I’m mostly but not 100% in agreement. There are plenty of times in the normal course of driving where the law says one thing but pragmatism says another. Perfect enforcement and perfect obeyance of the letter of the law would result in massive massive increases in traffic.
An easy example is someone stopping as far left as they can to make a left turn against oncomming traffic, in a one lane street during traffic. Convention states, if there’s enough room to pass this driver, do so as he may have to wait for a while. The law states you cannot pass on a single lane road. In perfect enforcement land, we just get a ton more traffic as this happens all the time to everyone.
I don’t consider an increase in traffic a problem. You want to drive a car that pollutes the earth and kills people, you fucking sit in traffic. Deal with it. Don’t like it? Get a bicycle.
Another thing to keep in mind regarding traffic. If we had perfect enforcement of reasonable driving laws, many many many people would be completely banned from driving. That includes most of us, definitely Rym, maybe even me. Also, the driving test would be much more difficult and many people wouldn’t be able to get licenses in the first place. Having so many fewer cars on the road would reduce traffic by an incredible amount.
Again, the reality of people commuting in NYC doesn’t translate worldwide. To put it simply - China doesn’t give a fuck. Personal experience in Korea and Vietnam also indicates that they don’t give a fuck.
I want people to respect cyclists! I travel ~2000km per annum on my bike. I don’t want to die! I’ve never felt safer than when cycling in Japan. In Florida…not so much.
Driving tests SHOULD be more difficult! There was a body shop across the the street from my high school for a reason.
Any time I talk to people from outside the US, they’re surprised at how little it costs to get a license. It costs ~3000 RMB (~$500) in China) to get a license. In Japan it’s ~ ¥;300.000 (~$3k)… (That driving test cost is ~100x the cost to get a broken arm set btw). It costs $45 to get a Florida license.
The high cost of taking the driving test is good for discouraging people from taking the test unprepared. It’s bad because it is unfair to low income people who need cars. A very difficult driving test that is free to take would be much better. Even a homeless person could take the test, and even a rich person who can’t drive could fail.
I’m talking like, very hard test. Weaving between cones and shit. Touch a cone, you fail. GG.
I want more difficult driving tests! Licenses are cost prohibitive in China, but Chinese drivers are terrifying! I felt safer crossing the street in Hanoi than I do anywhere in China.
Test ideals and standards don’t mean anything if nobody is held to them.
The poor won’t have access to training or classes, and in practice won’t be able to pass regardless of how free the test itself is.
Even if you make training and classes free as well, they’d need the time to practice and learn. That opportunity cost is negligible for the wealthy and insurmountable for the poor.
This is slightly tangential, but almost everyone I know who has found out, has been absolutely fucking stunned to discover that I’ve never had a traffic ticket or fine of any kind. No speeding fines, no moving violations, not even so much as a parking ticket, my driving record is so squeaky clean you could perform surgery with it.
Of course, this is absolutely a matter of skill and luck in not getting caught, rather than a matter of being a perfect follower of traffic laws, but still, people tend to be genuinely shocked.
Not to mention that a poor person will likely have a front wheel drive car that understeers at higher speeds. My 2002 Honda Civic badly understeers if I’m not careful with its speed. Rich person has the advantage of a better car too.
I have one and it’s the stupidest ever. I paid for the parking of the car next to mine in the lot and didn’t pay my own. Parking violation. As I paid it (by cheque so it passed through human hands) I also included the paid receipt for the adjacent spot.
I must admit, I did get away with a shocking amount of illegal parking, because I’d park my van - with my toolbox in the back, some empty boxes with a painter’s drop-cloth thrown over them, and my hi-vis on the back of the passenger seat - right next to the closest construction site to where I was going. Never got a ticket from it.
One time, I came back to find a note on my windshield from a site foreman, basically saying(though this is not verbatim, it was some time ago) “Hey mate, the bombers came by to hit you, but we waved them of and said you were one of our contractors, park here as much as you like because fuck the pigs let them get their quota somewhere else”
I observed court for school in my rural county, and there was a 65 ish year old man in front of the judge who had been stopped and cited for driving without a valid license. It came to light -through a rambling rant about tbe government and registries and OBUMMER - that this man had been driving for FIFTY YEARS with no license. He had NEVER held a license. He had also never been further from the house he was born in than the closest city (about 40 minutes away) in his entire life.
That said, I guarantee you that I have a driver’s license. I’m pretty sure multiple people in the PAX AUS crew have seen me taking it out more than once.
