813
I spend a fair bit of time in 'Murica
There is an entertainment area about a twenty minute walk away from where I stay
I'd happily walk it, but it's genuinely unwise to do so, so I end up taking ubers
It's something that I find disappointing
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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Fuck Cars
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We let 82 year olds drive
We let humans drive a mass greater than they could physically keep from rolling down a slight incline at speeds faster than they can see, around other vulnerable human beings, just because they want to. No need to bring ageism into this. That's just a way of assuring yourself you are a safe driver, that this couldn't happen to you. You're not and it could. No one is a safe driver.
We force them to drive. So long as we have a car-dependent infrastructure and few if any affordable alternatives, you're advocating for elderly people to require family or money to be able to navigate the world around them, which is not really a great stance to take.
That does not require this situation to be the case of required driving, but a rule which prohibits elderly people from driving means that we have to anticipate how it will effect people that could not get around otherwise; disabled people deal with this all the time, and they're pretty much abandoned.
We have restricted licences in Australia, where through their GP reporting changes in circumstances or failure to pass an aged driving tests they can have a limited radius / areas they are allowed to drive (say supermarket, close relatives, gp, activities).
It does put a bit of a rock and a hard place for some folks, but it's a much better option than having no licence.
The fitness to drive test scheme is well executed, is not required to be held at a service centre (via trained 3rd parties) and let's most maintain their mobility.
In the US, they have golf carts, some communities plan for them, even giving thrm special roads, but they're often banned on higher speed roads, which you need to get anywhere. Here in vietnam, 82 year olds mostly ride 49cc scooters.
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“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
As someone that once accidentally hit a cat whilst driving an SUV, I cannot fathom how anyone could hit anything as large a human and be unsure if something was struck.
Old people lie like anyone else.
A decade ago, my mother who must have been in her 50s showed up at home with a traffic cone lodged in her rear driverside wheelwell, having no idea it was there.
I think the key words are "82-year-old"
I'm not nearly that old, but I can extrapolate my own experiences from 16 to now and out to her age, and I can buy it.
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Home girl probably has presbyopia so real she just rolls up on Mr. Magoo and mic drops. Couple this with people constantly being distracted while driving, age related cognitive decline, along with age related muscle/coordination loss, and I can absolutely fathom it.
Seems like you are lacking experience in driving while being high as a kite.
“An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.”
Well at least she was nice and safe in her rolling fortress.
And thank god we don't ever test people again after giving them access to killing machines
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82-year-old
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
I've read horror stories told by acquaintances from Japan about old people there driving and usually finding themselves crashing into things, crashing into cars, cyclists, pedestrians, or worse. There's been talk among Japanese about setting limits to drivers older than 60 or 70.
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What a pure-hearted dream, crushed by the worst country in the world. Of course it would happen in Kansas.
Forest Gump was a lie :/
I watched as Chad Caruso skateboarded the US and I was scared for him the entire way. It's such a huge gamble.
It really is.
I've had cars going the other way on a road slow down to yell at and intimidate me, even though I'm on the other side of the road and observing traffic laws. I wear a motorcycle helmet, in part, for fear that one day one of these nutjobs will throw something at me. The entitlement is absolutely bonkers.
I was on my bicycle one time, on a road that was plenty wide enough for a car to pass me with the required minimum space of four feet while staying in their lane. A car passed me going way farther to the left of me than they needed to, forcing a van that was coming in the opposite direction to pull over to the curb and stop. As he passed me, the van driver stuck himself halfway out his window and started yelling at me "you're gonna get somebody killed!" Asshole, go yell at the driver of the other car, I didn't do shit. And all that happened is it took you an extra five seconds to get to the red light.
Where I live, 99.9% of drivers are cool and give cyclists plenty of room. But that 0.1% means I'm probably risking my life every time I go for a ride.
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When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike to go places.. on the sidewalk, and I'd still, as a kid have people angrily shout at me for riding a bike, and on multiple occasions, people even swerve through the 3 feet of verge towards me on the sidewalk, I dont know if they were trying to scare me or if they were actually trying to hit me, but it left enough of an imprint on me to not what to be anywhere near the road when i'm not in a car.
Cause people in cars are absolutely psychopathic towards non-cars. Not all of them, but enough of them are that it makes you fear all of them.
An 82-year-old female said she had been driving a 2013 Ford Edge SUV going west on Country Club Road. She stated that she thought she hit something, turned around to check the area, but didn’t see anything, so she continued her journey home.
For some reason its normal this lady can drive. Yep, sure thing, we'd help you open a door for worry of your frailty but you can totally chuck an 8 ton hunk of metal down the road.
And if you suggest we should add public transit so that 82 year olds have a reasonable option other than driving, everyone acts like you’re ableist as if people whose disabilities make driving more dangerous don’t exist at all.
The problem with public transportation in the US is that black people will use it. That means the old white lady is going to fight paying for it and then take her own car anyway.
This is the answer.
I live in a conservative area and I've literally gotten political fliers in the mail from two different republican local campaigns bickering over who's the most against public transportation.
One of them said "So-and-so would fund a new bus station that would allow those people from the city to come to our town!"
The other one's response was basically "Whats-his-face is a liar! So-and-so only suggested funding and renovation of an existing bus station which doesn't have a route to the city. It wouldn't bring those people from the city here at all!"
To me, reading that just felt like the entire county's racism on full display...
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Yup, and in many states it's legal for blind people to own guns.
When I hear of people like this driver, it reminds me of the quote from Coming to America: "Imagine a country so free one can throw glass in its streets." It's meant as a joke in the movie, but for me, it's actually a really great way to describe our concept of freedom.
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Fuck this sucks.
Here's an article about him skating 5,500km across Australia:
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This is horrible... but also somehow even more sad that I would have totally expected this. Trying to go cross country on rollerblades in the US is akin to entering a warzone with a target on your back. This country is not friendly to non-car commuters. I live in a dense suburb with some bikelanes and its bad enough, so I cannot imagine what its like in places with huge stroads and highways running through town. You can barely cross a street let alone travel on rollerblades or bikes...
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Ofc its a fucking hit and run too like what the fuck. We remember people out here being like “ban cars? You don’t mean outright right? Haha” no we mean it, we hate cars, ban them we hate them so fucking much dude. Yeah there’s a time or place for them but there needs to be proper safe routes for pedestrians and bikers and cars need to be straight up banned in certain areas.
Ps: all our thoughts and care to the family, really sorry for your son. He was doing what he loved.
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FUCK CARS...especially fuck that this asshole won't suffer anything worse than a slap on the wrist for KILLING someone.
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All because of stupid North American car companies and their "bigger is more money" philosophy.
and the public....
The american oublic has known about this setup for like a decade....and....there have been no substantial actions substantiated by the american public to change this.
Nothing is substantial unless it is substantiated.
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