I had an argument with my uncle once. In Germany, there is “Pfand” on bottles and soda cans. You pay a little extra when you buy one and when you return it to the “Pfandautomat” you get back the extra amount. He was arguing that this is somehow indoctrination by the state to condition us to follow rules. I have avoided conversations with him since
He was arguing that this is somehow indoctrination by the state to condition us to follow rules.
Has to be trauma of living in a police state.
this is somehow indoctrination by the state to condition us to follow rules
Well it is, but that’s not the bad case of it.
Haha touché. Maybe I should have added that he is a conspiracy theorist (of the Reichsbürger kind)
As if Prussia wasn’t specifically known for their obrigkeitsgehorsam
In California you pay “crv” of 10 cents on a can, and you really can’t get it back. The can has to be in perfect condition, you can only return a few at a time, and most places don’t even do crv returns. It’s literally a scam that we have accepted.
What? Why in perfect condition? Aluminum is aluminum. Is only taking a few at a time protecting against fraud or homeless people trying to make some money?
I would say the German system works pretty well and is well accepted but the outrage when they ruled that the lid on plastic bottles needs to be attached to the bottle was beyond infantile
“Heh, fuckin’ sheep.”
t-bones a minivan full of kids at 60 mph
I’m always amazed to think that my life sometimes only holds to a red light and the car people’s willingness to obey the law. If either were missing, only their will to keep their car clean could save me.
It’s not just a cleanliness thing. Skeletons can cause expensive damage.
Other people is only half of the equation. You have a responsibility to ensure that the cars did in fact stopped.
I got mocked a few times as a kid for waiting until I see the cars stop at the red light before crossing. “Mate you can go, the lights red, they HAVE TO stop!”
No pal. They’re supposed to stop. Doesn’t mean shit until i see it happen
My friend asked why I’m looking both ways before crossing when it’s a one-way street.
Same deal. It’s legally one-way, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some impatient dickhead blasting down it the wrong way regardless.
First rule of road safety (as either a pedestrian or a driver) is to assume everyone else on the road is an absolute moron with no ability to drive.
First rule
of road safety (as either a pedestrian or a driver)is to assume everyone elseon the roadis an absolute moron with no abilityto drive.This is how I go generally in life. /jk
Also, pedestrians go both ways
Law of physics versus law of man, physics win every time.
Yeah I wait until the man goes green because there are some crossings at intersections where people will go “Oh but but I have to turn here, so I’m GONNA TURN HERE” and come right thought when it’s clearly red. Maybe they’re allowed to or used to be allowed to. Maybe they only look at the light for the perpendicular intersecting road and don’t realise intersections literally alternate. I hate the drivers where I live.
At non intersections, still do the same thing. There are some really shitty designed crossings that send the lights red but won’t tell you to cross then they just release the cars again. This is maybe traffic dampening? But it’s shitty to play that game at a place with a dedicated pedestrian crossing, just give a window where humans can get over.
Yep, I still check regardless.
I’ve lived in plenty of places where when the lights worked, they were optional.
What you’re forgetting is that the other people don’t want to fuck up their car by hitting your car. Usually. Like 98% of the time. It’s the people looking for some mutually assured destruction that are the hazard, and they’re few and far between.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
It’s why you can go to the store and not worry about being murdered even though there’s nothing preventing that from happening.
And the social contract accepts that cars kill pedestrians and cyclists every once in a while for the sake of efficiency. It’s dangerous, it’s legalized murder, and we choose to accept it.
That’s why it’s dangerous to cross the street.It’s more like empathy making people not want to murder others
My first motorcycle accident was swerving around someone who decided to go on red.
Sometimes I go on the last second of green light and think “that was close!” and then look into a mirror and there are 2 cars and truck behind me.
We call that “dark yellow” around here
Which, in English, sounds like some cyberpunk band or organisation!
TRILLIONAIRES SHOULD BE OUTLAWED!
Billionaires +, but yes
I freely formed the considered personal opinion that driving through a red light is a bad idea.
SHEEP!
Unironically though. Just use your fucking brain. Sometimes its safe to drive through a red light, sometimes its unsafe to drive through a green light.
A user by the name unexposedhazard is telling me I should push through the red light. Nah, I ain’t falling for that shit.
In car i would never, because you cant hear or see shit, but on a bike, when there is zero traffic and you can see far down all the roads then why not? People walk over roads that have no traffic lights all the time and nobody is worried there…
I don’t think the term “drive”, which you used in the first comment, is generally associated with cycling.
I understand what you’re getting at about using your head, but unfortunately we live in a society that needs to cater to the lowest common denominator.
At 3am, when there’s nobody around, and you’ve slowed down and can see for absolute certainty that’s it’s clear then yeah you could perhaps justifiably run the red light.
But then that concept gets normalised, people start pushing boundaries. Trying it at midnight when there’s still some traffic and pedestrians around. Trying it at 4pm because “it was quiet”. Guess what’s going to happen? Baring in mind how many terrible drivers you witness every single day.
With driving we need to apply Kantian principles.
“I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”
Or more simply: “What if everybody did this?”
The purpose of the lights is to remove the requirement for everyone’s judgement at junctions, because human judgement has been shown to often be poor and result in collisions. Yeah, sometimes it may be unoptimised and you have to wait an extra minute, but really, what’s the rush?
At 3am, when there’s nobody around, and you’ve slowed down and can see for absolute certainty that’s it’s clear then yeah you could perhaps justifiably run the red light.
That’s why some traffic lights have to be set up for certain times of the day, as sooner or later rules can be broken.
In car i would never, because you cant hear or see shit, but on a bike why not?
That’s true, yes. It’s allowed.
Sometimes its safe to drive through a red light, sometimes its unsafe to drive through a green light.
What the fuck
Sometimes it is unsafe to drive through a green light, especially when people like op drive through red lights lol
We used to live near an intersection that, at night, the red turn arrow would just never change. There would be 0 other traffic, cycle after cycle, so… yeah. In some rare cases I’d rather safely go on red rather than wait hours for morning traffic to arrive.
