Every day without fail there is an accident on the road I take to work. Usually at night. I sometimes have to take the back roads because one time, when passing by an accident, the authorities had not yet swept up the glass and I had to get a new tire. Another time, I got to the intersection in a school zone and I thought I was safely away from the main road. Nope. Some asshole who got there after me ran through the stop sign at around 40 mph, and I caught it just in time to back up when I was trying to exercise my right of way.
Sometimes they put little wooden crosses on the side of the road to mark the area where someone died. My guess is, if they did that for every accident on that stretch of road, the roadside would just be full of little crosses like an American WWI cemetery.
I think the saddest auto accidents for me to hear about was when I learned a kid I went to high school with died in a crash. He was supposed to graduate that year. I knew his mother, who was a teacher at the school and an overall nice person, and I met the guy a couple of times. I used to grade his papers as a TA too. It’s just devastating to think someone is cut down like that without getting to see the wide breadths and deep depths of life. Plus the sort of horrible grief his mother probably went through. Nobody should ever have to go through that.
a girl i went to high school with was in a car crash just a year after graduation. coma for over a month, severe brain damage. major cognitive impairments and requiring constant at home care from her parents, one of whom died after about a decade of doing that. everything about the aftermath is emotionally crushing.
sometimes it feels like one of the great riddles of improving and lengthening my life is trying to structure it so that i don’t have to drive much at all.
hate to be a spoilsport but it’s more to not be around cars. you can walk or cycle fine and that saves you from some heart problems but it does usually highly increase the chance some moron is going to kill you
i guess I should clarify that I am not looking to have a 60 minute pedestrian commute alongside a road either. that’s why it’s a puzzle and not a simple substitution. I have been pedestrian-ing for several years now and know/experience the risks with open eyes.
by “not driving” I mean, not having a car/car adjacent commute. I mean being far removed from cars for many/most days of the week. i.e. living where I work, where I mostly eat/kitchen gardening, etc, having near access to passenger rail for longer distance trips.
Damn that sucks. One of my dad’s friends nearly killed himself on a dirt bike because he sped out of his driveway and forgot to take the chain down that blocked it. Clotheslined himself at like 40 mph
I had a friend killed in an auto accident and another one barely made it through a crash caused by a drunk driver.
I also knew a guy who completely destroyed his new sports car through reckless driving and somehow was both completely unscathed, and completely paid out by the insurance company.
if theres one thing you do well its gotta be roads. they all look clean and are so wide i can’t fathom how or why mortality is so high for traffic accidents in the us. your cars are all packed with airbags and safety stuff too.
Every day without fail there is an accident on the road I take to work. Usually at night. I sometimes have to take the back roads because one time, when passing by an accident, the authorities had not yet swept up the glass and I had to get a new tire. Another time, I got to the intersection in a school zone and I thought I was safely away from the main road. Nope. Some asshole who got there after me ran through the stop sign at around 40 mph, and I caught it just in time to back up when I was trying to exercise my right of way.
Sometimes they put little wooden crosses on the side of the road to mark the area where someone died. My guess is, if they did that for every accident on that stretch of road, the roadside would just be full of little crosses like an American WWI cemetery.
If they planted a tree instead of little crosses there would be green belts all across america.
well, there’d be little stumps from the brush cutter anyhow
DOT can’t let us have nice things
need that clear recovery zone brah otherwise good things might happen
if you suggested a car insurance ad instead you’d be hired as a marketing expert
deleted by creator
I think the saddest auto accidents for me to hear about was when I learned a kid I went to high school with died in a crash. He was supposed to graduate that year. I knew his mother, who was a teacher at the school and an overall nice person, and I met the guy a couple of times. I used to grade his papers as a TA too. It’s just devastating to think someone is cut down like that without getting to see the wide breadths and deep depths of life. Plus the sort of horrible grief his mother probably went through. Nobody should ever have to go through that.
a girl i went to high school with was in a car crash just a year after graduation. coma for over a month, severe brain damage. major cognitive impairments and requiring constant at home care from her parents, one of whom died after about a decade of doing that. everything about the aftermath is emotionally crushing.
sometimes it feels like one of the great riddles of improving and lengthening my life is trying to structure it so that i don’t have to drive much at all.
hate to be a spoilsport but it’s more to not be around cars. you can walk or cycle fine and that saves you from some heart problems but it does usually highly increase the chance some moron is going to kill you
i guess I should clarify that I am not looking to have a 60 minute pedestrian commute alongside a road either. that’s why it’s a puzzle and not a simple substitution. I have been pedestrian-ing for several years now and know/experience the risks with open eyes.
by “not driving” I mean, not having a car/car adjacent commute. I mean being far removed from cars for many/most days of the week. i.e. living where I work, where I mostly eat/kitchen gardening, etc, having near access to passenger rail for longer distance trips.
meanwhile companies are puzzled why people don’t want to risk their lives to come into the office.
One of my childhood friends and first girl I ever kissed was killed by a drunk driver in a hit and run.
My dad’s best friend died with three other people in the car when he crashed off a bridge driving drunk in high school in the 70s.
I’m literally only here because my dad happened to be busy that evening.
Damn that sucks. One of my dad’s friends nearly killed himself on a dirt bike because he sped out of his driveway and forgot to take the chain down that blocked it. Clotheslined himself at like 40 mph
I had a friend killed in an auto accident and another one barely made it through a crash caused by a drunk driver.
I also knew a guy who completely destroyed his new sports car through reckless driving and somehow was both completely unscathed, and completely paid out by the insurance company.
i don’t get how you guys die so much on the road.
if theres one thing you do well its gotta be roads. they all look clean and are so wide i can’t fathom how or why mortality is so high for traffic accidents in the us. your cars are all packed with airbags and safety stuff too.