24-year-old attempting to rollerblade across the entire US killed in hit-and-run
21 days ago by FlashMobOfOne to c/fuckcars
SALINE COUNTY, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News) — A Norwegian man attempting to rollerblade across the U.S. was killed in a hit-and-run in Kansas, officials said.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 24-year-old Joachim Lanham.
Lanham was documenting his rollerblading journey across the U.S. on Instagram. According to a post from his family, he was hit by an SUV on day 22 of his journey from New York to Los Angeles
And if you suggest we should add public transit so that 82 year olds have a reasonable option other than driving, everyone acts like you’re ableist as if people whose disabilities make driving more dangerous don’t exist at all.
The problem with public transportation in the US is that black people will use it. That means the old white lady is going to fight paying for it and then take her own car anyway.
This is the answer.
I live in a conservative area and I've literally gotten political fliers in the mail from two different republican local campaigns bickering over who's the most against public transportation.
One of them said "So-and-so would fund a new bus station that would allow those people from the city to come to our town!"
The other one's response was basically "Whats-his-face is a liar! So-and-so only suggested funding and renovation of an existing bus station which doesn't have a route to the city. It wouldn't bring those people from the city here at all!"
To me, reading that just felt like the entire county's racism on full display...
Um what??? What in the classist world did i read???
You're not wrong.
Yup, and in many states it's legal for blind people to own guns.
When I hear of people like this driver, it reminds me of the quote from Coming to America: "Imagine a country so free one can throw glass in its streets." It's meant as a joke in the movie, but for me, it's actually a really great way to describe our concept of freedom.
I saw a commercial where a blind veteran used those Meta spy glasses everybody hates to ask where the flag was so he could salute it.
So, "Hey Meta, where is the intruder?"
Hero name: Deadeyes
See No Evil, Hear No Evil had a bit like that.
Why shouldn't blind people be allowed to own guns. Transferable machine guns have been a way better investment than bonds for essentially their entire legal existence. There are plenty of legitimate reasons blind people should be allowed to own guns.
Ironically, the guns the other commenter is talking about became investments because the ban on them restricted the supply.
But that's getting off-topic, so if anybody reading this wishes to discuss guns further please start a thread in a different community.
No there aren't, lmfao
Are you implying we need to be more ableist against the visually impaired?
Blindness is a spectrum not just a binary can see and can’t see.
Woke 1 is dead, no I don't want blind people to own guns, Jesus christ.
You should really educate yourself on what it means to be legally blind.
There need to be tests to determine if somebody is fit to own a gun or operate a vehicle. Part of that test needs to be about visual and mental aquity. Your mind and sight needn't be perfect, but at some point you are crossing too much into "you can't be trusted with other peoples safety if you are allowed to operate this instrument of death" and that is where a line needs to be drawn.
There is nothing ableist about that, it's a common sense safety measure for the people around you.
Well, you're allowed to own a car even if you aren't allowed to drive it. Maybe for guns there should also be separate rules for ownership and operation?
I mean, ideally, I'd be for no private ownership of firearms at all - that just makes for a safer society.
My own grandfather is a danger on the road. He's slowly losing his faculties, which is always tragic but doubly so because this was a deep intellectual. But trying to convince him that it's really time to stop driving has been... a challenge, shall we say. There's really only so much you can do in a legal sense.
Maybe someone should 'lose his keys' for him 😘
Aye , you might be saving his life and the life of like 5 other people on the road 🤷🏿♂️
Show him this article!
You're supposed to be tested when you renew your license, but the renewal period is anywhere from four to twenty-five years, with some places even longer. If you are not renewing your license they neeed an incident to reevaluate your ability to drive.
On the one hand it's good that they have less control over locing down the ability of people to move around, especially since we have almost no rail lines, horrible public transit, and roads that are dangerous to bike or walk on.
On the other.... You have to hurt someone, or damage something, in order to be told "Okay, grandpa, time to hang up the keys."
She reminds me of that one american politicians who murdered a person by driving her car into then in Europe, didnt notice it, and then left europe when charges were brought against her lol.
Sounds like Anne Sacoolas, who forgot which side of the road to drive on in the UK, killed someone, and then got spirited away to live life consequence free: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn
But the US has a proud tradition of such. Only last month they whisked someone to safety in the US rather than have them arrested for kiddy porn: https://nypost.com/...
AH thanks! Thats her!
one sad thing is that, as american vehicles go, a 2013 Edge is not very offensive. sure, it's not a Corolla, but it's not a full size
it's a CUV with inoffensive tech. not too big, not too heavy, not too blinding or distracting. not that that saved the victim..
Yeah, I was looking to see what type of street-legal APV allowed her to run over a full adult skater without noticing, but I guess this one was just decent suspension and zero awareness left in her bones.
We allow it for the very fact that without a vehicle an 80 year old person is essentially being given a death sentence in most cities in our country.
I am all for requirements of driver's license test be met past a certain age. But, we need to acknowledge that it's not just that. Seniors need alternative methods of transportation. They are driving because that's all they can do.
Whether this is basic public transportation or major expansion of senior specific door to door transport systems. We can't just "ban them". Because then the problem will just be a bunch of seniors just driving without a license or dying alone in their home because they didn't get their medication that day.
Even an 80 your old person who can't have food and drugs delivered still does not need to drive a 4000lbs SUV. There are much safer alternatives. We can quite reasonably just "ban them" from driving unnecessarily dangerous vehicles.
Holy shit, a blind old lady driving a giant SUV kills a pedestrian and keeps driving...
Americans: "Yeah, that's normal."
If old people are going to be allowed to drive it should have to be smart cars or something, that way if they’re going to fuck around it will be them smeared 200m across the highway, not innocent victims
In my opinion I already know there’s gonnabe some landmark study or studies thst comes out that proves thst people at or around the ages of 70-75+ should not be driving at all since people of this age tend to lack coordination , reaction time, and awareness of many of the driving related events happening around them.
I wish I had compiled it but something Ive noticed is that in hit-and-run stories is thst you will find a disturbingly common trend of seeing that a very old senior ‘hit something or someone’ , ‘never noticed it was there before’, ‘and kept on going cause they thought it was nothing’ .
There comes an age when you just have to accept thst youre just too old to do some things. Not a single paid athlete in basketball anywhere in the world has been able to stay io that profession past the age of 51… there is a reason for this…
Never allow your ego to betray your understanding of humanity and your understanding of your biology.
Since several years ago, Japan requires people of a certain age (75 IIRC) to take special classes to continue driving. I think there may be some other tests, but less sure on that. In the deep countryside, there isn't always another option at any reasonable cost (especially to pensioners), which can create problems
I dont know how car-centric Japanese infrastructure is so I dont know how easy or difficult it is for a Japanse senior to walk or bike to where they gotta go if they dont have a car or licensing to operate a car , since its expiered, in a urban or rural setting.
I feel that had humanity completely banned car centric infrastructure in all parts of the planet that dont need them then a Japenese senior who had to bike, say, 5 or so KM just to get something they need would not worry about the journey at all. Heck the person in our story here ↑ would probably also still be alive since he didnt have to worry about how to conduct such a journey safely.
Like are there bike only , pedestrian only , or even shared bike and pedestrian only cross-city paths in Japan? Also how good is the inter and intra city transportation in Japan? If there were , it would completely resolve the scenario you just talked about. ... It would resolve A LOT of the problems we have around land based transportation today too.
First, that SUV is 2 ton. That's an easy search. You're approaching semi-truck territory here.
Second, and I'm not siding with her as it could be false, what would you expect someone to do if they returned to a potential collision site and found nothing?
That hypothetical would be much more convincing if it had anything to do with the actual facts of the real event that took place.
There's no need to be sarcastic; I want you to be more persuasive because I completely agree with you that it is unreasonable to expect private citizens to be able to do things like: notice a full-grown man in rollerblades on the side of a highway, or notice you have collided with a rollerblader, or safely overtake a rollerblader, or notice that the rollerblader is no longer visible and is instead dying on the side of the road. People can't do this if they are 32 or 82 -- there is too much going on with their phones and their infotainment panels and the complex road conditions. You just gotta say it with your whole chest: no-one can reasonably be expected to safely operated a motor vehicle.
... The... Future...? What about the present? Like, seeing things on the road as you're driving?
Semis, unloaded, are like five tons, minimum. I guess two tons is approaching, but then so is my sedan at like 3,400 pounds.
And as fully loaded tractor trailer is like 30 or 40 tons.
I believe cars are getting too big though.
Fuck this sucks.
Here's an article about him skating 5,500km across Australia:
I am too terrified to ride a bike 20km to the next town. I could probably do a quarter of it on paths. Perhaps a bit more bush bashing. But the highway sections seems like certain death. I envy places that are connected with paths. Huge respect for this guy.
Are you in australia?
I've done a bit of long distance riding here.
Bush tracks are ok, but be very, very mindful of snakes. Bush bashing is generally a bad idea. You'll pick up ticks from foliage, and snakes can't feel your vibrations and you can't see them soooo...
Being on the road is generally ok, but a wing mirror is essential. You really need to be able to see traffic approaching behind you.
Cars can move around you but for road trains I just get off the road and stop on the shoulder. They're too wide to leave any room for you, and the "bow wave" of air pushes you away, but then the void behind them pulls you on to be road, ready to be collected by the traffic following.
Welp, "bike touring Australia" is now officially off of my bucket list. Thank you for that
What's a road train?
A truck with three trailers.
Actually funny thing I realized is that when I tried to go the next city over from the city I live in the safest paths were the forests and park paths . EVen unofficial paths were a better option, as in forests paths that shouldnt have a path but so many homeless people and drifters there go along thst path so often that the path has now been beaten into the ground and now its just there permanently.
Snakes are a real problem on narrow trails in Australia. On a bike they can't sense the vibrations from your footfalls so they can't get out of your way.
Also mobile / cell coverage is patchy. If you get bit then walking / riding is the worst thing you can do, but if you don't have cell coverage then you're cooked.
I guess we need municipal service for all towns, villages and cities that regularly keeps snakes, other venomous, and large carnivorous creatures off of these forest and unofficial paths.
No way in hell would I walk , bike (motor bike even) , scooter, any form of transportation other than in a tank a disrance of 20KM or over. Especially if Im going the next city over.
The problem is two fold cause the drivers in north america are inherently bad and they think theyre better drivers than they are. BUT THEN ALSO the infrastucture in most of north america is car centric so when you go to a dangerous a crossing or a dangerous path ....that path was probably made for cars , large emergency vehicles, large constructiin vehicles or military vehicles.... that path was not made for cyclisrs or pedestrians. So youre rolling a loaded dice against your favour any time you go near paths like this without a tank of your own lol
If I wanted to travel such distances? Unless there is a 'no car policy' there and its blocked off ffrom all sides by authorities or Im travelling via a city bus or a train? Im not going. Sorry.
I cycled across Kansas when I was a teenager, in 1971 (yeah, I know, that was a long-ass time ago). I had no problem with cars or trucks. Some curious locals did ask me "why are you doing that?" and once I had to wait 20 minutes for a herd of cattle to cross the road. But that was a long time ago, when cycling was less popular, Kansas politics were pragmatic, the locals friendly, and road rage unheard of. Now, when I go there, people seem pissed off all the time and the state and local governments are malicious. Also, meth and rabid fundamentalism.
One of the best things my parents ever did was leave that state.
I did that ride during a family visit back, training for a ride from Los Angeles to Sonoma County that I ended up not doing. Instead, I got into cycling in the San Gabriels. Now, well past 60, I've started bike touring in Europe, where drivers are generally less inclined to kill you, though it does still happen. Also, there are car-free (with a few exceptions) cross-European cycle routes.
🫂🥺Glad that you survived . Hoped it was enjoyable 🥺🫂
Also
Also, there are car-free (with a few exceptions) cross-European cycle routes.
What in the fuck!? Im jealous 😒
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
Well at least she was nice and safe in her rolling fortress.
And thank god we don't ever test people again after giving them access to killing machines
The thing about cars is that they are a lethal weapon INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. .
So obviously outside you have this mostly iron thing that weighs over a tonne or more and it can easily reach speeds of over 250 km/hr if the deranged driver wants it to...
But If someone alters their car so that you cant get outside once theyve locked you inside.... You better hope that theyve put you in the trunk cause thats the only place with the emergency opening. Also whst if theu alter the trunk to make it so that only they can open it?....
Also I was reading this one comment from a police shooting a couple yesrs ago aand it changed how I see the lethality of cars from the inside. And it basically said: "The main perpetrator was shot and killed by police but a person who was kidnapped inside the car were ALSO shot and killed by those police officers. But something that the news story conveniently omits about the officers' response is that the car was travelling at insane speeds for most of the chase ...So how could the kidnapped people inside the car escape if they couldnt jump out? They didnt deserve to also be shot as they had no route out of the car."
82-year-old
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
I've read horror stories told by acquaintances from Japan about old people there driving and usually finding themselves crashing into things, crashing into cars, cyclists, pedestrians, or worse. There's been talk among Japanese about setting limits to drivers older than 60 or 70.
82 YEAR OLD? I think my grandpa died at around that age, they're letting this person drive?
It's Kansas. If she can't drive she literally cannot leave her home..
Tennessee city of 40k here. No taxi service for the last decade, and no uber drivers unless you get really lucky.
There’s a city van that will take elderly people around town. It requires three business days notice, the pickup time is an hour window, shopping trips are limited to three bags, and it’s not free.
in rural areas it's pretty hard, but some small towns have basically on demand dial a ride type of services for the elderly, but still people really resist losing their freedom on that.
At least she turned herself in. I'm not sure I would've had enough courage and selfrespect to do that.
I hope she feels like shit and sees consequences for making a half-assed attempt at identifying what she hit. She could at least get out of the vehicle ffs. He might have been able to be saved.
You are saying the planned to run him over. How do you back that up?
I agree that she made a terrible mistake. She should have to pay restitution to the family, get jail time and probably never drive again. But murder is a whole different thing. You might as well charge her with genocide.
I hate everything about this story, fuck car culture so much
Calling it a pollution powered people crusher is a pretty accurate assessment tho.
Oof, why did I laugh at this? 'Tis America, I guess?
Im gonna keep it 💯with you , you are able and within your right to think that it doesnt matter that she's 82 .
But in my opinion I already know there's gonnabe some landmark study or studies thst comes out that proves thst people at or around the ages of 70-75+ should not be driving at all since people of this age tend to lack coordination , reaction time, and awareness of many of the driving related events happening around them.
I wish I had compiled it but something Ive noticed is that in hit-and-run stories is thst you will find a disturbingly common trend of seeing that a very old senior 'hit something or someone' , 'never noticed it was there before', 'and kept on going cause they thought it was nothing' .
There comes an age when you just have to accept thst youre just too old to do some things. Not a single paid athlete in basketball anywhere in the world has been able to stay io that profession past the age of 51..... there is a reason for this...
Never allow your ego to betray your understanding of humanity and your understanding of your biology.
Regular testing should be mandatory for all ages IMO.
Everything gets delivered in today's gig economy. If you can't tell if you've hit a full grown man while driving - trade your car in and take an uber to your appointments.
Getting controlled medications delivered is complicated
On the other hand, isn't an 82 year old hurtling around in 2 tons of metal with only a vague idea of what's happening outside that box... normal?
Why single out this woman, when there are millions just like her who are only different in that thus far, by sheer luck, they haven't happened to kill anyone? This one won the murder lottery, millions more bought a ticket.
I'm assuming you don't drive, and hopefully you never do.
I think you're missing the point here. The individual is not the issue. The fact that any 82 year old is hurtling around in 2 tons of metal oblivious to the world outside is the issue (or at least part of it). Do you think this woman is some kind of exceptional case?
My gradfather drove far into his 90s, and only stopped when he became deaf. Never hurt anyone or did anything unsafe. The obliviousness really depends on the person.
I do favor frequent testing for older drivers, though. When things go wrong, it can happen suddenly and people are often in denial about their continuing fitness to drive.
As someone who travels on two wheels in the US all the time, they kinda did.
'kinda did' in one of thr most car-centric countries on the planet?
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
As someone that once accidentally hit a cat whilst driving an SUV, I cannot fathom how anyone could hit anything as large a human and be unsure if something was struck.
I think the key words are "82-year-old"
I'm not nearly that old, but I can extrapolate my own experiences from 16 to now and out to her age, and I can buy it.
Understandable, and I accept everyone's situation and capabilities are different. I'm nearly in my sixties, so I'm closer to her age, but I'd seriously reevaluate the wisdom of driving if my faculties were that degraded.
Home girl probably has presbyopia so real she just rolls up on Mr. Magoo and mic drops. Couple this with people constantly being distracted while driving, age related cognitive decline, along with age related muscle/coordination loss, and I can absolutely fathom it.
A decade ago, my mother who must have been in her 50s showed up at home with a traffic cone lodged in her rear driverside wheelwell, having no idea it was there.
Remember, people who don't live here:
Our rails are almost all shut down, public transit is a joke in all but a few small areas, roads are dangerous to bike or walk on with many not even having a shoulder let alone a reasoable place for traffic that isn't motorized.
You slmost have to have a car here, by incredibly shitty design.
And then the cars, now...
Between the fact that nobody makes a decent car anymore, they all fall apart just about the time your lease is up so you can't even own one only sign eternal contracts for landfill bait, all of them spy on you, and have beacons that are tracked by countless parts of our surveillence capitalism infrastructure on top of sending their own reports on you to the automaker who then sells it to anyone ad everyone, insurance is insanely expensive, and now gas is nuts, as well... And if you have a diesel?
I don't own a car anymore, and am not in an area with passable public transit. I have one chance a week, insanely early in the morning, to catch a buss for an eight hour trip that would take one by car to get to a hub... Which doesn't even have decent local transit for the town, but does have a meeting of interstates so you can catch other busses to other cities. At leaast those city connections run at least once a day instead of a week.
I have one chance a week, insanely early in the morning, to catch a buss for an eight hour trip that would take one by car to get to a hub
I know what's that like. I was carless for two years in a suburb that had an express bus into the city that you could catch one of two times in the morning and one of two times home in the afternoon. If I had to work overtime I had to beg coworkers for rides.
Being near the streetcar was a big part of why I moved where I did when I had the chance, but not everyone has that privilege these days. (And lucky me, my parents have been "borrowing" my car for two years.)
The sweet spot for cars is early 2000s, like 2005. Still analog enough to be cheap to repair but with relatively modern luxuries. Thankfully I got rid of the truck and got a car it just sips gas. An 8 hour road trip takes like $50 in gas even at around $4 per gallon.
I prefer going back to the 60s and 70s, but when you do that fule efficiency drops my a huge amount, to have something affordable to drive regularly you'll need a 4 cylinder from that time period.
Of course I only really use a vehicle for hauling things, so it has to be a V8, but on the bright side the big trucks that could haul massive loads from back then are actually smaller than the "Never leave the pavement, and if you carry more than groceries your warranty is void" trucks they sell now.
I was far below the average gas use when I had that big F-550 than the American average because I used it for what it was needed for, or to drive down the highway and park so I could pull out my bike and ride from there once I was past the "Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!" stretch of road.
The fuel efficiency dips but so does the internal safety. Those old cars have a nasty tendency to crush your legs in a fairly mild collision, not to mention the head trauma from every surface before side and curtain airbags.
Other than crash safety back then I won't disagree with you. But I've never owned a car from that time period so I don't know what it's like. 94 is as old as it gets for me, but the highest it gets is 2009. I will absolutely agree with your stance on modern trucks not actually being used for hauling or towing and how dangerously large they are. It's more dangerous to not have a large vehicle these days. And I'm assuming that stretch of road was spine crushing with no load? Sounds like something you only do once or twice.
Every time I visit the US, I travel by train and bus and bicycle and walking.
This is misinformation.
This is the same kind of "I KNOW BETTER!" fuckery Europeans call American tourists out on.
Remember that the United States is larger than the entierity of Europe if you don't count Russia, and comperable if you do.
YMMV, and I'd wager most visitors are in ideal locations more often than not, so you see the best we have to offer... Unless it's Florida, of course.
I also spend $100 a month for internet that often caps at 100k, that's the speed of a dial-up shotgun modem from the 90s, tell me how your gigabit fiber in your hotel is cheaper and faster because the city you are in must reflect the conditions of the entire nation.
If you live in a shitty place, move.
Ofc its a fucking hit and run too like what the fuck. We remember people out here being like “ban cars? You don’t mean outright right? Haha” no we mean it, we hate cars, ban them we hate them so fucking much dude. Yeah there’s a time or place for them but there needs to be proper safe routes for pedestrians and bikers and cars need to be straight up banned in certain areas.
Ps: all our thoughts and care to the family, really sorry for your son. He was doing what he loved.
Cars need to be considered second class transport on the road, especially in urban areas.
Part of the reason surface transit sucks so much here in Toronto is that for some retarded reason they make it so LRTs have to wait for cars to pass at intersections, where it slows them down so much people can reach their destination quicker if they run.
Yeah in reality, pedestrians > bike’s/other small personal riders > public transit > small commercial riders (think mail couriers/small delivery) > mopeds/bikes (with heavily enforced legal noise and pollution limits) > cars (with heavily enforced noise and pollution limits) and most if not all residential streets: cars are not allowed or are maxed at 10km/h.
But in our heart, no cars at all thanks 💖 bring us trams, trains bikes and walking parks babyyyy
A train or a bus transports way more people than walking or biking and has less ability to stop.
Train>bus>commercial trucks>bicycles>ebikes>pedestrians> motorcycles>LSVs>>>>cars
Ah mb got the pedestrian mixed up, though bikes should watch out for pedestrians in mid use and pedestrians should watch out for bikes in mix lanes/bike lanes. Though commercial trucks should be in same place as normal cars imo (but sowed in mixed use areas only at certain times like early morning/night)
What a pure-hearted dream, crushed by the worst country in the world. Of course it would happen in Kansas.
Forest Gump was a lie :/
We let 82 year olds drive
We force them to drive. So long as we have a car-dependent infrastructure and few if any affordable alternatives, you're advocating for elderly people to require family or money to be able to navigate the world around them, which is not really a great stance to take.
That does not require this situation to be the case of required driving, but a rule which prohibits elderly people from driving means that we have to anticipate how it will effect people that could not get around otherwise; disabled people deal with this all the time, and they're pretty much abandoned.
It's sad, but yeah they and their families need to suffer the consequences of car centric hell, taking away the licenses of people too old to notice they killed someone, and start taking meaningful action to remedy this situation. Unfortunately no one will change a thing of they don't face consequences.
I think it is a very Lemmy response to say, "well yeah, but it's more reasonable to punish innocent people who have few or no options so that people feel bad enough to fix things."
As I said, disabled people are still often disqualified from driving, there are physical requirements for driving that disqualifies many elderly people. Guess what happens to people who don't have family to support them.
You're from Canada? This is from thirteen fucking years ago: https://www.cbc.ca/...
Is it fixed?
Oh, and before you act like that isn't relevant: https://www.kslegislature.gov/...
"The one who is always the most surprised is the one whose needs were met."
I think you're strawmanning a bit with that "punishment talk" and treating things like they are mutually exclusive when they are not.
I literally just read an old lady (article about upcoming municipal elections) commenting that the city went too far with bike lanes and bus stops. Society keeps catering to old people drivers, who in turn vote against better alternatives; fucking/running us all over.
We have restricted licences in Australia, where through their GP reporting changes in circumstances or failure to pass an aged driving tests they can have a limited radius / areas they are allowed to drive (say supermarket, close relatives, gp, activities).
It does put a bit of a rock and a hard place for some folks, but it's a much better option than having no licence.
The fitness to drive test scheme is well executed, is not required to be held at a service centre (via trained 3rd parties) and let's most maintain their mobility.
In the US, they have golf carts, some communities plan for them, even giving thrm special roads, but they're often banned on higher speed roads, which you need to get anywhere. Here in vietnam, 82 year olds mostly ride 49cc scooters.
We let humans drive a mass greater than they could physically keep from rolling down a slight incline at speeds faster than they can see, around other vulnerable human beings, just because they want to. No need to bring ageism into this. That's just a way of assuring yourself you are a safe driver, that this couldn't happen to you. You're not and it could. No one is a safe driver.
Of course an suv. People and their big vehicles thinking they're untouchable and in their private house with no one looking in.
Also, visibility is worse.
I watched as Chad Caruso skateboarded the US and I was scared for him the entire way. It's such a huge gamble.
It really is.
I've had cars going the other way on a road slow down to yell at and intimidate me, even though I'm on the other side of the road and observing traffic laws. I wear a motorcycle helmet, in part, for fear that one day one of these nutjobs will throw something at me. The entitlement is absolutely bonkers.
I was on my bicycle one time, on a road that was plenty wide enough for a car to pass me with the required minimum space of four feet while staying in their lane. A car passed me going way farther to the left of me than they needed to, forcing a van that was coming in the opposite direction to pull over to the curb and stop. As he passed me, the van driver stuck himself halfway out his window and started yelling at me "you're gonna get somebody killed!" Asshole, go yell at the driver of the other car, I didn't do shit. And all that happened is it took you an extra five seconds to get to the red light.
Where I live, 99.9% of drivers are cool and give cyclists plenty of room. But that 0.1% means I'm probably risking my life every time I go for a ride.
Motorists do love to yell that, ironically, when they should be paying attention to the road.
Yeah I cycle every day and most of the time everybody's cool I'm cool you're cool we're all cool, but maybe once a month I see someone in a car do something absolutely car brained, like they forget they can take out a family with 1/16th a rotation of their steering wheel at the wrong time.
I mean I drive on occasion, I know how easy it is to be stupid in a car.
When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike to go places.. on the sidewalk, and I'd still, as a kid have people angrily shout at me for riding a bike, and on multiple occasions, people even swerve through the 3 feet of verge towards me on the sidewalk, I dont know if they were trying to scare me or if they were actually trying to hit me, but it left enough of an imprint on me to not what to be anywhere near the road when i'm not in a car.
Cause people in cars are absolutely psychopathic towards non-cars. Not all of them, but enough of them are that it makes you fear all of them.
Maybe if we had decent public transport, we could take away elderly licenses without restricting their freedom.
I drive through Saline county regularly. A decent chunk of their tax revenue comes from erroneous traffic tickets. I don't think Salina has A bus, not to mention about 10% of the population is rural, as it sounds like this woman was.
There was a Spanish actor who biked from Spain to Rome as part of some doc and he got hit pretty badly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvojIfdmSR8
In France, obviously.
This is horrible... but also somehow even more sad that I would have totally expected this. Trying to go cross country on rollerblades in the US is akin to entering a warzone with a target on your back. This country is not friendly to non-car commuters. I live in a dense suburb with some bikelanes and its bad enough, so I cannot imagine what its like in places with huge stroads and highways running through town. You can barely cross a street let alone travel on rollerblades or bikes...
Same. I'm fortunate that there are a ton of residential roads I can use to get where I'm going, and in the main city corridor there are bike lanes protected (mostly) by curbs, but I've had dozens of cars just stray into my bike lane when pulling out of McDonald's or trying to cross a main road, and culturally, I'm well aware that it's on me to make sure I'm the on ensuring my safety and not the asshole behind the two-ton death machine.
and the public....
The american oublic has known about this setup for like a decade....and....there have been no substantial actions substantiated by the american public to change this.
Nothing is substantial unless it is substantiated.
I've been to Saline County, Kansas. That's an especially shitty place to die.
The only thing I like about Salina is their roller derby team.
Ironic.
"Hey Derby Team! Just a heads up! The roller rink and parking lot is closed for renovations so we'll be practising on a nearby street and- .... youre all quitting at once?...Why?"
Did this guy really get from NYC to Kansas in 22 days? Dude was haulin' ass. That's about 64mi/103km per day.
When I was a teenager, I once rollerbladed 25 miles in a day and my feet were very unhappy about it. The constant, violent vibrations of the asphalt make it hard not to get blisters and stuff.
I assume they have touring blades
I heard of a dude who cycled from Ukraine to Nepal and the only thing that happened to him was that he was kidnapped by taliban (they released him when they realised he's broke) no other major accidents
Say what you will about the taliban, but at least they have a ethos. American motorists? Nothin'!
I wouldn't walk, roller blade, or ride a two wheel vehicle of any sort on a public road here. People will hit a parked car and say it came out of no where. We'll give anyone a license and in some cases without a driving test.
I spend a fair bit of time in 'Murica
There is an entertainment area about a twenty minute walk away from where I stay
I'd happily walk it, but it's genuinely unwise to do so, so I end up taking ubers
It's something that I find disappointing
The amount of misplaced courage thst a person from the ages of 16-30 has would shock even the gods themselves.
Poor kid though. R.I.P. he picked the super wrong country to attempt this in.
I don't understand why people keep trying to achieve this. We have had several similar stories of people attempting cycling across the US:
It also seems that the major cause of death for American competitive cyclesports athletes are getting killed by car while training:
Are you blaming the victims here? It sure feels like you're trying to blame the victims.
It's no different than, say, seeing a lot of people die climbing Everest and asking why people still do that. Cause of death, and fault, are irrelevant to the reaction of "hey this is dangerous, maybe don't do it"
The difference is that climbing Everest is inherently dangerous by nature. And there's a ton of things being done to mitigate these dangers.
American infrastructure being dangerous is carried by its design. And yet little is being done to mitigate these issues despite the fact that we very much know how to do that.
Everest will always be dangerous. Traffic should not be.
...Well then if the average american KNOWS that it is so dangerous to have their infrastructure designed as it is.... whrre is the frequent , substantial, disruptive uproar from the americans about this topic?
You think that politicians , and billionaires who run the american economy care about a small set of scattered peaceful protests here and there? Ha!
The same can be asked about all other regions that have such needless car-centric infrastruture too....
Therefore we CAN victim blame here. Because the victims are knowledgable of how nonsensical and self-destructive their eveeyday-used infrastructure is....and yet....they do nothing MASSIVE or substantial to force change!
NOTHING is substantial unless it is substantiated.
I think there's a big difference between cycling and climbing Everest. One is something people might do every day just to get by, and the other is an exploitative ritual carried out by the wealthy. You think these cyclists died just because they were going so far? What happened to them could have happened to anyone in that time and place on any given day. We only noticed because they were doing something noteworthy at the time. How many others died similarly but didn't get noticed because they weren't on a publicity stunt? Should we not care about them just because of the stunters? About all the people who have to cross any given busy street on any given day?
The cathedral of St John does an annual "blessing of the bicycles", where they read out the names of the people killed riding bikes in nyc that year. When I went it was like 90% Hispanic names, because yeah, most of the miles and therefore most of the risk is borne by delivery people. They don't make national press.
It is different because Everest is Everest, but roads are not supposed to fucking be like that. Driving is a god damn privilege - it literally says so in any driving instruction manual. Walking is a right. It is absolutely every motorists responsibility to exercise the utmost caution to prevent these kinds of accidents, and the fact y'all so routinely fail in this basic fucking responsibility is why drastic reforms are needed, and the majority of people do not deserve to drive, period.
Ban the shit. We need to get the ugly monstrosities out of cities full stop.
Because people should be able to move freely? Why are you blaming the victim?
I ride my bicycle from one end of my rural state to the other every year, because I like gravel touring and it allows me to experience the world in a more direct and authentic way.
If some asshole in a truck kills me while I'm out doing this, please shut the fuck up about how I had it coming, 'kay?
Edit: The more I read about this, the more awful it is. He was hit by an 82 year old woman who left him to die in a fucking ditch.
She told police she "thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, and didn't see anything so she went home." How is that an acceptable defense? She probably won't even face charges. It just makes me so angry.
dude how the fuck did terry fox run across canada ? canada is just as car-centric as the usa and Im guessing it was just as car centric back when he ran than it is now.
Large chunks he was either directly followed by police cars or by his support team in a car. Plus once he really go going the media hype meant everyone knew.
0 chance that could be repeated today here.
when it comes to our transportation infrastructure in some parts of canada? TRUST ME we are MORE murican than muricans lol
oh I didnt even know about that aspect of the story. Thank TIL.
It feels weird comparing this to Cairn, a climbing game I just played.
Everyone tells Aava “There is about a 95% chance of you dying climbing this mountain. And there’s nothing at the top.” She still does it, and it feels like a remarkable achievement against nature. Yet any achievement on US Highways just feels kind of gross by comparison.
God... Like the fruit dude! Like the gad damn fruit! Orange 🍊. Dolly Parton was way not orange. But just focus on the color. You can do it. I know you probably want to meet other famous people and such. But right now we would love for you to meet with the orange guy. Cmon, please!
Had nothing at all to do with an 82 year old driving an SUV. Nope, blame the guy doing a version of what many people have done successfully.
Typical American, refuses to blame infrastructure even when it's killing people. Instead it's stupid to try and exist outside without a car.
Oh no… media addicted narcissist kills himself for upvotes by doing something dangerous and ill advised? What? Again? I’m shocked!
(HUGE condolences to his loved ones. Seriously — this is a tragedy. I don’t blame cars. I blame this system that rewards narcissism plus risk. No thanks. I’m out. Again — if you are a grieving family member seeing this, I am so sorry for your loss.)
“Media addicted narcissist” it’s just a guy who liked roller blading
Gets hit by a 80+ year old in an SUV, and you're equating it to "kills himself" - what a braindead take.
What in the victim blaming bullshit are you on about?
The villains here, in order of culpability are:
The old lady who kept driving years or decades after she really should have turned in the keys
The political class that continues to enshrine motornormativity and treat all methods of transport other than ecocidal narcissism as less-than.
The culture of the US, created by carbrained assholes
Absolutely not in any way the person killed by the assholes listed above for trying to do something fun and interesting.
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@lemmy.world
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
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Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
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For some reason its normal this lady can drive. Yep, sure thing, we'd help you open a door for worry of your frailty but you can totally chuck an 8 ton hunk of metal down the road.
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