Every year i read about a bunch of people dying horribly on the roads and being stuck out there in the middle of winter to the point that emergency services have to distribute water and blankets, as everyone crams onto the same 5 roads during christmas.
Meanwhile the worst that happens on public transport is being stuck for an hour or two on a relatively comfortable train that probably even has toilets.deleted by creator
Meanwhile Australia is like “Hold my beer, cunts” while it drinks the anti-migration, pro-mining no revenue coolaid.
Yes, but the automobile industry does not want you to know that. The same auto industry that made crossing the road at any non-90° angle a crime.
You are afraid of public transit because of inflated crime statistics.
I am afraid of public transit because I was late for the bus in kindergarten and got run over chasing it.
We are not the same.
Public transit isnt generally dangerous.
It just generally sucks. Depending on where you have to go and the public means to get there, it can take hours to get somewhere that takes 15-20 minutes by car.
Almost as if its intentionally designed to encourage car ownership.
…only because it has other Americans on it.
As a Taiwanese, I have a perception that the US is dangerous, with lots of drug users and gun shots, and even in schools. Is that stereotype or fact?
There are lots of drug users, and lots of gun shots, and yes even in schools
But I feel you’re vastly underestimating the size of the US.
There’s a lot of nuance. I’ve lived in a major west coast city for years and I never heard any gunshots in public. Drug users are sometimes visible, it seems to be less common in recent years but you can see it at times. I suppose it depends on what you mean by “drug users”, cannabis is legal in my state and its pretty common to see in public but no one really cares about that, to me “drug users” means hard stuff like fentanyl.
Violent gun crime is a real problem and it is much worse in other parts of the country. Most of the time it isn’t random. There are still mass shootings and random violent crime. I assume Taiwan is much safer. I’ve never been robbed or witnessed any serious violent crime in my 30+ years living here.
Meh, close ‘nuff
Personal experience and thus anecdotal I know, but the light rail line I used to take for work has had issues to say the least. A coworker ended up murdered in one of the more secluded stations two years ago. I’ve personally had a taser pulled on my face only to find out the guy was trying to sell it. All the cars reek of piss and I’ve seen someone having a mental health crisis try to peel off the thin padding off one of the seats.
I really want public transit to work but it does require a firm hand to keep people in line and safe in such enclosed areas. It’s one of the few venues I’d actually welcome some increased security and fare enforcement in.
Those issues aren’t intrinsic to the situation, the solutions are rooted in better social services and education, so people aren’t struggling with untreated issues to begin with.
I almost puked while this 40 something yr old Asian women across from me on the subway methodically peeled skin off of her bare feet.
Everyone banded together and threw her off at the next stop, right?
it is, but its quite inadequete in many parts of the country. and quite limited in well “funded” areas. also the distates for HSR. also covid made people forget how to drive safely.
I’d rather have some dude freak out at me on the bus than behind the wheel of a multi-ton death machine
Safe depending on how the bus driver feels that day. Safe depending on how that Uber driver feels that day.
Also some Uber drivers have this fucked up mindset like cab drivers used to have, that because they’re doing a job they have some kind of priority over traffic and sometimes try to cut traffic or speed.
Busses I swear your safety with how the driver may be is dependent on how their mood is and you know what no one thinks of, is your safety isn’t guaranteed with other passengers. There’s always, ALWAYS!!! One ride a week that will have some crazy ass fucker in it.
The train is more like, I hope the weather doesn’t derail this and how the fuck is the weight limit not exceeded.
When in reality the only vehicles that genuinely have any priority in any traffic setting are the Ambulances/EMS Vehicles, Police/Law Enforcement Vehicles and Fire Trucks.
Other than that it’s not so bad, I don’t mind it.
This made me think of this story:
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/why-was-he-using-a-wheelchair-in-the-1st-place/1879349/
You’re not going to die. You are going to get sick, you’re going to be exposed to that 1:10,000 people that are doing something truly awful within eyesight. You’re going to be late. You’re going to spend a lot of time waiting for a ride without any idea who long it’s going to be. You’re probably going to have to change transports multiple times.
And all this assumes you’re in the urban sprawl or the burbs.
Even rural US public transit isn’t that bad, be more skeptical of the propaganda.
It’s not propaganda, There is no bus service within 5 miles of my house.
At my old house I rode the light-rail for 6 months before I gave up and replaced my dead car.
… Where did distance to transit come from? That wasn’t part of the initial comment I responded to, I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up.
Even rural US public transit isn’t that bad,
5 miles from a bus is considerably bad for public transit imo.
Sure, and if you’d said that instead of the classist propaganda lines you went with I might not have called it out, but… You didn’t. And you keep trying to bring it up afterwards instead of addressing the actual criticism, which is kinda weird.
You’re not going to die.
You are going to get sick,
you’re going to be exposed to that 1:10,000 people that are doing something truly awful within eyesight.
You’re going to be late.
You’re going to spend a lot of time waiting for a ride without any idea who long it’s going to be.
You’re probably going to have to change transports multiple times.
And all this assumes you’re in the urban sprawl or the burbs.
Every single point stands perfectly well on its own for anyone who’s relied on public transportation in the US for an exptended period of time. Even in our pinnacle of subways NYC, The same shit happens. It happens in DC. It’s not every day, but it’s certainly not rare.
Personally, I find calling that out as propaganda kinda weird.
Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly the classist propaganda I was talking about.
“You’re going to be late.” well maybe? My local transit is good to ±5min on all but the most notorious routes, and in the city proper the light rail is pretty much always bang on time. I’ll grant you it exposes you to more people and thus you have a higher chance of getting sick, but especially post-covid cabin air is filtered and you just need to like, bring hand sanitizer? The fearmongering about 1:10,000 people doing something “truly awful” thing is just straight BS - I’ve taken transit my entire life and the worst I’ve seen is someone getting thrown off the bus for yelling too loud out the window.
Every single point stands perfectly well on its own for anyone who’s relied on public transportation in the US for an exptended period of time.
You’re taking your own experience and assuming it’s representative of everyone’s experience - and it’s not. You’re also repeating the same BS that gets brought out any time public transit is portrayed in media, or when the topic of budgets are brought up. It’s largely fearmongering. Obviously it changes drastically by region - the transit systems in rural alabama are likely not as nice as on the coasts, but the part that’s propaganda is how impressions are taken from the most tragically underfunded systems and used to paint all transit systems like that, and that you’re asserting them as definitely and always going to be true, which is just horseshit. You’re repeating are the same tired lines that get rolled out during budget season, and it’s just… exhausting to see it repeated even within extremely liberal spaces like lemmy.
I know we all like to think we’re an exception, but the cat really is never wrong.
Side note:
Personally, I find calling that out as propaganda kinda weird.
A depressing commentary on the state of the country. But it got you to address the criticism, so I’m not sure it’s a great thing to try and turn around “no u” style.
Absolutely true. My city had a very violent incident occur a couple years ago on the bus, and it is still brought up now as to why busses are unsafe. Meanwhile you can ask any of these people how many people died this week on the highways/driving and they have no idea. Busses feel unsafe because of personal perceptions, while driving feels safer because it’s what you’re used to. Feelings though are not facts.
Just like roller coasters. They seem dangerous because the 3-4 deaths a year are covered with a wild amount of attention.
I wish I could take a roller coaster to work.
That’s just a train isn’t it?
Yes, but more thrilling!
Try the M2 metro in Lausanne, it’s steep enough to basically be a roller coaster haha
People don’t like giving up control. But the fact of the matter is that giving up control of a vehicle to a professional who drives for a living is way safer than doing it yourself. (I have family who refuse to fly and I’ve had this conversation before.)
i love the control and freedom of having to spend all my attention on not killing anyone, making sure other drivers don’t kill me, paying tolls to use the fastest routes, being tracked everywhere I go, paying tons in taxes to maintain all these roads and subsidize fuel, and being forced to drive so every time i want to leave my home even if i don’t feel like it. /s
Yep have a family member like that. They think it’s safer. I’ve also seen them drive while using a cell phone and have argued with me that “its cool man I only had a couple in fine to drive”
Same with air travel. No matter how you slice the statistics air travel is so much safer than pretty much anything else. Only trains are close.
Yet an unsignificant percentage of people have a fear of flying, but almost no one has a fear of driving/passenger.
Different kinds of danger. It’s the same reason why a shark feels more threatening than your steering wheel or a bottle of beer; our brains are not good at recognising abstract threats. If you see a disorderly drunk guy one time on the train and felt threatened, your amygdala will remember that literally forever
nothing abstract about being cut off by an F150 or SUV crossing 3 lanes of traffic to take an exit at the last minute
True. But most of the time people feel pretty safe driving, safe enough to fall asleep while hurtling down the highway at 110kmph (70mph)
that only tells me that most people haven’t evolved past primal instincts, and again is feelings. It feels dangerous, but it’s not.
There’s research done on our nervous systems and stress responses, and how they evolved in an environment that we’re so estranged from today that they’re basically irrelevant and maladaptive, but they haven’t caught up to modern lifestyles.
Basically we have the same stress/anxiety/fear responses that have been hardwired since we were hunter gatherers. Back then, threats were acute and immediate. You see a big cat with sharp teeth, you have a sympathetic nervous response where you feel an adrenaline kick, you run away or you face it with a spear. You either get away from or eliminate the threat, or you die. Either way, it’s over in like twenty minutes tops, and then the parasympathetic response kicks in. It purges all the stress hormones from your blood, replaces them with endorphins, and within ten minutes all your body’s systems equalize and reset to their calmer baselines. Respiratory rate, heartbeat, digestion and metabolism, etc.
Nowadays, the perceived threats we face each day aren’t like that. Deadlines, performance reports, layoffs, getting yelled at by your boss; being left by your partner for someone else; climate change, cost of living crisis, nuclear annihilation, random mass shooters, the list goes on. All these lingering threats that never quite go away and are always just hovering over us. Not quite enough to trigger a full fight-or-flight response. Just enough to let out a trickle of constant cortisol. And never really being resolved so that your parasympathetic response kicks in and replaces all those stress hormones with feel-good hormones.
A lot of modern self-care techniques are basically “body hacks” designed to use this notion. Grounding techniques to concentrate on something calm to move focus away from the stressors and activate the calming response. Focused breathing to tell your body it’s safe and slow your heart rate. Watch a horror movie to activate a full adrenaline response so that your body can recalibrate when it passes. Go for a run or an intense workout to release endorphins and flush out all that cortisol.
It all centers on “how do we shift away from the body’s stress response and activate the calming response?” And it’s only necessary because of how radically different the modern context is from the one where those systems developed originally.
When I see a drunk driver not able to hold a lane I feel threatened and I remember that literally forever… It must be down to mediacoverage, ads etc, because also while driving on the roads you see fucking dangerous shit all the time
Safety is not a concern in my area. The issue is that it takes two to three hours to get just about anywhere that is not a hub, and a high probability of not being able to return to the starting point until the next day.
Where I live I literally would not be able to take public transport to get to my current job, or my current school (both an hour drive away in different counties from where I live, public transport doesn’t cross county lines). I looked into taking public transport to get to my last school when my car broke down, but it would have been about a 5 hour one way trip involving 3 different buses and a 3 mile walk between one of the bus lines in order to go 16 miles (I couldn’t have walked or biked it because it’s all major highways and said highway crosses a river with no pedestrian crossing - that’s miles out of the way). I got a rental car instead.
I took public transit to nyc because I dont want to deal with having a car with me, but I honestly regret it. The only bus back home is at 730am, with a 1 hour train ride to the station (so I need to wake up at 6am to be safe). I need to take another train home, which only runs every 2 hours, an I need to wait an hour. The ride itself is another hour. 8 hours for a trip I could have make in 4 hours, and for nearly half as much in gas compared to fares
The bus fare is fast too, most of the other options habe multiple changes that extend the 4:30 by HOURS. It could take me 10 hours of public transit
I fucking HATEEEE layovers, and changes. Routes and lines that are only ran every couple hours, so EVERY step can easily add an hour or more to a journey
Double the cost of your fuel to get the real cost of running a vehicle.
Yup. It’s very slow this is why do many don’t use it. It can also often be gross and/or sketchy.
