Thread by @fietsprofessor

[Mini lecture on Systemic Traffic Violence: 1/11]

If you manually operate a machine of 1300 kilograms (the average weight of a car)…

Pictures by:
@schmangee
@andyjayhawk
@hurtado_alvardo
and....@Audi themselves (H/T @StripyMoggie)

[2/11]

…that offers you relative protection, but can easily be lethal for everybody around you…

Picture via @EdwardLamb

[3/11]

...at a speed of more than 30 kilometers per hour (or: 8 meters each second)…

(source: @NACTO)

[4/11]

…in an environment with vulnerable people all around you; people like your parents, your children, your neighbours and people like your friends...
(let’s say, a city)

[5/11]

…and you CANNOT GUARANTEE that your attention will NEVER slip for a second, only a second (in which you are more than 8 meters further down the road)…

(source of cartoon unknown)

[6/11]
…under increasingly difficult conditions to keep your attention on the world around you..
(due to increasing comfort, ever larger screens and multimedia, other occupants)

(pictures of full dashboard screens via : theglobeandmail.com/drive/culture/…)

[7/11]
…you are a habitual offender of reckless or negligent driving. By design. And as continuously advertised as completely normal.

(video edited by @tomflood1)

[8/11]

A crime that most of the time doesn’t end bad for you, fortunately…

(Cover of @SZ with German cyclists killed by negligence)

[9/11]

…but annually kills more than 1.000.000 people and maims many more: People like your parents, your children, your neighbours, people like your friends.

(statistics by @WHO)

[10/11]

Humans are fallible, assuming they are not is a collossal mistake that has made our public space into a landscape of fear and violence.

It seems a price we are accepted to pay.
But is it?

(cartoon by @Avidor)

[11/11]

Think about that for a moment, the next time you get into a car.

Or the next time somebody calls for hi-viz, helmets or disciplining pedestrians/cyclists.

(by @QAGreenways)

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