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As an American, I hate busses and will drive over using public transport every single time.
I imagine in other places in the world, your public transport runs on time, is well maintained, and is clean. Here is such a hit or miss it’s anxiety inducing to the point the road is more relaxing and no, I can’t say public transport is safer given my personal experience.
Context to the subway?
In America the metro is seen as where there are lots of poor people and drug addicts and the rich people tend to prefer to buy fancy cars and drive them.
It’s kind of the same logic as to why america is one of the few countries where the poor people tend to live in the city center, but the rich people out in the suburbs.
This is a gross simplification. Public transportation IS full of mentally ill people and the homeless, and lots of women feel unsafe on busses and trains. It's not the rich who prefer personal vehicle transport; everyone does
Counterpoint, the highways are also full of mentally ill people and statistically it's more risky to drive than take the bus / train.
I think people fear violent death more than they fear accidental death. If american cities want more people to ride public transportation, they need to clean up public transportation. If you've been outside of the US you see how countries with far fewer resources than us do a lot more with their public transportation.
They're cleaner, less noisy, and the police will actually do something about antisocial behavior on the trains. Until we have something like that in thr US, I will avoid taking the bus
I think control has a lot to do with it as well. We feel better when we're in control and on a subway you are most definitely not in control of the vehicle, or the people inside it. Regardless that it's statistically safer than driving. I think people feel safer driving because they feel in control. Drivers can choose the route, who is in their vehicle, and when to stop. Those are things that we feel when we assess risk, even if it's counter intuitive.
Well it's also way more convenient to drive in most places. Public transportation in most American cities doesn't work well
Thanks!
I hate being within arms reach of people so fuck your subways and your neurotypical ease with dealing with ridiculously overstimulating stress-filled situations
If you're a regular subway rider or grew up riding one (such as my neurodivergent ass) you start to realize that you're just a person in a sea of people on the train. The anonymizing actually helps with my anxiety.
For you maybe, and my worry isn't not being anonymous, it's getting stabbed again
Easy, just don't look like someone who wants to get stabbed again!
I'm joking, obviously. I'm really sorry that happened to you.
Appreciate it, thankfully it slid off my ribs and only needed stitches but that was nearly half a century ago and I still have to do a lot of mental prep work to sit down that close to strangers
Also as for your 'don't look like a person who wants to get stabbed again' line, I know you made it as a joke but statistically autists are targeted for violence by abusers and those abusers describe it all as visual cues that lead them to violence so maybe something to consider.
Subways are chill in other countries. The USA is insane.
My fear of being stabbed again isn't 100% rational and won't just go away because I cross an imaginary geographic line PEOPLE are insane, just the U.S. has a higher concentration
Me and the boys boarding be like
I'm more terrified of driving a car in a city than on a highway. In a city one small mistake can mean killing a child or something. On the highway I can go at a moderate speed in the right lane without distractions.
Either way I prefer rails tho
Already afraid of this on an e bike.
Saw a mom walking on the road (next to a perfectly available sidewalk) with her small child following her 2 meters behind her.
Fucking hell if that kid randomly ran to my side, I would have hit her.
I hate this shit so much
In my state, statistics show that there are more fatalities on rural roads than in metro areas... and 80% of us live in the metro areas.
My car is 900kg with a straight-through muffler. No kid is going under it. Just don't drive a tank through school zones.
straight-through muffler
I hope you throw a rod through the oil pan.
If you don't like it, I'll take it off.
Let's be real: they're terrified that they might be forced to be near poor people, minorities, gays, and mentally ill folk.
One of these things is not like the other
or they could be, like me, mentally ill folk who really cannot handle being forced to be around other people
But generalizations are fun aren't they!
Every single conservative man is mentally ill?
Add a little nuance to your argument and I'll engage
Also you didn't parse the sentence correctly, I was specifically referring to MY mental illnesses
Add a little nuance & good faith to your conclusion on my initial statement, and I'll engage, too! Maybe you should re-read things to nake sure you're not misunderstanding something.
— Sincerely, someone who is also struggles with mental illness, including severe anxiety & agoraphobia.
Nothing in my statement said conservatives, you made that up out of bad faith so why are you demanding good faith now?
Why cripple myself with rules you refuse to follow?
Bingo. I've talked to many of them online and it always boils down to this. It's never that they're actually in any danger. It's just they feel scared. They drive their big trucks because it makes them feel safe.
Meanwhile puny me rides the subway daily.
That's nice, no medication I've found yet lets me ride public transportation without constantly freaking out from human proximity but I bet it is just so pleasant to have a normal brain
Might surprise you, but on feeling scared: I once heard that a slim majority of SUV drivers were women. In some ways it makes sense - if they’d normally be vulnerable walking the streets alone, a less vulnerable vehicle gives them a feeling of safety.
It's not a surprise. There's some good analysis of vehicle advertisements, and one of the big emotions they push with SUV ads is the feeling of being safe in a 'bad' situation.
Fear based advertising (in general)
Article that is often quoted about fear in advertising
They're weak, scared, and pathetic. Too xenophobic to interact with anyone or anything outside their coddled circles that might make them feel """uncomfortable""".
I'm kinda germaphobic, and they never seem to clean public transit. Chewed gum everywhere, littering, bodily fluids. Like I'm sure 99% of people are normal, but just 1% of dumbasses ruin it. NYC, Philly, I've seen it all. I heard people say other countries such as Japan has clean public transit, not sure why the US can't do the same... 🤔 (I bet the politicians stole all the funding)
My ideal transport would be getting launched out of a cannon, then I deploy a parachute after the GPS notifies me when I've arrived at the destination. Patachute deployed, I land on the roof, like a boss. 😎
Great for introverts too. 🫠
(So until public transit is fixed, I rather be fired... out of a cannon)
If only we could replace the plane ride before jumping into the sky. I once did the math in my head for how fast you'd have to be shot out of a cannon to reach typical jumping height, and it was a doozy. Disregarding air resistance, it approaches the speed of sound... and since we know how much air resistance matters in skydiving, that method is just out.
I'm actually curious now. Wingsuits can get a glide ratio of 2-3:1, right? The US census reports average commute time around 26.8 minutes, which (and I'm really spitballing here), might mean an average of 8-20 miles. Even with the wingsuit, that would mean having to get up above 20,000 feet AGL for the shortest distance. Now you're talking about supersonic cannon speeds, AND are at a height where they start recommending using oxygen bottles.
Alright, all that was using the idea off getting shot straight up and then gliding from the top. Let's plug in some horizontal firing. The most efficient horizontal distance is achieved at 45 degrees, not considering air resistance. It looks like you'd be fired at just under 800mph, or 355 meters/second if you like metric, with a horizontal/vertical velocity of 562 mph each. Travel time is about 51ish seconds.
None of that really makes sense without air resistance though. The fastest speeds for a skydiver just cross 300mph, or 450 ft/sec. The record right now is 527.77km/h, and you cannot deploy the parachute at those speeds without injury or death. So that means our 800 mph initial velocity would have to be far greater so you could get as far as possible before air resistance brings you down to terminal velocity. It also takes time for a parachute to deploy (5-10 seconds), which really throws a spanner in the works for timing. I'd also love to imagine the air traffic patterns as people are willy-nilly shot around metro commuting areas.
Hmm. I seem to love mixing imperial and metric measurements.
Fully agreed but even clean as a whistle I am not comfortable being around that many people ever
Cleanliness depends a lot on culture
Odds are they are American and if you haven't noticed our culture is pretty hell bent on rejecting civic duty
Conservative men are terrified of everything. Perpetual fear and petty grievances are the cornerstones of the entire conservative ethos.
but there's crazy people on the subway
You don't think there's crazy people on the highway? And on the highway they're controlling a 2 ton killing machine in a sometimes stressful situation.
I'll take the crazy guy yelling in the corner of the subway then see what he's like behind the wheel of one of those huge pickup trucks during traffic.
Yeah like what the fuck? Every time I drive on a highway I encounter at least one potential life-ending moment, where if I hit the breaks one second too late I'll die. This is absolutely a trillion times worse than the slim chance of getting a subway car lit on fire lol
I ride the subway all the time and haven’t been murdered yet. AMA
So you are the one doing the murders then?
I'm terrified of riding the nyc subway because I don't understand how it works amd I'll get lost.
I've done both.
Safest place in the subway is at the front of the first car near the motorman. Second best is the front of the second car. If there's trouble you can move to the first car [with the motorman easily] and have two doors between you and the troublemaker.
Public transport is directly correlated with ridership numbers. When using public transport is the best mobility option, then everyone from all backgrounds will use it and that leads to less bullshit being done.
The numbers are pretty early but the congestion pricing in NYC has apparently already led to less crime in the subway.
The latest Climate Town vid is great.
