• Zephorah@discuss.online
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    3 hours ago

    A vehicle is 3000lb bullet. If you’re not competent, or irresponsible with chemicals, then everyone on the road is at risk.

    No one likes picking up body parts on a road or extracting what is basically meat from a vehicle. Or meeting people who should’ve had a norm as l life and are now paralyzed from the neck down. Or, alternatively, a TBI. Broken neuro wiring like someone took an egg beater to sections of their brain, leaving them just save enough to know they’re fucked up.

    That isn’t a privilege. Competency should be required with 3000lb bullets.

    I don’t disagree that better mass transit is needed in some cities, but that doesn’t mean we hand drivers licenses to incompetent or irresponsible people.

    • elephantium@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      that doesn’t mean we hand drivers licenses to incompetent or irresponsible people.

      Judging by the way people drive in my city, that’s exactly what it means :(

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      A vehicle is 3000lb bullet

      How fast do you think bullets move?

      No one likes picking up body parts on a road or extracting what is basically meat from a vehicle.

      You could make the same argument about train derailments or plane crashes.

      That’s not what is at issue. Virtually nobody is seriously suggesting we de-industrialize transit.

      The problem at hand is profit motive. Personal vehicles force people into debt, both directly through purchase and through secondary demands - parking, gasoline, maintenance. That’s what generates the economic pressure that keeps them in place.

      If we were fixated on safety, we could make cars smaller and slower and we could shield pedestrians from them with infrastructure. You’d save far more lives by lowering the speed limit than raising the DMV licensing standards.

      that doesn’t mean we hand drivers licenses to incompetent or irresponsible people

      People aren’t consistently competent or responsible. So you either install some kind of panopticon for drivers (the private insurance model) and try to price people you suspect are high risk out of your personal risk pool. Or you get people out of cars entirely, knowing anyone can have a day that makes them highly prone to driving mistakes.

      • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        So you either install some kind of panopticon for drivers

        This is what they’re doing. New cars will use cameras and sensors to determine impairment and then refuse to start.