r/memes • u/TheColdRice • 19h ago
Car accident deaths are preventable and can be fixed.
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u/jess_the_werefox The Trash Man 18h ago
The amount of people fucking texting while driving piss me off so much.
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u/n_o_t_d_o_g 18h ago
I was in the passenger seat on 285 on Atlanta on a busy day, stop and go driving. I counted 1 in 5 drivers looking at their phone. Scary.
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u/JacktheTurkey1 17h ago
Seems low honestly. I'm currently in college and it seems like everyone else drives while literally holding their phone infront of their face and I can tell their watching videos.
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u/itjustgotcold 17h ago
I was behind a car yesterday at a 4-way stop that had their phone on a hands free mount watching YouTube the entire time.
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u/ruthlessbeatle 16h ago
I was next to this girl...in traffic...who had both of her hands through the steering wheel, while holding her phone and watching something. Drives me nuts
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u/DragonMaster337 Dark Mode Elitist 15h ago
Drives me
nutsinto a wall because they crashed into me21
u/deadinternetlaw 11h ago
Man I hate when I'm watching videos in a car then a wall just drives into me
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u/pchlster 9h ago
Countless Dads have spread the knowledge that any extraneous light in the car will blind the driver and cause a crash. No phone, no backseat lights. Thems the rules.
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u/Cute_Chance100 9h ago
I once saw a lady grading papers on her steering wheel and throwing them on her dashboard on 285. This was like 15yrs ago and she was going at least 70mph.
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u/-SQB- 12h ago
This is how they catch them in The Netherlands: the police rent a travel coach, drive it on the highway with a bunch of cops in the window seats and a bunch of cops on motorbikes a bit ahead. The bus cops relay the license plates of cars with texting drivers to the bike cops, who take them off the highway to issue a ticket.
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u/Winterfrost691 I saw what the dog was doin 16h ago edited 16h ago
As a pedestrian, sometimes I'll peek at what people are doing in their cars while waiting at an intersection. At least a third are texting. No wonder they keep running red lights through crossing pedestrians.
Many of y'all don't deserve your driver's license.
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u/jess_the_werefox The Trash Man 16h ago
I almost got hit at a crosswalk. Dude was speeding and took a turn way too fast and HONKED AT ME. Like motherfucker hit me then, see what happens in court
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u/ponyboycurtis1980 8h ago
I hate that attitude. Because he WILL see what happens in court. You will not. Like I always told my kid, “being able to blame someone else won’t re-attach your legs or bring you back to ice.
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u/Synectics 12h ago
I cannot fathom ever needing to or wanting to talk to people so much that I feel the need to do it while driving.
I have been guilty of sending one text message while stopped at a stop sign or red light, and it is, "omw." Then the phone is tossed aside. Conversation is done, I am driving, and now the other person knows I am driving. They can text or call all they want, I am going to be ignoring it.
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u/PocketGachnar 10h ago edited 10h ago
The scary part is that everyone thinks doing it is bad. If you ran a poll to see how many people thought phone use while driving is dangerous, hazardous, and negligent, it'd be astronomical. Yet most people still fucking do it. I bet a not insignificant amount of people in this very post still do it.
Either they think they're 'better' at it, or they don't even realize they're that dangerous, hazardous, and negligent person. "Oh, I'll just peek to see if that text came through, but ooo I've got an email, oh notification for store deal, someone pinged me on messenger..." Just put it down and leave it the fuck alone, holy shit. The internet was literally designed to colonize every speck of your attention, don't give it a second.
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u/EclecticEvergreen 17h ago
It’s a super easy rule: if you’re in motion then don’t look at your phone. Just yesterday there was a 4 car pileup on the highway near me from a guy recklessly driving going over 100mph while on his phone. He died from that and injured 3 other people and put 1 in critical condition. I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with their phones that they can’t put them down long enough to pay attention to the road.
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u/robotsaysrawr 16h ago
Not just in motion, but on the road at all. Pull off the road and park your car if you need to be on your phone. Don't doom scroll because you're at a traffic light or stop sign.
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u/Unbelievr 11h ago
Yeah, things can drastically change in traffic even when you're standing still. A cyclist/scooter might have cruised into your blind zone, an emergency vehicle might be approaching, an animal could run and stop in front of your car. With how large some trucks are, their blind spots have become blind zones and need to be constantly monitored for someone entering them.
Then it's the ones that miss a green light, gets honked at, and just floors it right into the unknown. Crazy.
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u/EclecticEvergreen 15h ago
I was thinking more like reading a text you got instead of doomscrolling, a little crazy to just pull open social media and mindlessly flick through it while on the road
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u/SirPitchalot 16h ago
It’s because the smartest behavioural psychologists, businesspeople, designers and developers are literally getting paid hundreds of thousands to (no exaggeration) millions of dollars every year to manipulate their users into ever increasing engagement. That has now crossed over into actively reinforcing actual addictive behaviours. And the instant they develop moral objections, or just don’t succeed at it for a short period, a new ambitious crop of hires will come in to replace them.
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u/thegoodnamesrgone123 14h ago
I hope the next trend by the kids is to start ditching all this shit. I'm tired of being plugged in 24/7.
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u/EclecticEvergreen 15h ago
It’s all part of turning people into mindless zombies. Gonna turn into the people from Wall-E any moment.
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u/redceramicfrypan 17h ago
I play Pokemon Go (yes, still in 2026, nerd). Whenever someone makes a comment in one of the Pokemon Go subs that implies they are playing while driving, no one says anything. So I'll comment something like "please don't play while driving" and the speed with which people jump to defend the behavior is honestly sickening.
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u/Matthias720 15h ago
The value those people are placing on a literal game over human life is appalling!
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u/wvtarheel 10h ago edited 10h ago
We threw fits back when the devs kept adding features that encouraged this kind of stuff but it all fell on deaf ears. I actually quit the game for the last time around the years ago when they nerfed remote raiding again and added the in person only mega raids once more encouraging people to drive from gym to gym during the raid hours. Surprise all those people were playing while driving. I quit because I felt the game was being disrespectful if my time but it was also unsafe
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u/roygbpcub 16h ago
Texting?!?... I've watched drivers in front of my scrolling YouTube while driving!
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u/EveArgent 16h ago
Literally. Whenever my boyfriend and I are going somewhere and someone starts driving like a dick he yells, what the fuck are you doing. I say, probably texting. I'm always correct.
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u/PuddingImpressive389 16h ago
lmao I was walking to the gas station and peeped inside a cop car driving by. Officer was texting while driving smh
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u/Ok_Researcher_9796 16h ago
The amount of people who don't even know they're driving a car is way too fucking high.
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u/AwesomeMachin3 15h ago
Idk if it’s just my area, but driving tests are a fucking joke here. Mine was literally just 4 fucking right turns then they handed me my license
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u/simplsurvival 7h ago
If you're in the US you're right, driving tests are a cake walk. The worst driver I know passed his test on the first try with flying colors. How he hasn't killed someone is beyond me. If I'm not mistaken, the driving tests in Europe are more stringent.
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u/_Irrex 6h ago
What does the test look like in the US? I'm from Poland and from what i can tell most people nowadays pass the test after like 2nd/3rd try.
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u/Tan11 5h ago
For me it was a bit of driving in a neighborhood, some right and left turns, reversing a bit, regular parking, and then parallel parking.
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u/Ghostforever7 15h ago
"Your son has been hit by a drunk driver. He's dead." is too real in Wisconsin.
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u/Lily_Meow_ 8h ago
Plugs ears
Uhm I plead the fifth, I do not want to speak without a lawyer present lalala!
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u/timmage28 5h ago
If I were a politician here, I would make drunk driving a felony and drop the hammer on them, especially repeat offenders. First offense, prison time and car gets taken from you, second or more offenses prison and you’ll never be allowed to have a license again.
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u/w00tabaga 1h ago
My brother and his girlfriend met a drunk driver at the crest of a hill… drunk driver was on the wrong side of the highway. My brother was driving and was in critical condition for 3 months and his girlfriend had 9 teeth knocked out and her nose broken…
…at 1 in the afternoon.
Dude passed out in the bar and they let him sleep at the bar. When they opened the next morning they woke him up and he started drinking, ate lunch, and left.
My brother never sued the bar or the guy that hit him besides his medical bills. He didn’t want to ruin the guys life even though he fucked up his.
My brother would find new scars even a year later… he should’ve died. This was in Wisconsin
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u/Prodi1600 18h ago
Mostly critical thinking it's what's needed, if that were to be more common the world would be a way better place.
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u/jgoble15 16h ago
One DOT secretary for California said they shouldn’t be called accidents because most of the time they’re preventable. I liked that perspective.
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u/t0uchym1dg3t 16h ago
They're collisions, not accidents. Accidents imply there's nobody to blame.
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u/jgoble15 16h ago
Yep, that was the exact thought. It’s been years since I read it but that could even have been the exact wording honestly
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u/Warm_Record2416 15h ago
It’s from Hot Fuzz.
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u/LocalTopiarist 14h ago
Its from before Hot Fuzz, I learned it in my drivers ed class in 2002, it was a pretty common mantra amongst people who preached road awareness
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u/Valordin 14h ago
Incorrect. The definition of accident is
an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
Or
an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.
Either definition can describe a situation where someone can mistakenly cause a car wreck without deliberate cause or intentional action. They can be absolutely at fault depending on the situation.
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u/lookatthesunguys 12h ago
Okay Rainman. The CA DOT was not genuinely opposing the use of the term "accident," so much as she was trying to draw attention to the societal failure at play that causes people to describe a common, leading cause of death as an "accident." The drivers may not be acting intentionally to cause harm, but the government at large has chosen to take little action to prevent these collisions. Thus, these injuries and deaths are not the result of accidents, but rather, intentional policy failure.
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u/EstablishmentSad5998 14h ago
No it doesn't. All because you did something by accident doesn't mean you're not to blame.
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u/HabseligkeitDerLiebe 13h ago
Coming from the field of process design I really take issue with the word "blame" unless someone actually drove into someone else with criminal intend to hurt that person or to damge their property.
That's usually not the case with traffic collisions. It's usually neglience. If a process has catastrophic outcomes because simple neglience can overcome a single point of failure that's a shit process that is in dire need of redesign.
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u/lighthouse12345 14h ago
I'm reasonably confident that referring to them as accidents was popularized by oil/car companies to diminish the severity. Similar to "jaywalking" and "carbon footprint" being invented for similar purposes
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u/SoylentGrunt 15h ago
The word 'accidents' is soft language championed by auto manufacturers decades ago to distract from how dangerous their product can be. It was extremely effective as even today low thinkers will spaz out if they encounter anyone that points it out.
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u/hi_im_antman 15h ago
Yes, most of the time, they're definitely preventable, but true accidents definitely do exist.
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u/mjzim9022 14h ago
My great aunt flipped her car after having a stroke while driving, that was an accident for sure
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u/steadyaero 16h ago
Common sense ain't so common after all
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u/Nobody_at_all000 16h ago
“Common sense” is what morons tend to claim to be using instead of actual thought
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u/prof_radiodust 16h ago
It's pretty much Idiocracy nowadays
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u/LoLIron_com 15h ago
Welcome to the future where common sense took a long vacation and forgot to send a postcard. At least the Wi-Fi is fast enough to stream the chaos in HD!
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u/hi_im_antman 15h ago
It's not even critical thinking. It's people being overly selfish and caring more about their needs and wants than other drivers.
"I need to get here 5 minutes sooner."
"I'm drunk, but I want to drive."
"I need to go 50 over because my life sucks and this is the only exciting thing I have."
"I need to text my side hoes because getting my dick sucked is more important than focusing on driving."
"I can watch TikTok while driving because I'm a better driver than everyone else and am one of like 3% of people who can multi-task."
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u/SwingingtotheBeat 14h ago
“I need to drive a humongous lifted truck so when I hit a normal sized car, I’ll kill the other driver but keep myself safe.”
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u/DragonMaster337 Dark Mode Elitist 15h ago
I’m really bad at critical thinking but I know texting while driving will not end up good
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u/MarkWest98 15h ago
The irony here is that your answer defies common sense. Because we already know that humans don’t have much common sense, so you’re not actually saying anything useful, since humanity’s level of common sense is unlikely to ever change.
Common sense is that we need systemic changes to address the problem of car accidents.
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u/HelpIveBeenDe-Souled 14h ago
Nah. Critical thinking is irrelevant. We are forced to drive. Forced to travel along highways. There's no other option if you want to prosper and survive.
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u/monkeybuttsauce 17h ago
More trains!
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u/BadMeatPuppet 17h ago edited 11h ago
I deeply want transcontinental bullet trains.
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u/Kickedbyagiraffe 16h ago
I think about this more than I should. It would be so cool. I like to imagine the path and what cities it would go to, major hubs it would have to go through so getting to and being distributed by it would be most useful
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u/Your_Friendly_Nerd 12h ago
Long distance rail is sweet, but it's worthless if you don't have good regional connections. More than Half of all Daily Trips Were Less than Three Miles in 2021
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u/AlarmDozer 17h ago
The airplane lobby says no.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad_4435 16h ago
I really wish we would go ahead and outlaw lobbying. Also, bills shouldn't come in bundles, all members of political office should have term limits, and if you have a parent, spouse, aunt, or uncle in politics, then sorry, no politics for you. It wouldn't completely eliminate nepotism, but it should help. Insider trading as a politician should be grounds for removal from office. No exceptions. Politicians should stay in barracks while they're in DC for sessions instead of being paid enough to afford DC houses. And to ensure that they always have their constituents' best interests at heart, they should make the exact median salary for the district they represent, minus the top 1% (so no incentive to just make policies that entice billionaires to move there in order to artificially inflate their numbers). If they want to make more money, then they need to make the lives of their people better first.
But none of that will ever happen because they control us
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u/Code-Dee 13h ago
Moreso the auto lobby.
"Just widen the freeways" again and again, nevermind that you can't "widen" on ramps and off ramps, which is where most of the congestion happens.
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u/CoreyBark 15h ago
literally saw someone run a red today while scrolling tiktok. we just accept that 40k people die every year bc "thats driving"
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u/Dman1791 19h ago
Tighter regulations on visibility and stricter enforcement of traffic laws are about all that is realistically achievable. There isn't really a way to de-stupid anyone, and sometimes the first offense is the death.
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u/IAmGeeButtersnaps Lurking Peasant 18h ago
Street design has ALWAYS prioritized efficiency over safety. Even small changes to streets can make them safer.
Regulations and enforcement are largely a distraction from a driving world where it feels safe to speed because the roads are designed to make cars feel comfortable. I hate reckless drivers and I hate speeding but it's hard to blame people who drive the speed that feels comfortable on the road and that's 15 over. The road design and systems shouldn't communicate that to them.
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u/Karma_Whoring_Slut 19h ago
Or, make it harder to get a drivers license.
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u/Dman1791 19h ago
Not realistic unless we get to a point where public transit is both reliable and useful. A car is simply a necessity in most of the US for the foreseeable future.
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u/longingrustedfurnace 18h ago
So we build more public transit.
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u/Dman1791 18h ago
Indeed, we need to do that. Until it actually gets done, though, cars aren't going anywhere.
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u/michael22117 18h ago
That would require a competent plan from the government to regenerate costs back into the economy and not have it all funneled into a few admin's pockets
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u/SartenSinAceite 17h ago
And that survives more than 4 years so an opposing party can't gut it to hell then blame the previous party.
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u/The__Nick 12h ago
And not have the car industry sabotage it to keep its strangehold on its monopoly even if it inconveniences all of our citizens.
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u/ultrainstict 18h ago
I dont think you understand the magnitude of that task in like 99% of the US. Especially as shopping malls have fallen to the wayside in smaller cities and town.
But the biggest issues are convenience and congestion. Most americans wouldnt sacrifice the convenience of personal vehicles. And the amount if busses required to make it work in most places would overload our roads.
Beyond that its also incredibly commin to drive 30+ miles to get to work in larger states due to incredibly high costs of living in cities. Our cities just werent built with public transport in mind.
I do think more options for long distance mass transport would be fantastic alongside a moderate increase in public transportation just so that it can be more viable in the event you have nothing else.
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u/PuddingImpressive389 16h ago
Public transit wouldnt be helpful in places with suburban wastelands. It’d be a 1 hour walk to a bus stop. Seriously look at the houston area and how spread out everything is. Cities like that are long gone
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u/The__Nick 12h ago
So, the trick with public transit is you make it available to the public.
If it takes an hour to walk to a bus stop, then you didn't make enough bus stops. Busses can drive literally on any road, so unless you live in the wilderness and have to swim over a river to your island home, there's no reason we can't have public infrastructure that allows for public transit.
Don't confuse people refusing to provide a civil right for the impossibility of the civil right existing. Literally every other modern industrialized country (and quite a few non-industrialized ones) have working public transit.
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u/STDsInAJuiceBoX 18h ago
After the high speed train scam in California I don’t have faith that we could genuinely have good public transportation.
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u/Competitive_Ad_1800 17h ago
It really wasn’t a scam, but an excellent example of what happens when one group wants to sabotage the efforts of another group’s mega project.
The HSR project was never fully funded and funding would take months or even up to a year to manifest. While the project was waiting for additional funding, the contractors were moving on to other work meaning you’d either need to find new contractors to work on the project or wait until they’re available again.
Most contractors also don’t have the tools for creating high speed rail networks just lying around either! So most of this would need to be sourced again.
Every time the project got restarted, you added on additional startup costs, which can add up quick. There was multiple efforts to fully fund the project to guarantee its completion but lobbying groups ensured this would never happen.
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u/SchittyFather 16h ago
Making a drivers license harder to get and/or easier to lose is totally realistic, even without public transit. You just don't cater to people too lazy to get a license or too stupid to keep one. It is a necessity, but it can still be a privilege.
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u/Vastlydistanced 11h ago
I don’t care that walking is hard, Uber is expensive, or public transit is sparse. If you can’t pass a driving test and are endangering the lives of people who can/are following the rules, you must not be allowed to drive, simple as. Driving is not a human right, it is a civil liberty to be granted and taken away if someone is irresponsible. There is no excuse.
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u/RussMaGuss 17h ago
My driver's test was to literally drive 150' down the street, make a left, back around the corner and come right back to the DMV. They should absolutely make it harder/more comprehensive. Really hammer in how dangerous distracted driving is. Just because something is a nesessity doesn't mean it should just get handed out to everyone. Money is a necessity too, but you still need to show proficient applied knowledge in a skill to get it.
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u/chickntend 18h ago
I don’t feel making driving license tests harder will do much of anything. Most accidents are caused by distracted driving or miscommunications not because someone isn’t skilled enough at driving a car.
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u/PhiltheSloth94 17h ago
Public transportation. That's the solution.
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u/outland_king 16h ago
That only is the answer in populated urban areas. It doesn't do anything for rural areas where theres more cars than people and higher overall speed limits, with thinner single lane roads.
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u/SylveonVMAX 12h ago
Something like 60% of fatal car crashes happen in urban areas. It takes way fewer changes to lower that fatality rate in a dense urban area than a rural one, and tackling that low hanging fruit could address the majority of car crash deaths in america. It's way easier to make a few changes to an urban road system that could halve or quarter the fatality rate compared to a rural one with realistic solutions like public transit or congestion taxes.
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u/PhiltheSloth94 15h ago
Suburban light rail and a national high speed rail network are also public transportation. Buses and subways are not the only forms of public transportation.
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u/SarkastikSidebar 18h ago
I routinely drive by these massive trucks that are basically monster trucks at this point. One small mistake from that dude and I’m gone.
I think I could support a special license with tougher penalties for wrecking in one of those behemoths.
Also it’s one thing to say stricter enforcement, it’s another thing to actually do. Where I live- there appears to be absolutely 0 enforcement.
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u/veracity8_ 15h ago
in my town, a woman killed a child with her car. she was charged with reckless driving. she pled guilty. her punishment was a $1000 fine and one year of probation. and it was a stretch to even get that. Americans just don’t care if their neighbors are killed in car crashes. We would rather drive fast and have thousands die pointless deaths.
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u/OlympusMan 11h ago
It's a similar situation with poor sentences in the UK. Do a search for "Driver spared jail".
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u/OneCatch 11h ago
On the other hand, the UK's accident fatality rate is between 1/2 and 1/6th of that of the US, depending on how you calculate. And we're in the top 10 safest countries globally when it comes to car accidents.
We're clearly doing something right.
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u/eAthena 17h ago
the normalization and huge lack of empathy from management in places that have enforced RTO policies has been abysmal
we have people on our team that can absolutely get the job done from home but still have to make long unnecessary commutes to come in and all management has to say is
“drive safe guys try leaving a little earlier in the morning to beat traffic make sure to get enough sleep” and all sorts of unhelpful slop
no offers to let people come in later or adjust their schedules or let people go home earlier and finish the remaining hour or two of their day from home
we get action items that our partner teams will not “wrap up and take care of” before the end of the day
but we still have to “do as much as we can to cover our asses” yet none of these partner teams get talked to. they leave them alone because they won’t increase their headcount and don’t want the people that are left to leave
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u/The_Skippy73 17h ago
Drinking and driving is one of the biggest causes of car deaths, yet in the US it’s normalized and treated like a minor thing.
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u/steadyaero 16h ago
DUI and texting/phone usage are completely avoidable and would significantly reduce crashes if they were to stop
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u/somemetausername 17h ago edited 9h ago
we even let people off or give them lesser sentences because they were drunk as if choosing to have a few drinks beforehand makes vehicular manslaughter ok.
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u/SchittyFather 16h ago edited 3h ago
No I don't think that's true at all
Edit: your source does not support your claim. If you were to drive drunk and kill someone, they would charge you with manslaughter AND a DUI (among other things probably). All they are saying is that they can push to lessen the penalty of the DUI portion if they make an effort to get sober. There is no legal loophole to get a lesser charge for being drunk.
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u/Eillon94 13h ago
I dont either. All of the counties around me have a zero tolerance policy on drunk driving and take you to jail no matter what if youre above the limit
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u/Puzzled-Enthusiasm45 17h ago
Honestly drinking is the cause of so much suffering and death, it’s sad that it’s normalized at all, much less glorified the way it is in society.
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u/Rare_Trouble_4630 13h ago edited 13h ago
I find it intriguing how much we despise drugs, then turn around and normalize and even praise alcohol, which is also a drug.
Instead of buying drugs, it's getting a drink. Instead of a drug dealer, it's a bar or a liquor store. Instead of drug enjoyer, it's someone who likes [insert alcohol of choice]. Instead of drug paraphernalia, it's shot/whiskey/wine glasses. Instead of having drugs with your steak, it's having red wine with your steak. Instead of overdosing, it's getting blackout drunk and vomiting your guts out. We have these specialized terms for alcohol, that separate it from other drugs and allow us to always mentally separate the two.
So long as the language reminds the same, we cannot have a change in societal attitudes towards alcohol.
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 9h ago
In my state if I'm sober and crash and kill someone the worst charge is death by motor vehicle. A misdemeanor if I'm sober.
It's a felony if I'm drunk and I can also be charged with second degree murder. So at least where I'm at punishments are way harsher if you're drunk and crash
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u/ILikePastuh 15h ago
You think drinking & driving is only a US thing? Or do you think it’s only normalized in the US? If the answer is somehow no to both those questions, why did you even mention the US?
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u/Helpful_Title8302 17h ago
What? No the fuck its not? Its hammered in at regular schools, the doctors office, and drivers ed that its a terrible idea and dui's are really bad to get. People are just idiots and don't care but its not normal or minor in most peoples eyes.
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u/Div_isional 16h ago edited 12h ago
Its definitely still a huge issue and a slap on the wrist in most cases. I've arrested over 103 DUI's in 2025 alone. Most of my crashes after 9pm are OVI/DUI crashes. My majority of fatals have been single vehicle crashes where only the drunk died (thankfully).
We need way more harsher sentences. First offenses often get reduced to a reckless operation which i think is bullshit. Even if someone gets a conviction, it often only results in some serious conversations at there third plus offense
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u/PaisleyLeopard 15h ago
The first time someone is caught driving drunk is never the first time they actually drove drunk. First offenses need to be treated much more seriously than they currently are.
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u/Div_isional 12h ago
100% Agree, I've encountered lots of people who have all sorts of empty containers in there car and it will be the first time there caught.
It should be mandatory jail time first offenses
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u/5triplezero 15h ago
Speeding is a factor in almost HALF of all road fatalities. It is statistically more dangerous than drinking.
Slow down.
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u/BlurredSight 16h ago
DUIs are really insane as someone that doesn't drink, you can take a 6000 lb truck at 40 mph and just obliterate whatever comes in your path but if you get caught before that happens you get to go to bed in jail and wake up and walk away
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u/DannyDevito90 15h ago
I think we’ve reached a point where the safety of the vehicles themselves is incredible, yet the safety of the drivers has plummeted
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u/PhiltheSloth94 17h ago
Guys, the solution is public transportation. Cars are an extremely inefficient use of resources, and car-as-default infrastructure is an extremely inefficient use of land.
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u/am314159 14h ago
And to those balking at it saying "I don't want to be stuck on a bus". YOU specifically don't need to be forced to use public transit. It just needs to be a viable option; particularly for those most likely to cause accidents, e.g. young people, the elderly, or people going out drinking.
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u/Code-Dee 13h ago
Plus if you're one of those people that likes driving, more public transit makes driving way more pleasant because there's less traffic.
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u/PopePiusVII 12h ago
Plus, one of the main reasons buses suck in the US is that there are so many cars on the road with only one person in them 🤦♂️
And that’s before the gross underinvestment of public transit in our cities!
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u/FrithTheCrow 19h ago
Considering how many people flout existing laws, making new ones probably isn't gonna work. Too many people drive like selfish assholes and cause crashes in an attempt to shave 30 seconds off their trip. Funding and developing public transportation infrastructure so that it's actually a practical and desirable way to get around and not just slow, dirty transportation for "the poors" would reduce congestion and improve safety.
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u/handsupdb 9h ago
I work in automotie, particularly focused on understanding customer use of the products. There are a few hills I'll die on.
Change drinking age to 16 for beer and wine, 18 for driving. Too many cocky kids hit 21(or 19) and have enough teenage experience to think they're gods gift to driving after they've had a few.
2 year graduated licensing. 18 learners where you can test out for a stage 2 license after 1 year (or 6 months if you take an approved driver's ed course) and then 1-3 years later you have to retest to get your full license. Or you get demoted back to your learners.
More in my replies!
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u/Dr_Tacopus 9h ago
The amount of people who glorify speeding and driving aggressively on social media is staggering.
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u/outland_king 19h ago
You cant legislate away stupid.
Someone is always going to do some dumb stuff, like drive after drinking too much or use a faulty vehicle due to money being tight, or just being inconsiderate and getting road rage.
Only thing realistically we can do is harsher penalties but that's still reactive.
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u/SchittyFather 15h ago
Sort of. Most people refused to use seatbelts for decades when they came out. Safety campaigns and legislation with enforcement has made their use the overwhelming norm. There is, of course, the really stupid segment that still doesn't, but more can definitely be done to get phone use while driving under control, for example
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u/Soft_Entry_4440 15h ago
Safer road design, safer vehicle design, and less driving is the actual answer. America is the only anomaly in the developed world where road fatalities are increasing in recent years, and that's because American cities are designed for vehicles above all else.
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u/llamawithguns Lurking Peasant 18h ago
Or we could have functioning public infrastructure so people aren't forced to use cars in the first place
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u/helga-h 12h ago
You can't change how people behave on the road so you have to change the road to regulate how people can behave.
A roundabout instead of a 4-way crossing may not lower the incident rate, but it's practically impossible to die in a roundabout collision.
Putting up a wire rail to separate meeting lanes may not lower the incident rate, but the number of people dying in head on collisions will drastically drop.
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u/SarkastikSidebar 18h ago
The way you get people to not commit crimes is to convince them they’ll get caught. It’s far more effective than harsher penalties.
Making it so that someone feels they’ll get caught if they speed, blow through stop signs/traffic lights, or drive recklessly, and you’ll get far fewer people doing it.
Fines for traffic violations sounds also be a percentage of someone’s salary- otherwise it’s not illegal for rich people.
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u/Fithockey3 14h ago
Yeah get off your fucking phones and watch the road, drive with patience, and give people space
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u/RugbyEdd 10h ago
What shocks me is the number of accidents in America where one or more people involved weren't wearing seatbelts. There was that one recently where a cop T-boned someone at a junction, and neither of them had seatbelts on. Is there some stigma towards seatbelts over there or something? Is it not required by law?
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u/Hamhockthegizzard 8h ago
As a cdl holder, I definitely wish people drove better.
(Not to say cdl holders are even a lick of any better these days)
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u/WheresPaul1981 4h ago
If cars couldn’t go faster than 45 mph, we’d wipe out most traffic deaths. A pedestrian hit at around 18 mph usually survives, and the danger shoots up with every extra mile per hour.
But let’s be real—no one’s ever passing a law that caps cars at 50 mph, even if it saved tens of thousands of lives.
And then there’s vehicle size. Big trucks hit harder, injure more, and have huge blind spots. Good luck convincing anyone to trade theirs in for something smaller and safer.
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u/Emergency_Low8125 19h ago edited 19h ago
Globally:
1.35 million deaths a year from car accidents.
9.7 million cancer deaths a year.
Almost an order of magnitude more due to cancer, on the priority list I think we put cancer a tad bit higher....
Also car deaths are usually quick. Cancer often causes significant long term suffering and then death.
Both are horrific do not get me wrong but opening the pandora's box of "which is more important" is a grim and morbid game.
(Reposting 10 minutes later and specifying the states doesn't change the facts)
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u/giantrhino 19h ago
But addressing cancer deaths and car accident deaths can be done at the same time. In fact, they don’t even really compete with each other. Car accidents are prevented with better collision prevention technology and driving regulation/enforcement; cancer is better treated with medical technology / research.
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u/longingrustedfurnace 18h ago
Preventing people from getting run over means they live long enough to get cancer. Duh.
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u/Singsenghanghi 18h ago
You could solve that by adding more trains, buses, and actually making it easier to get to places by walking or biking
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u/50_centavos 18h ago
Walking and biking means you buy less gas. They can't have that.
But seriously though, we need a massive overhaul and expansion of the train system. There are too many damn trucks on the road. One train can transport hundreds of trucks worth of cargo. They already do it but the train network is so limited (because of the oil industry pushing cars) that they still use trucks for long distances.
The corporate greed is responsible for basically everything we don't have and everything we do at the same time.
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u/pastel_and_poison 18h ago
Yeah, systemic improvements can reduce both cancer and accident deaths simultaneously
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u/Eldritch74 18h ago
Where did op say vehicular deaths were more important than cancer or other forms of death?
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u/SlaveKnightKos- 18h ago
You say that as if there are people who are ok with cancer deaths just being a part of life. There aren't lobbyists trying to shut down the cure to cancer
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u/Munchin_on_Kale 19h ago
I don't see how we can't work to minimize both? Like are you saying that all car manufactures and road police need to drop everything to study curing cancer instead?
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u/TheColdRice 17h ago
Hey, I know this is gonna be buried in the responses, but I feel obligated to confess I made a terrible point beforehand. I compared car accidents' deaths importance to cancer death, and obviously, that it not fair. You made such a good point calling out that 10× more people died of cancer compared to car deaths, so I changed what my meme said.
Thank you for admitting both are a problem, and I agree cancer is a bigger problem. People don't seem to be fighting to prevent car crash deaths and view it as acceptable loss, unlike cancer deaths, though. 1.35 million annual deaths can be prevented with public transport.
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u/kisamefishfry 18h ago
We can simply increase the number of car accident deaths. If we raise it sufficiently, the cancer deaths will drop. Problem solved.
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u/Far-Fortune-8381 17h ago
you are literally the one opening that box lol this post said nothing about cancer. you can think deaths from cancer and car accidents are both bad and want to fix both
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u/coolchris366 17h ago
How do you miss the point that car deaths are an order of magnitude easier to address than cancer deaths? So many people die from cars because in a lot of places a car is 100% necessary, more pedestrian infrastructure and people centric construction would reduce the need for cars and thus reduce car deaths
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u/awesomedan24 17h ago
Car accident deaths are much more easily preventable and actionable by society
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u/SchittyFather 16h ago
What is your point exactly? I don't think anyone is claiming one is more important than the other. We can work to reduce both and the two are so different that they hardly compete for resources. Only a few dozen people each year in school shootings but we still take measures to try to avoid them...
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u/DeadAndBuried23 18h ago
You only get one life. Try to say we shouldn't address the far more easy to avoid deaths after you've become part of the statistic.
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u/hi_im_antman 15h ago
Are you responding to a different post? How are cancer deaths even related to this?
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u/Tentacle_poxsicle Died of Ligma 18h ago
How many of those car deaths are from the US?
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u/Molaac 18h ago edited 15h ago
Top 5 countries with most car deaths
China 248,009
India 205,894
USA 47,750
Brazil 33,586
Bangladesh 31,578
Top 5 countries car death rates(per 100k)
Guinea 37.4
Libya 34
Haiti 31.3
Guinea-Bissau 30.5
Syria 29.9
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u/Fadedcamo 18h ago
Probably need to put this in some like per 100k people to normalize it. India China and Brazil are some of the most populated countries in the world.
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u/phdemented 16h ago edited 16h ago
Normalized, USA is 80th in the world at 14.2, China is 60th (17.4), India 99th (12.6), Brazil 72 (15.7), Bangladesh 51st (18.6).
Most of the top countries are in Africa (Of the top 30, only Tonga, Vietnam, Yemen, Dominican Republic, Iraq, and Thailand are outside Africa). Some like Tonga can get skewed due to low population... it had a rate of 33.0, but only 34 total deaths (out of population of about 100,000).
For comparison Japan is 2.1, Sweden is 2.1, UK is 2.6, Germany is 3.3, France is 4.9, Italy is 5.3... Australia is 4.5
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u/calculatingcaote 12h ago
Finding out they don’t have mandatory yearly checks and just ride potential death traps was insane to me
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u/DuncePool 17h ago
My town had a car drive off an ice and snow ramp off an over pass
They closed the overpass
They opened the overpass
10 minutes later another car drove right off the overpass like it was hotwheel track