I’m sure that anyone in the US who has to negotiate travel near, in, or around cars as noticed that our gas prices finally catching up to what they’ve always been in Europe has completely broken the brains of a significant portion of drivers on the road. Every time I’ve traveled around town over the past few days, save for the light rail, I’ve experienced at least one trauma-inducing brush with death at the hands of someone who’s budget apparently depended on those 5 extra dollars they’re now spending on their commute, and has begun driving like Cruella De Ville as a result.
Just now I was nearly run over in a crosswalk less than a block from my house by a driver who looked left, looked right, looked left, and only just then saw me waving my arms and literally yelling to get his attention (I gave him a thumbs up after he heel-toed from the gas to the brake at last moment).
I drove across town to pick up some heavy stuff from my girlfriend earlier, which puts me on the highway for one exit. Which is long enough for me to have a brush with death, the literal split second between looking at my right mirror and then looking forward while changing lanes (Signal already on of course) was enough time for a sedan to materialize and zoom past me while blaring his horn, rather than slow he passed in the shoulder a full 30MPH faster than traffic.
I’m in Portland OR where typically nobody ever uses their horn unless there’s an actual emergency. That veil of kindness has been vaporized these past few weeks, and the honking is now a continuous song of rage-induced impotency.
Fam I am done with cars. No more. Can we be through with them, please? Mine is gonna stay parked for now I think but even as a cyclist or pedestrian I am getting a whiff of death every fucking time and it’s just not OK. Post your anecdotes of gas price crazies over the past few weeks, get it off your chest. Literally this is PTSD therapy, you almost died.
I try and assume everyone driving like an asshole has to poop so freaking bad and they’re trying to make it before shitting themselves. Makes it a lot easier to give their terrible driving some grace
The truth is most of them aren’t even in a real hurry, it’s human nature to want to drive like an asshole, and many if not most never mastered their emotions with reason as such to prevent indulging being reckless.
I don’t think it’s human nature to want to drive like an asshole, but cars remove most of the interpersonal nuance from social encounters that makes other humans relatable while putting them in control of large, easily lethal machinery.