire lane of traffic on already congested streets, or eliminating 50% of the already scarce parking spaces on many blocks.
Then they build bike trails/paths in parks and other areas, which require frequent maintenance ($$$)…and if neglected (Most big cities here in the US have a habit of neglecting things) turn to crud and become unusable quickly, and then cost even more money to remove or replace.
I guess a cyclist’s attitude is just a reflection of their overall beliefs. Just a lot of entitled leftists seem to be attracted to cycling….which explains why so many have co-opted it from the free and fun endeavor that it is, into a rigorous self-imposed tyranny.
My attitude towards cycling is the same as it is with everything else: Just leave me alone. Don’t do anything special for me; don’t artificially impede me. I can make use of the existing infrastructure just fine. Bike lanes & paths SUCK anyway- they are the worst places to ride- and usually, locales that have them, mandate that one ride there when they are available.
Bicycling advocates are anti-motoring people who latched on to bicycling because its not motoring. When presented with actual viable transportation solutions that are best for bicycling they will go with what hurts motoring instead.
Chicago has a grid system. With some minor alternations long bikeways could be made out of quiet side streets where the ‘beginner’ bicyclists the advocates say they are serving could ride in a safe environment with very little impact on motoring. They will have nothing of it. They demand carving up the arterial streets with idiotic bike lanes that are _dangerous_ for even experienced vehicular bicyclists like myself. The beginner would be lured into a false sense of safety. It’s a good thing bicycling is so safe to begin with.
Anyway it is just like the anti-energy people pushing wind and solar power. They just do it because it is a step to their goal.
My 2 cents. The problem was never bicycles, street cars, subways, motorcycles, or cars. Just as guns are not the problem, so bicycles are not the problem.
A free market anarchist society would have evolved a voluntaryist solution that accommodated each form of transportation in a larger, more complex transportation network.
The problem as always is government picking winners and losers. Government has “given” us the vast road network, but at the same time has denied us the right to “speed”, making the “gift” meaningless.
Full Disclosure: I am an avid cyclist who feels that cycling need not conflict with motoring. The problem is that the free market has been overridden by statists, and prevented from resolving conflicts between bicycles and cars.
Group rides are something I avoid. The dynamic is something I don’t like. But some motorists take it out me when I am out there by myself because I dare to use “their road’.
Thankfully, I seem to be the only one in my county who cycles, so people here have no experience with “cyclists”, and thus no axes to grind with those whom they assume are representative of the entire cycling community, just because we’re riding a fancy-pants bike and wearing funny clothes.
I feel bad sometimes though- like when I’m grinding up a steep hill at 5MPH, and there’s a car behind me, and I have nowhere to go to let him pass (One asshat went blindly into the oncoming lane, before the crest of a hill!)….but what can ya do? Narrow roads…no shoulders or even fog lines in most places. I do wave cars ahead whenever the opportunity presents itself to do so safely.
Morning, Brent!
I avoid riding (my motorcycle) in groups, too – and recommend the same, especially to younger guys on sport bikes. The differences in skill level/risk-comfort and the tendency of guys to be competitive often results in someone in the group riding above his limits/comfort level, trying to keep up with the guys who are trying to show off.
For me, riding is like running: We all have our own pace and trying to keep to someone else’s is never enjoyable.
Eric, I could never fathom the group-ride mentality- be it related to motorcicling or bicycling, whatever. Seems like such a contradiction: Sports which offer the allure of the ultimate freedom of going wherever one wants, on a whim; unhindered; free to explore; stop when and where or if you want; break the sound barrier or just amble along; go where the road takes you. Make a plan, but see an interesting road along the way and follow it….. as opposed to just following the asshole in front of you (and his buttocks).
Then again, I never ”
got” the whole ‘group’ dynamic thing in life in life in general….
When I pull out of a stop light with another car in the lane beside me, I almost always end up at least 100 yards ahead of the rest of the cars. I get about 30 yards before the guy in the other lane even starts, and then he accelerates like a slug. I am not stomping the gas, just accelerating the way a ’99 DeVille would normally do. When I get onto the 80 mph – signed highway near my house, I dread having somebody ahead of me on the ramp. They frequently end up doing about 35 at the merge-point, which means cars can be closing at a relative speed of at least 45 from behind while I could be stuck behind the slug. That would be like me riding my bicycle at 20 mph on a 65 highway, in the driving lane. I do ride my bicycle on the highways, but I use the shoulder where there is lots of room. When I get onto the ramp behind somebody now, I often just pull to the side and wait for them to get off the ramp, because the problem is so frequent. Then I roar up the ramp, reaching 80 before the merge point. The acceleration ramp should be used for accelerating. If somebody is afraid to reach highway speed when getting onto a highway, then he should not drive on the highway. Of course, if there is a big open area ahead, and a crowd of cars even with or behind me, then I might be doing 95 when I merge. I try to avoid even looking at that irrelevant number on my dashboard. It distracts the attention from the road and traffic situation.
Hello Jim, so you have the same problem with merging we have in Victoria, Australia. Slow merging that causes havoc, esp. for the drivers stuck behind this slow clover. I attribute the problem here to the scamera effect. People afraid of scameras at the end of the ramp. I thought Victorians were queer with this problem but good to hear that the yanks have the same problem.
Yes. My absolute worst pet peeve is people not using the acceleration ramp as intended, which is to get up to highway speed so you can smoothly merge into traffic. They want to get on a 70mph interstate going about 45mph. What then happens is all the semis have to get in the left lane to make room for us and they can’t get back in the right lane because people won’t let them over. It takes 10 miles to get us all sorted out again.
There seems to be an unwritten universal law that 99% of the population obeys, which states “Thou shalt not exceed 35MPH on any acceleration ramp, on penalty of having .gov unfriend you on Facebook”.
I’ve come to the conclusion that civil engineers should stop designing two-lane roads, on the theory that you’ll never be able to predict where the elderly will take up residence in large numbers.
I don’t know how many times I’ve risked getting a ticket because I’ve had to go around some feeb playing Speed Limit.
If your fear threshold is the speed limit, you shouldn’t be driving.
Considering the consequences of “speeding” these days- e.g. having to deal with psychotic armed goons; having to pay hundreds of dollars in fines; increased insurance premiums; possible arrest; loss of license, yada, yada, ya can’t blame anyone for scrupulously heeding the speed limit now-a-days.
Even I rarely do more than 5 or 10MPH over, except on country roads anymore. It’s just not worth it. (Unless there are lots of cars around you, and they’re all doing the same)
Hi Nunz,
This is why I love my V1 radar detector. It made driving enjoyable again. Saved me thousands of dollars in fines and insurance surcharges, too.
Best $400 I ever spent.
Are those illegal in Virginia? How do you get around that? I have heard of ones that can be concealed.
They are not illegal in Indiana, but I would still be interested in a concealed detector due to theft issues.
I’m with you Amy. Though perfectly legal here in KY, if I were to get one, I would want a concealed one, ’cause it can definitely affect the outcome if it is spotted or if you are stopped. Could even make the difference between being stopped or not.
I remember when you got that one. It is undisputably the best protection against unwarranted tickets. Also, use Waze on your sail fawn. Because people are fascinated with their gadgets, the police reports are extremely helpful. And accurate..
Nail – Eric – Head.
This leaving 2-5 car lengths of space at stop lights is maddening. Same people will leave 1 car length at 80 mph.
I look forward to the next recession for the simple fact that a lot of these idiots will be off the roads.
Not just some drivers can’t drive. The VAST MAJORITY of drivers can’t drive. I’d say, conservatively, 80% can’t drive worth an F.
I can’t go 3 miles in the burbs without getting infuriated behind the wheel.
‘…The conga line grows even longer than it has to – and you wait longer to access left and right turn lanes, which are routinely blocked by three or four cars taking up as much physical space as six or seven because of the great Air Gaps in between them…’
This!
In my area of SoCal, it’s apparent that the city planners have come to the conclusion that people are unable to safely execute a left hand turn without a dedicated ‘left turn light’. Additionally some years ago the same planners put in these park sized medians in the center of the road and the cut out for said left turn lane gives you space for all of 4 cars (we can thank the ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ for said center medians as it seemed to be a nice windfall of profits for these private road crews… I digress). The amount of times I’ve seen this 20 second dedicated left turn light illuminated with not a single car able to turn due to the asshats in front choosing not to pull up even an inch of the 8 feet they have in front of them, forget about just snuggling a little over to the right, is just staggering. Naturally, those that wanted to make said turn now have to wait an entire light cycle — but hey clover blocking access didn’t lose 3 minutes of their lives. Makes me wish I still had my old diesel Excursion with the forged steal cattle catcher on the front…
Especially frustrating are the intersections with a designated left turn which immediately reverts back to red once the through lanes turn green and traffic begins to move again. If you’re the first vehicle caught you can sit in the intersection and probably get through at the end, but being one or two cars back and you’ll have to wait the entire cycle.
Readers, here in Down Under we have the same phenomenon. My drive home from work normally takes 30-45 minutes. Yesterday I got off 1.5 hrs earlier and it took me 70 minutes to get home. 5 times on the freeway, just b4 EXIT ramps traffic came to a standstill for several minutes. No accidents or broken down cars, NOT EVEN ANY SCAMERAS OR COPS. WTH I think. So now I will take the train to work. Takes 45 minutes by train and walking and I get home quicker.
The drivers here in Oz mostly drive new cars with so much power, and try to merge onto a freeway at half the going speed. And then they wonder why it becomes a horrible experience. The cars on the road either have to swerve or brake suddenly or change lanes without the opportunity to signal, and the merging driver is going to slow to enter the freeway. This is what 20 years of scammering has done to the driving skills of the Australian motorist. I see why the vast majority of Aussies going to Europe take tours. Too scared to venture onto an autobahn.
The NWO has truly been taken to charm by Aussies. Never used to be this way. And so has stupidity.
Same here in Illinois. There have always been the merge impaired but when I’ve wondered out on to the expressways around commute hours I find traffic slowing to stop and go at every damn on ramp because people are braking for the merge impaired. It just makes the entitlement even worse. They don’t want to make any effort and expect everyone else to accommodate them.
Even when I was obeying the posted limit to the letter (55mph) People would merge right in front of me at 35mph and not accelerate.
I’ve had trouble with merging speed once in my life. I was driving my grandmother’s Ford Tempo trying to figure out a problem and the damn thing couldn’t get up to speed quickly enough with the pedal to the floor. But I had it to the floor. Automatic transmissions and under powered cars are a bad combo. I’ve been able to get under powered cars up to speed on short urban ramps but they were always MT.
Lotsa bitchin here….and for good reason….but, you oughta do it in a big rig. There is this large portion of drivers who’ll see you coming and speed up. Hey, good deal, tear off badass…and then slow down. Ok, slow down, I’ll just move over and pass you since I’m AlWAYS speed limited, no matter what the limit might be. They often speed up just to the point of my limited speed and then slow down again. It’s maddening and young women are the worst about it. Of course it’s almost always somebody with a cell phone stuck to the left side of their face.
I’m not big on laws on the road but making every driver wear a headset or have their phone bluetoothed to the stereo would be fine with me.
Last week I was walking into a Wally and this old man, even older than me…and I know him and he’s an asshole too boot, backed out of his parking space just as a guy was walking behind him. Yep, he had that damn phone hung on the left side(I don’t get it)so he was blind to his side mirror and pretty much blind to anything around him. The guy slapped his pickup and he hit the brake and rolled down his window when the guy started chewing his ass. He said something the guy didn’t like and he started in on him again. I interjected, right face to face with the asshole, “Hey, he’s got that phone so he don’t have to look at no damn mirror and he’s not bothered by running over you anyone since he’s so important he doesn’t need to look”. We both stared at each other.
Probably I should quit driving(a big rig) but hell, I wasn’t driving then. I’ve just about lost my patience with assholes and the world is replete with them. Everybody has some electronic device they look at….even when they should be watching where they’re going. And the DPS wonders why accidents are up. No, it’s not the speed limit, guess again. Then again, I have quit walking behind cars in a parking lot. I walk between the fronts if I can. It’s a pain but better than getting run over.
Made a 10 mile run to the PO and liquor store yesterday. Going home I was doing about 55 in a 25mph N wind going east. I had a big rig coming up on me fast so I put on my right turn signal, hit the shoulder and braked easily. I met the drivers eyes and he stuck his foot back in it and passed me, no muss no fuss. I put on my left turn signal even though nobody was behind me(habit)and moved back into the lane as I was coming up on my left turn. I notice the trucker was flashing thanks. I’d bet he was saying “Well, I’ll be damned. Old pickup, old man whoulda thunk it?”.
Hey 8S I thought they only do that in Kentuck and Tennyssee.
Never been to Jersey then?
Best part of moving to KY: Knowing that I’ll never have to set foot in Joisey again! (Even from the vantage point of cruddy NY….Jersey SUCKED!)
Think I cut across the NW corner once. I stay away from the east coast, esp. the NE. Funky 3rd Reich hats and those that look like Smokey the Bear. At least the Tx. DPS wear cowboy hats which is automatically a better feeling for me since we have one thing in common. NE laws got a thing for Tx. plated trucks anyway.
Neetards [Northeasterners] are as far gone as Cali-tards these days. Can’t believe I spent 39 years of my life among those pricks. Although, for the first half of that, there were still a good smattering of good ‘uns around- mainly the old-school Eye-talians and lower-cless Jews who spoke with the old NY accent (“Go see Oynest, he has the erl can…”)- But they’re all long gone now…and their kids are the brain-dead liberals who think their parents and grandparents were “ignorant racists” [Yeah, get driven from your modest home when they start flooding your niggerhood with housing projectsw and Sec. 8, and it turns into Detroit overnight…that’ll sour you on the people who did it real quick!]
Talking about people sitting at lights, poorly: I was sitting at an intersection yesterday and one of those “new-fangled” auto-start/stop vehicles pulled up in the next lane, about 10 meters behind the car ahead of him. He then proceeded to inch up and stop (engine on, then off, on, off – repeatedly) 6 or 7 times during the light cycle (maybe a minute). He managed to close about half of the gap in that time and managed to restart his SUV over and over and over, only to repeat the process at the next red.
I’ve also been witness to this stupidity in heavy traffic jams recently. I estimate that some of these bad drivers unexpectedly start their car dozens (if not literally hundreds) of times daily. That’s going to wear parts out extremely fast.
Guess the parts suppliers are laughing all the way to the bank and enjoying all the idiots behind the wheel.
In January I was in France. The highway there was amazing. Speed limit outside the city is 130 kph equal to 80 mph! And the left lane was only used for passing. It was unbelievable. I was cruising at 100mph. The only downside is, instead of speed traps they have “speed enforcement zones” where they track you in and out. So you have to average the speed limit all the way through. But waze knows where they are… If only americans would learn how to drive like europeans. The one thing we actually could emulate…
If the French would have been smart enough to elect LePen, the cameras would have likely been gone by now.
Nah! LePen is just the Frog version of Trump. Just like the Trumpster, just because someone may be a little less leftist than the blatantly leftists….they’re still just as statist and authoritarian as any other politician, and just as money-hungry for the state’s coffers and authority/control as all the others. It’s just a matter of degrees- not liberty vs. tyranny.
Morning, Nunz!
I think (dread) that the “choice” looming will be the same one Germans were offered in the early 1930s: Brown (fascism) or red (communism). Your pick of authoritarian ideologies.
Trump has clear fascist tendencies, but they are not conscious. He is an archetype of the “law and order/flag-waving” strain of conservatism, which is the John the Baptist movement for fascism.
On the other side of the aisle, we have authoritarian leftist such as Warren, Sanders and the rising tide of Komsomol youth, of which that little twerp David Hogg is the avatar.
We are, in a word – doomed.
shit eric, you coulda talked all day and not mentioned DH. I hear people(MSM)constantly saying he lost 17 friends. Hell, he didn’t have any friends and probably didn’t know any of the 17.
I hear “cut him some slack, he’s a kid”. Hitler was a kid at 17 too.
I wonder if the c. 1000 people killed by the fuzz last year were his “friends” too? They too might still be alive if the state did not have the monopoly on firepower that it now has.
Times like this, I’m glad I don’t watch TV, ’cause from what I hear about this creep Hogg, I’d probably puke if I had to actually see and hear him/it.
I believe the FBI stats showed 1054, up since the year before, up every year now.
Policing took a paradigm shift so to speak once the shrub got into the WH.
It was the meanest politics I’d seen in my life.
the RR crew tried to demonize S. Americans but being Catholic, their main supporters couldn’t get on board.
The looked around and behold, realized they had the perfect badassses they’d been helping since the 70’s in Afghanistan.
Those people seem so foreign it’s easy to paint them into bad guys and so it was really easy to demonize them after 9/11.
Now they’re the perfect enemy with so many bad guy groups and the US now supports all of them even as the troops fight them. It doesn’t get any better for a war state.
Taxpayers not appearing to worship body armor or badges are the perfect domestic enemy, esp. if they’re mostly black and brown.
It’s sorta funny the closest I ever came to being offed was by a Mexican working for the state and the second closest was a black deputy. It was a black cop that murdered a good friend back in the early 80’s. Our communist capital of Tx. is a good town to avoid. Of course Houston still reigns supreme for killings but Dallas is trying to catch up.
Somebody suggested a box van turned into a camper recently. One of the last real DPS screwings I saw on I 20 involved some people in a not too good looking example of that truck. Everybody face down in the barditch. No wrecker ever came for the truck so they must have not found anything illegal but it wasn’t because of trying. Several cars involved, as usual.
Probably the best thing about working out in the patch is not having to see this scenario constantly.
What you say, Eric, is exactly the reality of things. There is no option for liberty/personal freedom/Libertarianism. The only options on the table are a choice between what brand of tyranny one wishes. And even if the better options were there, as authoritarian-collectivism has been so ingrained into their being, that even limited government is abhorrent to them- as demonstrated by such examples as Ron Paul’s performance in the ’08 primary, even among Repugnantcans- the very people who are supposedly for limited government.
And that’s the way it is everywhere- only even more so. Some people get excited about all the secession movements in various countires and states….or about the election of conservatives/nationalists because they may solve one problem….but that’s basically what got Hitler elected too.
Power, once established, is not voluntarily given up. You can change who wields the power, and maybe a few piddling policies….but the only way to dethrone the power is to eliminate the position, and the notion of government which creates it and legitimizes it and gives it it’s power….and that is not going to happen, because are in love with the notion of government, and have been for thousands of years- and they can’t even imagine life without government…or even with limited government.
Trump is of my parent’s generation, actually more a cusp on the boomers and the war babies. The one that was constantly reminded of the great depression and WW2, and then the Cold War. The same ones who had to say the pledge every morning, under God, and were told that Ivan was terrible.
You don’t get freedom loving people when they’re raised under those conditions. Then when the real boomers came along with their questioning of authority and not wanting to die in Viet Nam they doubled down on law and order. It basically became what Herb Tarlek referred to as the “dungarees vs the suits” in the 1970s. I’m pretty sure in my father’s 80 years he’s never worn a pair of jeans. I’ll bet Tump’s rear end has never had a Levi’s logo on it either.
“The conga line grows even longer than it has to – and you wait longer to access left and right turn lanes, which are routinely blocked by three or four cars taking up as much physical space as six or seven because of the great Air Gaps in between them.”
THIS. There is this very long right turn lane on my way home and just about every day there are these people stopping short so I can’t get in it. In addition to that on some days these assholes will see my signal and move to the right edge so I can’t get into the turn lane when I could have had they been centered in the lane. Now I try to stay to the left edge of the lane on approach and signal at the last possible moment. This way the asshats think I want to turn left so they’ll block the left turn lane access.
Then there is the light where one has to turn left and accelerate crisply to make the next right. These self-centered dufuses will crawl then run red.
I have a portion of my home bound commute where two lanes cross a bridge with zero shoulder. Once on the other side an under bridge turn around lane comes up on the right to merge. This lane has a long merge length so it leaves open a long stretch for asshats in the right lane to cut across double solid yellow and cut in line their fellow brethren stuck in traffic. (this portion is either stop and go from traffic or 20mph) I used to notoriously wait till these cutters would jump out and then I’d pull near perpindicular to them and cut them off. I’ve since changed my ways and drive in both lanes as a defensive measure which makes people think otherwise. These cutters are usually blocked off by people at the merge point or the middle fingers start coming out so it usually bites them in the end. It is almost amusing enough for me to get a in dash camera to film
My nemesis scenario: I’m on open highway, no other vehicles around me, speed limit. Vehicle approaches from behind at usually slightly higher than speed limit rate. I’m in the right lane. They get in the passing lane, get about half way through passing me, then… they decide to match my speed and just cruise along in the left lane. There’s no other traffic anywhere on the road, just the two of us (until we join the end of a herd of course). I can’t pass, they won’t continue. I used to accelerate to get some space between us but that usually futile in that they then speed up to match. So now I check the rear view mirror and if possible I just slow way down and force them to pass. I’ve actually had a few drivers try to match this move too.
WTF is wrong with people? It’s a big huge taxpayer funded highway. Lots of space for everyone. No need to clump together.
I’ve had this happen, I think it’s a subconscious predilection towards the safety of herd mentality. They’ll close the gap and then continue moving at maintenance speed, but if you could ask the other driver they’d probably not even be aware they had done it. What kills me is when I park my vehicle away from the herd in a parking lot shopping center where free-range shopping carts and six-inches-but-inside-the-paintlines parking efforts can’t damage my car, only to watch the very next vehicle pull right up into the spot next to me. Every time.
Heh! What’s even worse Spaz, (And this has happened to me numerous times): You move onto a piece of land with nobody around you…no one has ever lived there- but once YOU’RE there, guaranteed within 6 months someone builds a house nextdoor or across the road….and then another comes…and another…..
I have no use for pigs (the animals, or the monsters with guns and badges), but next time I move, I think I’ll start a pig farm to discourage any potential followers…..
Yep.. I’ve experienced this too, but only in the US. I call this the “non-passing maneuver”. Driving in the UK and Europe I have not noticed this at all. Generally, driver training there calls for passing maneuvers to be executed with deliberation in the passing lane, and returning to the inside lane. No such guideline in US driving manuals :-(. Driving in a cluster on highway is uncomfortable for me, So I either slow down or speed up to resolve the situation.
Hi Electron!
For at least a generation (20-plus years) anything other than the most timid/torpid passing attempt has been characterized by the Authorities as “aggressive” and “unsafe.” Anyone who executes a quick, efficient – and safe – pass is subject to ticketing for “speeding” and even “reckless” driving.
It explains the current state of affairs.
Dear Eric,
So undeniably true, proving that the world has gone mad, and the inmates are running the asylum.
It’s funny isn’t it how dictatorships so often impose utterly irrational rules on people.
It’s bad enough to be forced to do something correct under compulsion. One should be free to do so by choice.
But it’s maddening to be forced to things that are obviously incorrect under compulsion.
As a rule I always keep an eye out for other speeders/speed limit destroyers like myself to let them pass me safely if I’m not in a 20+ over mood.
“But people are terrified of receiving a ticket for speeding.”
Well, yes, I am. BUT….it is not the hero I’m worried about. It is my own rage and hatred of the hero that concerns me.
I’ll have smoke coming out of my ears. And by the time I get the “Where are you headed today?”, I’m going to lose it, and tell the hero to bugger off, it’s none of your freak’n business. In fact, asshat, where the Hell are YOU headed today? Where is YOUR wife headed today? Where is YOUR grandmother headed today?
And by then, I’ll have a taser lead sticking in my arm, or a forty-cal hollow point in my brain.
No you won’t…cops can’t shoot straight.
The lobby scene in The Matrix was probably inspired by some Deputy Dog drawing on somebody at pointblank range and pulling the trigger until he hit slide lock, while only wounding the suspect.
Spatial awareness will be lost on the next and current generation of drivers. I don’t use GPS in any form. I am still old fashioned and print maps or write directions down and burn the online map into my memory. Many of my millennial peers still use step by step navigation to go from work to home, just because. I have retarded in-laws who use GPS directions to go to the store or to a restaurant in their local area and are lost without them even if I am in the backseat verbally telling them where to go. They are brainless. My carpool friend who I often rant about forgets what street to drop me off at at least once a week, a sign that he truly isn’t paying attention in his vehicle and is just ‘riding’. He harkens for the day where he can diddle on his phone and unlimited data in the back of a robot driven car. Then there is the person doing 40 in the one way HOV lane, blocking a 30+ long train of cars from passing him. These people all have dead eyes i might add. It is a trait I am proud of, being able to differentiate awake and asleep people by their eye movement. You know what I mean and it goes much further than just driving.
Proof that when the system crashes, these gadget-dependent people (Who are now the majority) will be milling about aimlessly, not knowing how to do the most basic things- like a bunch of rats in a bin.
Well, I split the difference. I definitely use maps to navigate the long distance trips. For routine commutes, of course I don’t use GPS for directions. I do use GPS in large city or county sprawl areas. In an endless sea of concrete with McMalls and McShopping centers that look the same from coast to cost, I use it to pinpoint unfamiliar places. Commercial properties are not required by law to have ther Got Damned numerical address on their marquee, so you really don’t know where you are. With all of the urban sprawl, GPS becomes almost a necessary evil. I prefer a Garmin. I like mine to also log the average speed and distance traveled on the trip. It’s kind of fun having that information. People kind of look at me funny when I pull out a road map, though. Sometimes, I navigate with 1960’s maps. It shows only about 1/2 of the interstates completed. I prefer to stay off the main highways when possible.
The biggest irony is that the time to tailgate is when it isn’t done, especially when you are between the miles of 0-20 leaving (certainly not accelerating) a stoplight. Yet that same person that leaves the huge air gap at the light rides on your bumper at 60 miles per hour and you are driving above the speed limit, but too afraid like you said to go Dale Earnhardt and make the pass in the grass.
I have a term for these people. Slotherators. They accelerate slowly but only stop accelerating when something is in their way, a traffic control device they feel like obeying, they are going faster than their comfort zone, or the speed of light, whichever comes first.
I like it, The Slotherators. Not only do I now Hate the State, but The Slotherators who allow it to continue through their slothfulness.
I will say, driving used to be more fun. Except out in the country, the only fun I have is being the first in line at a traffic light (especially a double) and leaving the people behind or beside in the dust. I point that out to my young daughters, so they will know how to drive—rather than merely exist.