It can be hard to push back against Sickness Psychosis.
People who know it is a psychosis are social-pressured to comply with such outrages as being expected (and increasingly required) to dress up as if it were Halloween every day for reasons that are exactly the same in principle as driving their car no faster than 5 MPH with the flashers on at all times because someone fears “speeding” cars. That they might get run over – or run into – if cars were allowed to go any faster.
Such neurotics temporarily got their way more than 100 years ago, when the first cars appeared and threatened the delicate nerves of the velocity averse.
The Red Flag Acts (including the Highways and Locomotive Act of 1878) imposed a 4 MPH maximum speed limit in the country – 2 MPH in the city – and required that the vehicle be preceded by a man walking at least 60 yards ahead of it waving a red flag to warn all in the path of the vehicle that it was coming . . . very slowly.
They got their way again in the early ‘70s, when the maximum lawful highway speed – which had risen to an alarming (to the velocity-averse) 70-75 MPH – was temporarily throttled back to 55 MPH. This was initially presented to a public terrorized by propaganda about artificial fuel scarcity as a necessary fuel conservation measure that oleaginously morphed into a saaaaaaaaaafety measure . . . very much as “flattening the curve” greasily morphed into “stopping the spread,” the latter having no end.
The common denominator being the weaponization of fear.
The difference being that the velocity averse were overruled by those who wanted to get places in hours rather than days and minutes rather than hours and – the key thing – rejected the neurotics’ assertion that their fear of movement gave them the moral right to restrict it so absurdly or even at all.
But the wheel turns and there are more neurotics today – chiefly because they have been manufactured by the institutionalization of perpetual terror, especially since Nahhnlevven (say it like The Chimp used to, over and over and over again . . . like the cases! the cases! today) and also because neurosis is now presented by the corporate “mainstream” media as the apotheosis of virtue. Which must be signaled.
As by the wearing of the Face Diaper. As by shaming others to wear it.
American culture has changed.
One of the greatest movie hits of all time was the 1977 Burt Reynolds classic, Smokey & The Bandit – 90 minutes of mocking the velocity averse.
And Americans loved it.
If a film like that were made today, Americans would protest it. It would probably get pulled from theaters. Burt would get cancelled.
The culture today – or rather, the one that has been manufactured – is embodied in the How Dare You! of the terrorized (and terrifying) sickness psychotic, the shrieking child of climate change, Greta Thunberg.
But she wasn’t selling the right thing.
The sickies in upper management who brought us Greta finally discovered what will sell: Sickness, itself. Not the actuality but the assertion – plus the heavy hand of guilt.
The same principle embodied in “speed kills!” and the How Dare You! shriek of the adolescent termagant – but this time, personalized.
You are going to kill granny! You are going to kill me! You are going to kill us all!
That works much better than speed kills! – which is a harder sell because it so obviously doesn’t. You “speed” and nothing happens. But a bug you can’t see? That could be . . . anywhere? One you might not even know you’ve got it?
Ring that one up.
And put on “your” Diaper. Then put out your arm – for the Needle that’s coming and which if you don’t will result in Red Flag Laws being applied to you.
If you allow yourself to be browbeaten by it.
Greta and the How Dare You! may well have been a kind of testing-of-the-waters, very much in the manner of the first and local “lock down” of an American city after the Boston Marathon bombing. Will people accept it?
They did.
Will people dare to contradict this hysterical child?
And they didn’t.
The instinct is not to. After all, she is a child and most people are protectively inclined toward children. Greta’s How Dare You’s! were thus endured without correction and duly noted by upper management.
The same technique, adjusted, is at work now and working because of the same basic reason: Most people instinctively recoil from j’ accuse! and just want the shrieking to cease, especially if it emanates from a child.
But what about adults shrieking like deranged children? Are they owed deference? Or is there an obligation to correct them before they destroy the world? The question answers itself, of course.
If anyone dares to ask it – and then act on it.
Americans of 1977 laughed at the velocity averse – and not just at the theater. They acted accordingly, when out on the road. Almost no one obeyed the Red Flag Law of the ’70s – the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit – unless a Smokey happened to be in the vicinity.
But even the Smokeys understood it was silly; that they were playing a part in Safety Kabuki by issuing you a ticket and your role was to pretend it was reasonable, in the hope that Smokey might reduce the charge a little so that you’d be forced to pay a little less.
The tide eventually turned against the neurotics; the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit was repealed.
But the neurosis never went away.
Their sickness percolates, always, below the surface.
Enter The Virus – which has imposed Red Flags Laws on us all. Without any actual laws having been passed. Instead, “guidelines” are decreed and obeyed. Because people are afraid – and not only of getting sick. They are afraid of challenging the keening of the neurotic about the possibility of getting sick, which they are expected to treat as a kind of blank check that entitles the person who presents it to name any amount and it must be paid . . . because granny might otherwise die.
The antidote to this malady is initially bitter but goes down easily and begins to taste sweeter once you have the nerve to try it.
Don’t accept guilt for what you haven’t done. Don’t accept restrictions – or punishments – based on harms you haven’t caused. Do not allow other people’s neurotic fears to dictate the terms and conditions of your life.
Anyone might haver fleas – and fleas can carry Bubonic plague. Does that oblige everyone to wear a fear collar?
People who are terrified out of reason may deserve sympathy. But it is sick to endow their fear with legitimacy – to weaponize it – by giving in to it. We have an obligation to be civil and decent toward others, certainly. But there is no obligation to cringe and comply with the demands of the deranged.
Whether these be a 4 MPH speed limit or a 55 MPH speed limit or a Face Diaper mandate.
Say no to all of it. Laugh at it, if need be.
But whatever you do, never give fear the respect it doesn’t deserve.
. . .
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To bring this back to the modern bicycle debate
I used to ride a bicycle sorta fast. There is a stretch of known road near me that starts in the county south. The mail trucks had to go 35 and then you could draft on them. I do not know if you have done over sixty on a bicycle, but I tried and did it several times. It was enlivening.
One time in town some dick accosted me for nothing He punched me in the face for asking why he was pissed as I was at the curb. I dismounted and beat the shitbag nearly to death. The neighbors called the cops and I left in the nick of time. His face was a chocolate mess.
I give wide berth to proper bicyclists that fear traffic. I do the same for Mennonites and their horses. Their women are not so hot, but the best natural beauty that I have run across was on a train west out of Minneapolis. A true outcross from somewhere beyond the Yoders. If I was her age I would have proposed before reaching Montana.
OK, I am supposedly on bicycles. I do remember some junk unlike the guy that cannot find Milwaukee.
This just in from infowars: https://www.infowars.com/california-confirms-first-case-of-plague-in-five-years/
Your flea fear is founded. I’m planning to buy a bunch of cheap-o flea collars and offer them to all who offer me a mask.
Excellent, Michael!
I’m going to make “flea collars” out of old wiring insulation… it looks like the real thing and much cheaper – plus it fits human necks!
I wish I could say that public education and it’s active discouragement of critical thinking were to blame, but the fault is ours for accepting and allowing public education to do so. I learned three things useful in public school. How to read, write, and use math, which were completed by the fifth grade. Thereafter, I discovered I could get a passing grade merely by reading and taking tests, disposing of any need to do homework. Such so insulted the teachers at my high school that they collectively decided to make homework an indispensable part of grading. To put me in my place.
Aw nuts, I bought a CTS-v with the Tremec and it was dumped in my driveway without warning on a late Saturday night. There ar so many buttons and crap that I have not even driven it yet Starting it was a chore but when the engine deemed to be running it had some millenial muzac from some weed that was seemingly dying from a lost dog or love interest of a presumed mammal, although I was able to delete it fast enough to find what the poor penis dude was moaning about.
The Caddy has so many buttons and shit that one has to consult the pictograms in order to let someone in the rear seat.
Perhaps if they left out the millenials and such to design parking lot stripes it might have been a better car.
I became much more accustomed to less over the years. I will read the maual on how to open the feckin door and how to get people in the rear seats. Maybe that is why there isn’t the slightest wear on the rear seats. I told the ten year old grandchild that he will have to sit in the right seat as nobody else will do it. He wanted to get into it because it is like one of his slot cars I did tell him to count the pedals as they are 50% more numerous than what he was used to
Darn, Erle, Sounds like an awful lot of stuff to break (if it’s not already)…… (Stop, you’re scaring me)
Hi Erie,
The good news here is with that car you do not need to worry about the audio system. You have something much more appealing to listen to – and something far more important to do!
I got 147 in 4th once, in one. See whether you can!
Golly Eric, that seems to be excessive velocity to get to the package goods store.
I will try it later. There are some few roads that were re-paved by competent contractors. One in particular ran past the pastoral scenery was my favorite of all time. My buddy that neglected to talk me out of marriage because it lasts longer than your dog lives, lent me his Ducati 850. He sorta owed it to me as I made all of the valve cups with the nitride heat treatment that made the thing as reliable as any Toyopet. Shoving it into ridiculous curves and corners was most stimulating.
After the short ride I got back to the bar. When I was pulling up there was a raucous drunk on horseback who just dumped the reins to go in to the hole in the wall. Being a conscientious guy, I led the horse to the shade and un-mowed grass, and brought him water that he was not interested in. I figured that Mister Horse has a decent life and had plenty of water before carrying his drunken owner to the bar.
All of this piffle has a point of sort. Get yourself a good horse that knows the way from to and fro. Then you will forget about the cars that follow the lines in the highway.
Hi Erie,
I forgot to mention… I took my ex-father-in-law for the ride that time. The 147 in fourth time!
You must have run out of road to try the two overdrive gears.
Hi Erie,
That – and my ex-father-in-law was looking pretty white… and he’s from Oklahoma!
Here’s a sad, sad story….
We the unmasked are directly responsible for sister Kelly getting Covid-19 says actress Sharon Stone. Her sister and sister’s husband both tested positive for the virus which I don’t doubt considering the crap PCR test which would likely find your pet rock positive.
Then it’s mentioned Kelly has Lupus. A direct quote from Sharon:
“She does not have an immune system. The only place she went was the pharmacy,” Stone continued,,, apparently believing she got it from one of us unmasked heathens. But then my cynicism started kicking in… Why in the world would a person with no immune system go to any store.
But it’s already a known that any disease is not good for a person with Lupus. She probably picked up a cold or the flu but Sharon says:
“My sister Kelly, who already has lupus, now has COVID-19. This is her hospital room. One of you Non-Mask wearers did this,”
Now this is plain wrong on several levels. Not only wrong but it doesn’t make sense. She is in Montana and claims her sister went to a pharmacy and that is where she got the dreaded disease.
and then she says
“I’m grateful for this incredible find to help reduce the viral load. Remdesivir coupled with steroids and oxygen and the great care of the front-line workers,” she said.
Now I am a cynical bastard but that line almost sounded like a sales pitch but trying hard I put that out of my mind but then I found Sharon put a video on instagram that was titled “Vote to Live” My cynicism was coming back in leaps and bounds.
It gets worse….
Stone said the only way to remedy inadequate testing and overwhelmed hospital staffs is if you vote. And if you vote for Biden and if you vote for Kamala Harris,” Biden’s running mate.
“With women in power, we will fight for our families. We will fight for people to live. And we will fight for people to get tested,” Stone said. “Because the only countries that are doing well with COVID are the ones that have women in leadership.”
Okay,,,, my cynical nature is back at 100% She is using her sister and her sisters deadly disease (Lupus) as a political ad. The most I have ever seen women in power fight for is the right to snuff out their children’s life and now I see a woman using her sisters life for political reasons.
This is the saddest shit I have ever saw.
Not even a consideration of the fact that stopping viruses with any old rag is absurd.
Guys such as you are putting the sensitives in early graves. Have you no shame?
Hi Ken,
Stone left out Kristi Noem – governor of South Dakota and female. Who did not lock down and otherwise Corona her state.
Also, in re the rest: It reminds me of people – the ones I style Clovers – who used to shriek about “speeders” and insist that because a glaucomic old lady can’t competently drive faster than 55 no one else should be allowed to, either. They have shifted their focus to “the virus.”
Hi Eric
The one thing many actors/actresses (mainly actresses) forget is there is no one writing their lines to make them appear somewhat intelligent. Sharon Stone, Cher, Jenifer Lawrence, Ashley Judd, etc. They haven’t the intelligence to note their popularity stems from acting,,, not their personal endeavors and especially not political. They are Hollywood personalities only. Without Hollywood they would be living under overpasses.
With Hollywood bombing out because they no longer have skilled writers and decent actors their livelihoods are drying up. The new fake virus they themselves are pushing will likely finish them off. They now have paid consultants to keep them in line with their tin pot dictators ridiculous rules. Just about all their newer products are bombing out. Disney just lost almost 5 billion buckeroos. Go Woke,,, Go Broke is the new game in tinsel town. Like most of the USA,,, Hollywood is done for.
Wow Ken, have you ever considered writing op-eds for the old grey lady or the amazon rag in DC? Those guys could use a boost to their circulation. Even a buffoon as me can get serious.
Eric – Oh that I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t find a way to get out to Sturgis, SD. Not that I’m into Harleys or Biker culture, but what we saw was Americans enjoying their FREEDOM to do what they goddamned please, by MUTUAL consent and w/o causing appreciable harm.
Expect to hear all the caterwauling about how the Sturgis rally was a “Mega-Spreader” event and how SELFISH and INCONSIDERATE these bikers and their ladies were. The WaPo, which if my parakeet knew what it printed, wouldn’t shite on it, has already started in:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/20/sturgis-attendee-bar-coronavirus/
Amen, Douglas – I wish I could have found the time to go as well. These days, I work at the keyboard – and then around the house – and that’s pretty much it. But supporting what those guys (and their ladies) did was important. And it’s imperative to to deconstruct the lies being spread by the Hyena Media.
Hi Doug,
You anticipated today’s column! https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2020/08/21/the-power-of-the-asserted-unknown/
Hi Ken,
The world turn’d upside down….
Imagine if a person with a peanut allergy demanded every store and restaurant be scrubbed of all residue of peanuts and that all other people take measures to ensure they carried no trace of peanut dust, breathed no lingering aroma of the peanut butter sandwich they ate earlier that day… and so on … because they might dieeeeeee!!!
And yet, this is precisely the argument of the Corona Maniacs.
If anything, Stone is USING her sister’s malady as a tool to advance her political desire. One could hardly get much lower on the morality scale. The use of anecdotal evidence has long been considered invalid, and her example of her sister is a prime example of such. Meanwhile, there is a staggering amount of well documented research demonstrating that corona flu is LESS dangerous to the reasonably healthy than ordinary influenza. Such research is either ignored, or outright censored out of existence. The insistence that ONE case totally validates whatever tyrannical response we suffer is the height of stupidity or evil. Perhaps both. I’ve yet to understand how and why a group of people who make their living by pretending, actors, has garnered any consideration at all. There was a time when actors were relegated to somewhere between lawyers and whores on the social scale. Somehow, we’ve lost that accurate placement and put them on an undeserved pedestal.
I don’t give a crap about Sharon Stone who glorified lesbianism and man killing in her stupid 1980’s movie nor do I care about her sister. Sorry. I don’t. I don’t know either of them and am under no obligation to care. She has millions of dollars. She can provide for her sister. She can also wear the muzzle and shut the hell up.
Aren’t you insensitive. i might think twice about giving you a ride when thumbing after your truck broke down or ran out of gas, or most anything.
I know nothing about any movie since they stopped the B+W crap in the ’40s. The best colored movie I think is National Velvet, but I do not know much as I haven’t seen a motion picture in a theater for more than three decades. The places are too gross for me as I always valued social distancing except when I was in a crushing mob of people in San Antonio for the La Villita thing. Good natured people back there and then.
Oh yeah, I am supposed to brag up some car. Anyone want a ’65 Cobra? I didn’t think so. The thing doesn’t even have electric windows, or for that matter, no side windows at all. Dogs like to ride the right seat even if it is below freezing.
Perhaps this whole show is how one of the most pervasive and expensive things can’t even be supported by its users or is entirely mismanaged by its owner/operator/s. There isn’t any more to squeeze from this stone, a pile of fresh dollars every now and again to keep it limping, until eureka! We’ve found it! (same incorrect conclusion, rinse repeat)
Nuts to you Mister Max.
Do you mot get that the FED is guarding their boyz to do the last asset stripping available before no one will buy goomint paper?
I have studied the esoteric science of economics, and I know.
Ah the dismal science… ^^ Wait until the real “fun” starts, and the Feds best buddy with 7.4 trillion under management (no thats NOT a typo) swoops in and buys up millions of homes and commercial properties for pennies on the dollar.
Hi BJ!
The government has been masking the effects of the lockdowns it imposed by paying luxurious stay-at-home stipends, initially $600 per week (plus the usual unemployment) now “reduced” to $400 a week plus the usual unemployment. This is more than many of the people collecting the stipends earned when they weren’t staying at home, so it makes it appear that the economy is doing better, even, than it otherwise would have since these people have more money to spend. But when the checks stop coming, it’s going to be major wheel lock time.
Unless the checks keep coming… Which maybe they will. And maybe the wheels won’t lock.Maybe they can just print money – so long as people continue to accept it in exchange for things of value. The “debt” is already at galaxy-class numbers – i.e., almost incalculable and beyond conceivable ability to ever pay down. Yet the wheels keep turning.
The “dismal science,” indeed!
It just means that the cost of bottled water will go up from 75 cents to $1.50 over time, insidiously. They are printing a whole lot of money and people have nowhere to spend it except on food, gas and electricity. Those things will go up this time around. The stock market will take a pause. Or maybe not. As the world burns.
OK Mister Rat, I feel your pain.
I turn off all unused lighting, and that ain’t much. Premium gasoline is down by .20 from last week, although futures are up today.
One good thing is that the supercharge whines like a clover. I miss the Democrat convention when producers are blamed for their ills.
This article actually explains a lot of why I’ve said in the past that you can’t be a road cyclist by choice and still call yourself a car enthusiast. I have a ratty old book around my house, called “Those Wonderful Old Automobiles” by Floyd Clymer, that details the very early years of car culture (from the dawn of the automobile in America through about 1930 or so), and was often reminded of it during my arguments with Brent and the crew. There are three things that book made clear to me.
First, car culture as we would recognize it, with organized clubs and meets, established itself almost immediately. Photographic evidence of organized clubs and meets goes back at least as far as 1908 – and yes, what we would today call “street racing” was a part of it from the beginning.
Second, the complaints about police that feature heavily on this blog are not new. “The Man” hated the automobile pretty much from the beginning, and the ambushes, fee-grabbing, and use of force were actually more brazen, in many cases, in the early 1900s than they are today. Some quotes from that page of the book: “Police in some areas were authorized to shoot at tires and stretch ropes, chains, or wires across the road.” “They charged that policemen were discriminating against the owners of powerful and expensive cars (who presumably could pay large fines) while the smaller cheaper cars, making greater speed or driven with less care, were allowed to pass through the speed traps unmolested.” “The magazine went so far as to offer its readers maps on which were marked the exact location of auto traps and ‘prejudiced’ constables and pointing out special areas and small towns where the local speed limit was something lower than a sluggish crawl.”
Third, fear of the automobile was also present from the very beginning, and much early auto persecution came from people who feared the damage a recklessly driven automobile could do to a horse or bicycle. The first speed limits were the work of these people, as were many other, far more inane and obnoxious, ideas which fortunately gained little traction. It’s interesting to note that some of those ideas have started to reappear, in a philosophical sense, over the last decade or so.
To bring this back to the modern bicycle debate, when people bray about “the public way!” and their right to walk or ride a bike anywhere they want, to some degree I see them as the philosophical heirs to those early car-haters who thought blistering speeds like 40 MPH would bring the world to an end, even if they are dead-set against using violence or coercion to keep drivers in check. The difference is, back then, the automobile really was a newfangled nuisance on roads still full of everything else – now, not so much.
In the modern car-versus-bicycle debate, there are two overarching philosophies which will form the basis of an individual’s further perceptions. The first school of thought holds that automobiles are an invasive and coercive presence which appeared from nowhere to steal and monopolize roads made for everyone, and that even though this horrible wrong occurred over a hundred years ago, it still needs to be righted by putting drivers in their place – what this means will vary, of course, depending on whether a given individual leans libertarian or authoritarian. To this school of thought, drivers are obnoxious, go too fast, make too much noise, take up far too much space, think the world revolves around them, don’t care about anyone but themselves, and just have it far too good in general at the expense of everyone else, and they need to learn to accept more nonmotorized road use so the ideal of a truly shared, multimodal road can be realized.
The second school of thought holds that the automobile is an amazing advance in personal mobility, that its ability to completely trivialize distances which would have once required all day (or multiple days) to cover should still be celebrated to this day, and that other modes of transportation died out because they couldn’t match the combination of speed, comfort, convenience, and load capacity offered by even an early car. Under this school of thought, majority-motorized road use is just the way it is until and unless someone invents an even better personal-transport solution, and that just because you have a right to walk or ride wherever you want, does not mean you should actively want to make the whole rest of the world adapt to you.
Now, from a logical perspective, these two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and there are a lot of people who would probably claim to believe both at once. It is technically possible for someone to despise Critical Mass, think cars are a positive thing overall, and still think drivers have been over-favored under the law. The important thing is, which of these philosophies is your baseline? Which one forms the basis that determines how you view the other? Do you start with a genuine love of driving and then go from there, or do you start with a desire to see the status of the automobile reduced to “one way among many” so that something else can use the road more easily?
It is my position that holding to the first philosophy, i.e. “drivers have been coercively over-favored and need to make sacrifices so others can make use of their rights”, is the only way a person could convince themselves that it was right, whether they had a right or not, to ride a bicycle on a road obviously not designed to accommodate them, and thereby turn themselves into an extra hazard which everyone else then has to be conscious of. Someone whose starting point was a genuine love of cars and driving wouldn’t even have the thought cross their mind.
Hi Chuck,
Much of this has been discussed already but the one thing I’ll add – which is merely my own subjective point-of-view and (to be very clear) I am not making any implied or otherwise asserted moral injunction is that I personally would never ride a bicycle on any road where the traffic is flowing significantly faster than a bicycle rider can pedal and there is no shoulder to ride on. My reasoning is purely practical; I don’t want to get run over and while it would be nice if drivers were generally competent and attentive, many aren’t. Whether I have the right to ride is neither here nor there.
I’m surprised any cyclists are willing to ride on such roads.
I am a cyclist and a car enthusiast. A rare combination. I don’t ride that often anymore primarily because it isn’t that fun and also because of potential distracted drivers hitting my ass. That said, I believe that cyclists and cars can coexist if we widen road shoulders. It’s a win for both. Drivers get increased design speed for the road and can travel faster. Cyclists can get an additional buffer. Now, the political cyclists and I can’t coexist. They and the rest of the liberal class have made this country a toilet to live in. A literal toilet in some places.
Yeah, except for the cyclists that insist on riding in the traffic lane instead of the shoulder.
Shoulders are bad place to ride generally speaking.
1) no vehicular rights.
2) they end suddenly.
3) debris.
4) you think the roadway is bad pavement, try the shoulder.
Wide curb lanes. Shoulders are off the roadway and thus there are no vehicular rights there.
And car drivers get a wider lane so they can take the turns at a higher speed. Thereby giving a chance to knock off a bike rider like a bowling pin!
Hi to5,
Two things would largely solve the bikes vs. cars issue, I think. The first and most important one being generally competent drivers. An aspect of which is spatial relationship competence. The ability to gauge distance and time. To be capable of of passing a bicycle without needing to sweep wide across the double yellow into the opposing lane of traffic. People who lack the competence to pass a bicyclist without sweeping into the opposing lane of traffic are people who probably have no business driving a car at all.
Second, there is also consideration – on the part of the cyclist. There are some roads that aren’t appropriate for bicycling because of things like speed variance, sight lines and lane width. Walking one’s dog is also a bad idea on such roads.
On such roads, there may not be room to pass without crossing over the double yellow into the opposing lane – and not enough sight distance to risk it. If it’s a windy, fast road with uphill stretches especially, it’s a set up for disaster.
One can assert the right to use any road since they are public rights-of-ways and I don’t dispute that. But I also suggest that doing so in every case is not always sound policy.
Hi Chuck,
There is a third option, one can believe “that the automobile is an amazing advance in personal mobility”, and that it has radically advanced human freedom; that it is not an “invasive and coercive presence” that “needs to be righted by putting drivers in their place”. One can hold this view AND also enjoy cycling. This is my view and I have managed to enjoy both without ever endangering or legitimately inconveniencing any other road user for over 40 years. You write, “to ride a bicycle on a road obviously not designed to accommodate them”, implying that cyclists should choose not to ride on such roads. Sure, this is reasonable, but you have previously asserted that virtually all roads are “not designed to accommodate” us. Your “reasonable” criticism leaves us nowhere to ride.
Jeremy
Pretty much yes. Would it be theoretically better if road design had evolved in such as way as to continue accommodating non-motorized movement? Maybe. Did it? No. And until the “green” BS of the 1970s kicked off, it would have been perfectly reasonable to assume it would never need to again.
This is the thing with recreational cyclists – they can’t even comprehend the idea of a world where bicycles have just plain fallen by the wayside and the 99.9% of people who don’t ride them don’t want them back. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the world we live in. The reason I assert that virtually all roads are “not designed to accommodate” cyclists is because… virtually all roads are not designed to accommodate cyclists, and haven’t been for many decades. The only (non-city) roads with any significant shoulders are the ones where the (under)posted is double digits above a cyclist’s maximum burst speed, and sometimes not even then – and frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way, since when you’re driving quickly, having a narrow surface and nearby gutter is a large part of the fun.
In the end, it still comes back to what I said at the end of my post before – what’s more important to you personally? Which one – recreational cycling or spirited driving – would you miss more if you knew for a fact you’d never be able to do it again? And the impression I get from your post is that the bicycle comes first – “if there’s no reasonable place for me to ride my bicycle, I’ll just have to ride it in an unreasonable place instead.” This is, in fact, the line of thought I was getting at in my post above.
That’s the difference between the two mentalities I listed. Take someone like Brent, for example. He might have an interest in cars, but it is 100% secondary to his love of cycling and his desire to do so as often as possible. If this means that street racing can never regain its former levels of popularity or social acceptability, well, he doesn’t care, as long as his right to ride a bicycle remains absolute. He has actually gone so far as to call the 1960s, i.e. the absolute uber-peak of car enthusiast culture in the US, “dark days” – because no one was riding bicycles!
I know cyclists have a right to use the road, but I’m glad that very few of them use it, and I wish even fewer did. When I read things like 8SM’s old stories about how street racing used to be so popular in his area that the police just sat and watched most of the time, to me that’s not just a fun story from the quaint old days. To me, that’s exactly how things should still be today, only more so.
That fundamental difference right there is why I call “car-guy bicyclist” is a contradiction in terms. You can talk all you want about how you have a right to ride a bike on the road, but your using that right is interfering with bringing things like that back. Riding your bike on the road makes the car hobby weaker, not stronger, whether you have a right to do it or not. It’s just another flavor of “Yeah, I like cars, but”, and “Yeah, I like cars, but” is what’s killing the car hobby.
So yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying that if you have access to a car and a bicycle at the same time, then you should choose the car out of courtesy to both your fellow road users and your fellow car enthusiasts, unless your ride is taking place entirely in a hyper-congested downtown area or somewhere similar.
The elite have never liked that cars became commonplace. They were hoping to keep them like they managed to keep yachts, private trains, private planes and the like from becoming common. As in: they can have them, use them at will etc, but joe six pack, no way. He has to stick to the schedule we set for you little people.
You don’t realize how much the rich elite did to derail affordable cars at the beginning of the auto age. They used patent law, they tried to block road construction projects (especially highways), they made silly laws like the red flag act. All things to make motoring more of a hassle.
I think they failed because the new industry made so many new rich folks quickly, and of course they wanted the growth because it was the fuel of their wealth. So it became old money vs new money. Thankfully new money won in this case.
In a lot of ways the red flag laws are making a huge comeback. Just look at NYC, the de facto speed limit on city streets is a mind numbing 20mph. Little used bike lanes take up valuable space that could be (and in a lot of cases used to be) used as another traffic lane for motorists. They work to slow rather than speed traffic. Speed bumps, traffic circles, limited street parking, unneeded traffic signals, traffic and parking tickets are all things to hassle motorists. The ones that are largely paying for the road to even be there to begin with.
I feel your pain. As much as I love cars and driving, there was actually a point in my life where I felt that it would be much easier not to drive any more. Thankfully, being able to see a certain agenda behind it all, I never followed through on that misguided thought. But based on my observations over the years, I’d say that the last time I ever saw roads being designed with traffic movement in mind, was during the 1980’s.
IMHO the best invention in town was the left turn arrow that also allowed you to turn if it was clear on a solid green; the best moving intersections with this aspect are able to pair it with a right turn arrow that would activate at the same time on the opposing/corresponding end. The 1980”s style intersections also did not have a two second pause between the yellow arrow and a solid green. I’m pretty sure that “safety” proponents will argue that this is to allow the intersection to properly clear out before the green cycle, but what I see is a two second window of opportunity for an AGW to catch a motorist having run a red.
Once upon a time they used to be hesitant on installing a left turn only signal, unless it was either a double left turn lane, or if the intersection had a really bad crash rate. Nowadays I see a number of intersections back in my childhood home, where they simply put in restricted lefts without redesigning the intersections at all. Now, everybody has to get their own light cycle in order to proceed legally into the intersection. Some will argue that the increased traffic necessitates this. I’d argue that forcing everyone to wait longer at every intersection is what’s actually causing the traffic backing up, especially in those now-restricted left turns where the turn lane was never even lengthened to accommodate the waiting vehicles.
Amen on your mention of traffic circles. It’s especially unnerving when they replace a stoplight with one of these. Yes, everyone doesn’t have to stop when they do it properly, but almost nobody does, so everybody stops and is confused by who is supposed to do what. Add to that the expense of acquiring the extra land and building them in the first place, and you wonder why anyone would do them until you see it from the anti-driving point of view. Especially appalling is when you see a traffic circle erected in the middle of the country (I’m calling you out WI), which causes everyone to slam on their brakes from 55 mph by design.
On freeways, I always felt that the best invention ever was the cloverleaf exit, because when it worked as intended, nobody ever had to stop, and you didn’t have to go through the expense of building additional bridges. Unfortunately, cloverleafs also require drivers to make on-the-spot decisions, so with the modern mindset I can see where this messes up. Now what you have is that many cloverleafs are being pulled out and replaced with expensive contraptions that involve waiting at least several minutes or more either to get on or off the freeway. I can’t for the life of me justify either the single point interchange, or the converging and/or diverging diamond interchanges. All of those have tremendously long stoplight cycles at all approaches. In addition, the new style diamonds often have no right turn on red restrictions which really makes traffic backup on ramps; this negates why you’d want to do a diverging diamond interchange in the first place because what difference does it make to get rid of the oncoming traffic if you still can’t turn on red?!
Regarding freeways themselves, I consider them to be the greatest road structure ever invented. Once upon a time, when America still looked outward instead of inward, we somehow built the core of the very ecosystem that still holds our entire nation together to this day. But as time went on, there came two significant issues, the lack of money, and resident resistance. The latter I place the blame on the not-in-my-backyard attitude, which I strongly believe is the result of the elitist mindset being appropriated by the common class. Yes, one can make the argument that freeways eliminate neighborhoods and blight the areas to which they are adjacent. But in no way can you ever come close to matching the accessible level of mobility that the freeway offers to all. In that regard, I believe that the positives far outweigh the negatives.
In every place where I’ve encountered an unfinished freeway stub, it doesn’t take much for me to see the justification as to why they should’ve built the damn thing as originally intended. Usually, what I find in place of an aborted freeway is a traffic clogged cluster that stifles everything within it. And yet we call this progress.
Give it a rest already. I have nothing new on the topic for you. Go read what I wrote before. I stopped reading after the paragraph with my name in it.
Hi Brent,
Sad news; the Maverick sedan is in for work and not for sale. They also have a badly abused ’80 Turbo Trans-Am that needs pretty much everything. Ach, mein gott! People are mean to cars… .
I missed this earlier but decided to search for an update.
That’s too bad. There have been a couple for sale recently in the Maverick FB groups. Petty far away from you (and me) though.
I need to move to a new place get me a pickup truck and a trailer. Thanks to the groups a big bumper 2dr got rescued from a junkyard. Might only be good for parts, but even that counts.
“2MPH in the city”- Dear goodness! I can’t even walk that slow! My 95 year-old mother walks faster than that!
Headline from CoronaHedge (aka Zerohedge)
“Italy Closes Nightclubs As COVID-19 Revival Rocks Europe; US Deaths Top 1k For 5th Day: Live Updates
Australia just suffered its deadliest day yet. ”
Passing on the hysteria. Australia manufactured Corona deaths 421. Population 25 million. 0.00001684.
Victoria, Au manufactured Corona deaths 334. Population 6.4 million. 0.0000521875
There’s your hysteria. There is your reason for the diaper wearers. If only these folks would diversify and read sites like Eric’s it might not be so bad.
Are these people innumerate? or just plain stupid?
Everyone knows over half the deaths attributed to Corona are from Nursing homes, 2/3rds if you include hospitals and those numbers are bogus because if you die from being hit by a bus and you test positive or a doctor looks at your mangled body and determines possible Corona you go into the Corona column.
That alone should awaken people to the fraud but no,,, somehow they’re not immune to the hoax virus but are immune to the obvious perpetrated fraud.
Most people are herd animals. They’re not rational beings, but social ones. Their status in the group is far more important than something silly like a moral compass. Why have one of those if it can’t land you a sweet apartment or you can’t fuck ol’ what’s-her-name with it?
The normie backs whatever is popular. Full stop, end of story, do not pass go and do not collect $200. If tomorrow it was decreed that the only way to stop Corona-Chan was to wear green shoes, and a law was enacted, you’d see fashionable sneakers in every shade of green possible. Don’t try to examine their brain. There’s no “there” there.
If we win, don’t at all be discouraged by all these normies who today are fistfighting and Karen-ing you to death, suddenly about-face and tell you how glad they are to have you around, and they were on your team the whole time, this Corona thing was all a farce, and they totally never wore a mask and called you a Nazi and all the other terrible things they’re doing. In fact, you’ll be the asshole if you get butt-hurt and refuse the invitation to the Victory barbecue, this Saturday night, bring beer and that hot bitch from accounting. It is what it is, water is wet, etc.
USA- population 330 million give or take, alleged COVID deaths (documented to include natural causes/old age, murder, traffic wreck)- 160000- 0.000515. Normal death toll in USA is around 0.8-1.1%/year, so to estimate 3.3 million from all causes including 250-750000 due to medical practice/malpractice.
They are innumerate, scientifically illiterate, AND just plain stupid, along with an unhealthy dose of evil programming to make them gullible and vindictive.
It’s not that Ken. It’s the power trips the state premiers and health ministers, previously unknown to the Aussie public, are now acting like little hitlers. Dissolving parliaments, and the police have now become the enemy of the people. Despite the laws saying no force must be used to enforce the masking requirements. The permits now required to work that must be renewed weekly. No trips more than 5km from home. And the maskers who go beserk over a nonmasker. It truly is bizarre. That people living on an isolated from the world island nation are going beserk over a few older folks dying from preexisting illnesses. An illness imported from the chinks who passed it on to everyone else. Truly Hitler, lenin, and Stalin would be smiling at the 7 state premiers who have gone completely nazi, communist, dictatorial, and so full of hatred toward the electorate that put them in power.
Thats pretty much what I’m hearing from my contacts down under. The Irish government has gone completely insane as well.
At this point, I’d not be surprised if the Aussie elections get “postponed”, just so they can stay in power. Of course there is that “little” matter of allowing ones population to be disarmed, over the Progs hysterical howling… But lets not go there.
The other fear is one of litigation. I’d wager that at least 80% of the business compliance to the diaper mandate is because the legal department or insurance mafia is recommending (telling) management that they’d better do it or else they’re exposing themselves to lawsuits. By following the CDC guidelines they’re effectively getting a pass when it comes to someone filing a lawsuit when they get sick. Are they going to sue their slutty daughter for bring home the plague after sharing a bowl with the gang, or are they going to sue the big mean greedy corporation that “failed” to protect them with stickers on the floor while they were forced to shop in their store? Even if they prove the “victim” had no long term side effects, the “pain and suffering” will be sufficient to force an out of court settlement, especially if the ambulance chaser gets a press release picked up in the media.
An ounce of prevention beats an ass-pounding in court.
Hi RK,
I understand the fear of litigation but in a court, how do you prove that A got Corona because B was Undiapered? It would take proving that B had the virus and was contagious and in proximity to A, at the very least. But since Corona – like any sickness – doesn’t manifest symptoms for at least a week or more (and may never) how do you establish that the virus was transmitted by a specific person at a specific time?
Isn’t it the same as saying that because Driver A was seen driving his car faster than posted speed limit is responsible for Driver B swerving off the road the following week?
Of course, I know the answer. It will be the general risk, a “constructive hazard,” etc.
It isn’t about proving anything. It’s about what’s the easiest way to make this go away? And (probably more importantly) how do we keep this from hitting social media and the crocodile outrage that will go along with it? A little tape on the floor and signs on the doors go a long way in the court of public opinion.
“It isn’t about proving anything”
Explains today’s ‘justice’ system nicely…
Eric, you don’t have to prove it. If your lawyers are good enough at gaming the system, thats all that matters. Not to mention how damn expensive being hauled into court is. Thats why the Progs call it Lawfare. On a related note, this is why the Progs and their corporate mass media dropped a certain subject…
https://noqreport.com/2020/08/17/new-covid-19-data-from-sweden-shows-why-the-left-stopped-talking-about-it/
QFT, RK! I think that the insurance and legal mafia play a significant role in the diaper mandates. Just to get started in court (i.e. filing the paperwork, etc.) costs thousands; forget about the trial itself. Most businesses don’t want to deal with that…
The safety cult took over institutions in an order that could advance the agenda. For them it was the courts first and selecting juries appropriately.