Today’s autoAmerican Anarchy art is dedicated to Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso, the death-defying NYC pedestrian in Midnight Cowboy who shouted the immortal line “I’m walking here!” when a NY cabbie nearly ran him over.
Oh yeah, and to Mad Max, who never ran over someone he regretted.
Life is dirt cheap in autoAmerica
Wanna know the value of life in autoAmerica? Consider that Pedro Quintana-Lujan plowed in to a group of about 20 cyclists in Phoenix, killing two and injuring virtually all the rest.
He was just sentenced to one year in jail, a $2,500 fine…and a 180 day suspension of his driver’s license.
He pled guilty to two counts of causing death by moving vehicle and 10 counts of causing serious injury by moving vehicle.
Those are all misdemeanors.
Human life being exceedingly cheap in autoAmerica.
Bigger rides = more dead pedestrians
Oh, and this just in from NBC News: Pedestrian deaths have surged 78% in the past 15 years, according to the Department of Transportation. That’s in part due to the rising size and weight of vehicles like SUVs and trucks, which create large blind zones directly in front of them and require longer braking distances…SUVs and pickup trucks account for three-quarters of vehicle sales in the U.S.
Walking in Super Sized autoAmerica is not for the faint-of-heart. For the suicidal maybe.
Bike lanes, congestion…and bodies
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wasn’t kidding when he condemned “making massive investments in bike lanes at the expense of vehicles” and said that bike lanes cause “more congestion.”
So it should surprise nobody that the feds have begun withholding “discretionary grants aimed at improving safety for people who walk and bike.”
This is of course extremely short-sighted, since nothing causes more traffic congestion than dead pedestrians and cyclists littering the roads.
FDOT unzips NW 8th Ave
Studies show that if you have protected bike lanes – lanes that create a physical separation between cars and bikes – more people will use them. That’s why GNV put “zippers,” modest protective barriers, on its newly redesigned bike lanes on NW 8th Ave between Main Street and 6th.
But then FDOT ordered the city to remove the offending zippers. Even though FDOT approved their use in the first place, and even paid for them.
Why the change of heart? Oh, I dunno. Fear that cars running over them get knocked out of alignment? Or because some upright autoAmerican citizen with a bit of political pull brought FDOT to heel.
Wither Miami’s mopeds?
Motor scooters and mopeds are getting to be a rare sight on the streets of Miami. Why?
El Pais reports that Miami’s scooter “boom went up in smoke at the beginning of the year following the crackdown on immigrants led by Donald Trump…”
“Driving a moped in Miami “is like having a tattoo on your face. Authorities say, ‘Hey stop, if you’re driving a moped, you probably don’t have papers,’” Yonathan Rodríguez, a 40-year-old Venezuelan. Told El Pais.
Good riddance. Just means more room on Miami streets for Super Sized, pedestrian-killing SUVs and pickups.
Driving to the poorhouse
Oh, speaking of the Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Crushing Auto Loan, this news just in from USA Today: “The growing costs to buy and maintain a car – exacerbated by inflation and tariffs – are leading to rising auto loan defaults and repossessions and a potential crisis for American consumers…
Wait! What?
“The record number of defaults is a canary in the coal mine for large-scale economic problems, the Consumer Federation of America warned. …Delinquencies, defaults, and repossessions have shot up in recent years and look alarmingly similar to trends that were apparent before the Great Recession.”
Hey, freedom of the road ain’t free you know.
Don’t let ‘em shame you
Speaking of USA Today, it apparently determined that “car shaming” is a real thing. And it offers advice to readers who feel they are being shamed for not buying an electric car.
It advises: “If someone confronts you about driving a gas-powered vehicle, here’s what you can do: Be gracious. Don’t get into a fight. And say ‘I’ll switch when I’m ready.’”
Oh yeah, and don’t take any crap from the libtards.
The brains of the outfit
Of course for every poor soul who suffers from car shaming there are a hundred others bedeviled by car brain.
“Speeding, running red lights, tailgating, parking in bike lanes, parking in bus lanes, parking on sidewalks, blaming dead pedestrians for not being dressed like Christmas trees—these are all harmful cultural norms that need to be shamed and met with severe consequences,” reports Fast Company. “The most dangerous part of Car Brain is that we don’t see it for what it is—a mass delusion that enables harm, excludes millions, and degrades mental and physical well-being.”
Hey, no fair car shaming car brain here in autoAmerica. Aren’t heavily indebted, overly ticketed drivers already suffering enough?
The Big Apple vs e-bikes
This just in: New York City has launched an aggressive program to crack down on reckless e-bike riders.
“New Yorkers are worried about e-bikes flying by and putting their families and children at risk,” says Mayor Eric Adams, who declared e-keys a public health crisis.
In totally unrelated news, 51 pedestrians have been killed by cars so far this year in NYC. And, historically, that’s a relatively low body count for the Big Apple.
But, yeah, let’s jail e-bikers.
Beware of sleeping giants
If you think you’re seeing more and more semi-rigs sitting on the shoulders at interstate exit ramps or just outside freeway rest areas and such, it’s not your imagination.
Apparently long distance truckers are running out of places where they can pull over and take their lawfully required break. And a National Transportation Board recently determined that the long-haul truck parking shortage was a critical factor in a 2023 Greyhound bus crash that killed three people.
The bus was leaving I-70, in Illinois, when it rammed into three semis parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp.
As per an AP report: “Board Chairperson Jennifer Homendy said the crash, which sheared off the right side of the bus and injured 12 aboard, was preventable. “Our investigation brought to light a critical shortage of safe truck parking and made clear a painful lesson: Until we address this important safety issue, lives are at risk on our nation’s roads,” she said.
AP added: “Truck parking on rest stop entrance and exit ramps is illegal, but the ban is seldom enforced because there’s insufficient parking for the 13 million rigs on the nation’s roads and the federal government electronically monitors truckers’ hours on the road and their rest periods.”
Still, a small price to pay for just in time delivery in autoAmerica.
They’re going fast
And finally there’s this. The ink is hardly dry on Florida’s new Super Speeder law, which allows cops to lock up motorists who are caught driving 100 mph or 50 mph over the posted limit. In the first month alone, 26 drivers were busted.
Persecuted? Hardly. As Motor Biscuit noted, in Florida “speed played a role in 38,861 crashes in 2023, directly causing 437 deaths and 1,232 serious injuries.”
But it turns out you don’t even have to be a super speeder to ruin your own life and destroy three others.
Miami football player Adarius Hayes doesn’t quite fit into the super speeder category. He was only doing twice the 40 mile limit on a Largo street when he caused a collision that killed a 78-year old woman and two children.
“The investigation concluded that Adarius Hayes’ egregious speed, aggressive and reckless lane changes and complete disregard for surrounding traffic conditions demonstrated a willful and deliberate disregard for the safety of others, constituting reckless driving. These actions directly led to the tragic deaths of the three victims,” Largo police said in a statement.
Charged with vehicular homicide, Hayes “has been indefinitely suspended from all athletic-related activities” announced UM.
Thanks to NIL young jocks with more money than sense are able to buy increasingly faster, badder rides.
And without going taking on crushing auto debt to boot.
That’s called a win-win in autoAmerica.
FreeGNV 