Case in point: my daughter had a very near miss when she was about 2. She was walking down the side walk a bit in front of me, and this middle aged lady in a Range Rover went onto the sidewalk to get around a stopped car, barely missing my daughter. I yelled at her but she didn't even notice in her sound proof SUV.

People get mad (especially people driving vans/small trucks), but it's disgraceful that people are driving multi-tonne vehicles and are completely oblivious to their surroundings.

I'm glad your daughter is ok.

1) A car comes within centimeters of side swiping me and knocking me down. They don't even notice I'm there.

2) They stop at the next traffic light, I tap on the window to tell them to be more careful.

3) They get angry at me.

4) Other drivers see this interaction and soon you see articles in newspapers complaining about "militant cyclists"

Pretending that there aren't extremely toxic cyclists doesn't help the problem.

Cyclists don't have to be toxic for the whole setup to not work, they just have to not obey the same laws that are in place for cars. Where I live, I'm more likely to be hit by a cyclist on a pedestrian crossing than by a car.

And no, cyclists don't often ride between lines of cars. Some cyclists do that. Just like some drivers are reckless jerks.

Every group has bad actors. I'd even wager both groups -- cyclists and drivers -- have the same percentage of morons.

You seem to be claiming that all cyclists have to be saints "for the setup to work", which is bizarre. The rules in most cities in the US clearly prioritize cars over people. As plenty of other cities around the world have demonstrated, changing those priorities changes behavior.

This isn't rare, either - there's at least 1 shouted interacted per week.

It's no wonder my friends are afraid to get on the roads/their bikes.

My new form of riding in the city is to be 100% defensive all the time, but not in a give up my rights as a cyclist way. I assume cars will do dumb things (because they always do) so I avoid their blind spots, never pass on the right, alsways take the entire lane so that a car can not pass you if it's not safe (only do this in the city), when traffic is slow assume cars will jump quickly around in lanes etc.

Many people get angry and defensive when you yell at or reprimand them. The goal is to try and inform them of their poor driving without increasing anger on both sides. Now I do this with a look, and no anger, and people tend to respond to that apologetically.

I admire the Dutch. They use the bicycle everywhere and in all weather conditions. The result? Their cities even sound so different. It is calm, very little car noise. Amazing.

And of course bicycles are far less dangerous than any car. So there is no reason to complain or criticise this great achievement.

In places where you have 20 mph zones because you feel like you can't physically get 2 cars past each other in North America, not only do you have traffic flow in both directions, the speed limit is 10 mph faster and everyone is still speeding.

There are places where if you don't park on the sidewalk, there isn't enough space on the actual roadway for traffic to pass... so people park on the sidewalk because "where else am I gonna park?"

This is everyday life in London, and people rarely even give it a second thought or bat an eyelid until someone gets hit, and then there's outrage for a day or two and then everyone shrugs and say "that's just the way it is" and goes back to their everyday lives.

Is this crazy? I guess it is, but that's London... and every other old world town in the country. Streets were built long before there were cars, houses line both sides of streets and so the roads can't be widened without knocking down hundreds or in the occasional place thousands of years of history. We take our heritage more seriously than our need for wider roads.

We all greatly over estimate our ability to drive and we all think we're the next World Rally Championship champion - because we all drive stick. None of those shitty automatics you North Americans love. When we drive, we want to drive, not cruise luxuriously on our floating cloud, cut off from the feeling of the road by soft suspension.

So imagine cars dashing through tight streets, with no room for two way traffic - even though it's a 2 way street, other cars parked close on either side, almost grazing your wing mirrors as you whip through and your only thought is I hope nothing comes the other way, the last place I could've let them pass was 400m back and I'd have to back up this bastard all the way back to there to let them pass.

Ironically, you have one of 2 states when you're driving on the circular road around London, our M25 motorway (that's what we call highways in the UK, motorways). You're either whipping along at 90mph (the speed limit is 70mph) 15ft from the bumper of the guy in front of you and the guy behind you 15ft from your bumper... all the way around the M25, or someone's had an accident and you're crawling along at 20mph wondering if you're ever going to get home. The 3 lanes of the motorway much of the way around is narrower than your 2 lane highways here.

The first time you ever drive in this kind of environment you feel one of two feelings - either trepidation, anxiety and nausea, or a level of indescribable exhilaration.

That's what driving in England is like. It's like an extreme sport compared to driving in North America.

A little secret though, we already know you guys feel this way, and we take that into consideration when we drive you... we add a little extra excitement to the drive, you know, because we know you guys are addicted to drama :D

We know you're already uncomfortable because you feel like you're on the wrong side of the car and on the wrong side of the road, exposed and white knuckling it, so we just like to send you home with a little something to remember us by... that time you took your life in your own hands by getting in the car with a crazy Brit and lived to tell the tale ;)

Every country has its own behaviour that shocks and horrifies the rest of the world. Britains roads, drivers and completely topless Page 3 girls in mainstream newspapers that even our kids can leaf through are ours. I guess we'd rather die at high speed in our own car in a land we own where our kids grow up with a healthy appreciation of breasts than be desensitized to the rape and pillage of foreign lands for their wealth ;)

You may have missed the tone of the rest of my post which should have implied a tongue in cheek mood... you'll have to forgive how dry our humour is, something else that is uniquely British ;)

[0]https://www.youtube.com/user/Lomak1581

Not just crossing major roads (I live downtown in my little city, but I have to cross a major road to get to any shops, which puts a big damper on my walking) but just one person walking down the road, by themselves? It's almost a scandal. And if I'm biking around town, especially not dressed in spandex like a bicyclist... what, did you have your driver's license taken away?

I know those are purely my hang ups and no one has ever stopped me and questioned my motives, but the idea comes from somewhere. It comes from a childhood where you weren't supposed to wander alone, and you were supposed to avoid strange men on the street. Then when you grow up to become a strange man on the street, you can't help but feel uncomfortable about it. At least I can't.

Rural/suburban life is like living in a barren wasteland marked by occasional oases you have to travel between in a metal spaceship.

Living in an area where commuting to work and activities by foot is completely normal feels like rediscovering a lost sense of communal society, and there's a relief and a comfort to it that's difficult to articulate.

* The library (5 minutes)

* A supermarket (8 minutes)

* A dozen restaurants (7-15 minutes; mostly local restaurants + 2 fast food chains)

* Two liquor stores

* A drug store (12 minutes)

* A coworking space (15 minutes)

* Several antique stores (12-15 minutes)

* (Almost forgot) Walmart (10 minutes)

* Two barbers (8-12 minutes)

* At least three major bus lines

And if I get on a bike, I can go across the entire town in 20 minutes, which puts me in range of more supermarkets, a local game store, a Gamestop, a bowling alley, at least two dozen more restaurants, and tons more.

There are places to live in my town that I would be stuck driving (or at least biking) everywhere. But I chose a place near the downtown area, and I can walk to tons of places. And I do.

Not fond of big cities. My kids can wander around my neighborhood or walk to the park, and we don't worry at all. Granted it's not six miles to the park. Six miles in any direction and you've left the small city I live in. But we're trying to resist the helicopter parenting style.

That said, I think there's another thing that's missing from this discussion: People are having fewer kids. Sometimes they have a single kid. So it's natural when all your eggs are in one basket to be a bit more paranoid about that basket.

They also complain that it will affect their view, though. Not the view from their homes, but as they drive along the road. Considering the housing is proposed for right behind a WalMart and other big box development, and in the opposite direction from the mountains from their subdivision. Sigh. "But we'll have to drive past it on the way to WalMart or the grocery! OMG!"

Despite having plenty of "undesirables" (not my word), we're in the top-10 safest cities in the state (#3 or 4, if I recall). The neighboring town (Louisville, CO) has won "best place in the US to raise a family" several times.

And the state is Colorado, where even the "rough" cities are actually pretty safe to begin with. I used to live in Oakland, CA, so there's probably no area in Denver that I'd be uncomfortable walking around at night. There are places I've been quite wary of in Oakland, though.

Yes, it's the exception. But it's not non-existent. You just need to choose to live in an area like that.

I lived in Oakland, CA, and had the ability to walk to tons of restaurants, a post office, and a library. And Bart. But Oakland counts as "big city" by most measures.

I also lived in Lafayette, CA [0], walkable to Bart, restaurants, and grocery shopping. And Alameda, CA, walkable to grocery, the post office, an entire shopping center (Southshore [1]), and a beach. And in Boulder CO where I could walk to a supermarket, restaurants, and a library. And another location in Boulder where I could walk to restaurants.

And I've looked at walkable housing in a dozen other suburban cities. If "walkability" is your priority, you can find it all over the place.

[0] Ironically I'm now in Lafayette Colorado. I keep saying I just have a couple more Lafayttes to live in, and I can collect the whole set. :)

[1] http://www.alamedasouthshorecenter.com/

Edit to add: Longmont, CO has a charming walkable downtown as well, plus gigabit ethernet for cheap. In case you care. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette%2C_Colorado

Almost literally your eggs in one "basket".

If you're a glass half empty person. Many people see it as freedom to do close to whatever you want without anyone caring.

I grew up in a rural small town and now live in NYC... I love my neighborhood in the city for how extremely walkable it is, the breadth of diversity in people, food, opportunities etc. However I do often miss, for example, going for aimless drives with no traffic or stoplights, finding solitude on a dirt road 5 minutes from home with not a house or person in sight, hiking, camping, shooting and snowmobiling essentially right outside the door.

In the burbs I still get the same kind of 'trapped' feeling I'll sometimes get in the city, but without the benefits of living in a dense city: endless things to do, many friends within walking distance, and tons of places to share a drink or meal with them.

I now live in rural Canada. I've spent much of my adult life living in dense cities after having grown up in rural England - London, Vancouver, Houston, Toronto. You can't compare the advantages of either environment - rural or city, but the suburbs truly are the worst of each. You get a lot of space you can't do anything of any value with because of all the rules defined for the comfort of your neighbours who you either have never met or are a pain in your ass; and you can't walk anywhere because there's nowhere to walk.

When you live surrounded by farmland, you can camp for free, hunt, be outdoors, roam on your bike, let your kids climb trees and hike and explore on their own, build treehouses and let them play Lord of the Flies to their heart's content. They can grow, find themselves and become self confident self assured leaders who don't need Mommy every time they graze a knee and have thick skin that doesn't cry to be soothed every time someone insults them, because "they've got this".

In the city you've still got all the stifling rules of suburbia, but you have a pay off: Everything is to hand, you can ditch your car and walk everywhere or take public transit, get on your bike, become part of a tight community of city dwellers. There's extensive culture right outside your door, night life, excitement and high energy... that never. Ever. Shuts. Off.

Eventually the city grinds you down though. It's exciting and freeing for a while, and if you grew up in the city, you might never notice it; but if you grew up in the countryside or the mountains eventually you'll notice it and begin to feel trapped, you'll begin to miss your roots and the simple life, you'll grow sick of trying to keep up with the relentless onslaught of the media, the billboards, the shop windows telling you that you're not enough, you need this to feel better, you need this to look better, you need this to be better and you'll begin to long for an escape from the ceaseless assault of your mind.

Rural life is a different kind of freedom... where you can see the stars.

Work. If you're not running your own online business and need a skilled/tech job, you don't have much choice.

Schools. Cities often have better school options for your kids.

Politics. Rural areas across the world generally lean conservative, and sometimes downright way too conservative.

Schools: I agree, you can't substitute a good education, but there are more ways to educate kids to a high level than sitting in a classroom. Scouts, Guides, 4H, Outward Bound, there are many stables that need stable hands, farms that need labour. There are endless numbers of lessons to be learned about working as a team, discipline to work on your own etc. etc. etc. There are many ways to effectively supplement their academics that they would never stand a chance of getting in the city. It just takes a different way of looking at things. That's not to say that the academic education kids get in the city is to be dismissed. But the more I hear about our inner city schools failing our kids, the more I wonder how effective they even are in this current climate.

Politics: This is very geo-specific. There are many liberal, conservative and more socialist leaning communities. It really depends on the demographic of that area and who the tax system is set up to benefit. The village I grew up in tended to be much more moderate... I'm not sure how to describe it actually, liberally conservative perhaps? We had a socialist mayor when I was growing up there and the closest town was quite metropolitan, but still enjoyed the benefits of the socialist leaning community that all looked out for one another. It was pretty much live and let live, help each other out, look after your neighbours, proud of their community and the town was very well kept and maintained. If an area is downright too conservative and that's not for you, I'd suggest not living there ;)

Even in rural areas, you can find much more in common with your neighbour than you think, regardless of their political sway, whether they're a hardcore biker or businessman, doctor, lawyer, farmer. We're all in this together, even if some of their ideals don't quite mesh with your own.

https://peperperspective.com/2017/02/01/we-are-more-alike-th...

Many of the more European leaning communities are much more inclusive of neighbours needs and looking after each other which is a more socialist type trait.

Let me clarify, when I say socialist, I don't mean the brand of socialism that's sold by American propaganda in the way Communism was in the 60's which caused everyone to be terrified of it. I mean the brand of socialism where everyone is not only happy to contribute and be taxed for the good of their community, to improve infrastructure, hospitals, education, waste services, emergency services etc. but they feel it's their duty to their community and do it proudly. Everyone feels it's their duty to ensure that nobody is left behind and mucks in to make it so.

Conservative everyone-out-for-themselves-and-fuck-everyone-else attitudes tends to be a much more American stance on Conservatism, even Conservatives here in Canada tend to be much more community minded and inclusive - it's enshrined in the culture here, "immigration and diversity is our strength." Especially in communities with a large youth contingent.

I'm guessing, so please take this with a grain of salt: I would say look at the age demographics of a community, the lower the median age, I would wager, the more likely the community is to lean more moderately or towards liberal or socialist ideals.

It has been my experience that French communities tend to lean more heavily towards the ideals of France, which are more socialist in that respect and the Polish people I know also seem to lean more heavily towards the ideals of Poland, which being European isn't a world different. Immigrants (in my experience) tend to favour what they grew up with and know. As an immigrant myself, I can understand that sentiment.

As for deer, does boar count? If so, then definitively.

You have fresh air, views, and quiet (provided you're not in the middle of an agribusiness rural area).

(Talking about "freedom" in the pure abstract is vague; freedom to/from what?)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

It satisfied a few European stereotypes of America all in one go.

I'm pleased to have visited various parts of the US since, and confirmed it certainly doesn't happen everywhere, but I've also experienced first hand just how pedestrian hostile some areas are...

Sadly, the less people walk around the more pedestrian hostile the city becomes.

This reminded me of the short story "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pedestrian

We've studied this story in the English class (probably some 25 years ago).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/14/bob.dylan/

One of my favorite things is to walk down the middle of the street in my Grandma's town on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Small town, shops are closed, quiet except for a few bars and people's homes. Also a good break from family, and a walk on a day where I eat a lot.

Cop said, "are you English?"

"Yep"

"Though so"

As a pedestrian, are you really going to stand around and be dictated what you can and can't do by a stupid fcking light? Life is short, get your head out of your phone, pay attention to your surroundings and cross the fcking road before the little light comes to tell you that your time is up and it's your turn to go to the next life and you missed it.

Every time someone baulks at me for doing it, I can't help but grin and remember the quote from the original Point Break:

"It was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. To those dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins ... we show them that the human spirit is still alive."

Of course, taking the main road by foot or bicycle would get you stopped by the police telling you to not do that on that road. It was for cars, not pedestrians.

It felt weird to feel like I did something wrong.

This is just one specific example of the broader phenomenon, which is corporations seek to remove all of our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities, so that they may resell those things to us as products. Requiring cars to move around is just the surface.

We go to coffee shops and restaurants to see our friends.

We purchase MP3s or concert tickets to hear music.

We order food instead of cooking it let alone growing it.

And of course this is all a luxury to some: many of us would be happy to never have to walk significant distance, cook, or listen to a local musician ever again.

But it's in the corporations best interest that children aren't really given a choice. And that serves nation states' best interest, which is to grow the GDP. But the result is a world of people who, without a credit card, are babies unable to care for themselves. Short of someone putting food in our mouths and maintaining the grounds around us, we would be lost. Luckily we have the cash to afford these things.

And those who fall through the cracks of being able to hold a job are eaten up.

All hail GDP. All hail capital. Thank you Gates, Koch, Slim, Walton, for providing us with internet connectivity, petrol, and toilet paper this day.

There is also no evil corporation ordering people to give up subsistence farming and move to cities. Why do people, all around the world, still do it?

I find its theory compelling that a lot of advertising works by cultural imprinting: corporations use their power to create a presence in the public sphere which changes the underlying culture of society, and we as individuals have no choice about that.

Obviously individuals can in principle just ignore and go against the prevailing culture (in sufficiently free countries, at least), but even in free countries, that's a lot harder than just going with the flow. That's just how humans are wired, and the likely fact that corporations - i.e, non-human intelligences - have such influence over us by changing the very fabric of society is a cause for concern. Like all influence it can turn out to be good or bad, but ignoring it is not an option.

Good luck growing modern plants, they're mostly hybrid and massively drop in yield if you decide to plant part of your harvest next year. Not to mention that Monsanto will be all over your field if they get wind of you violating their copyright by doing so.

There's that whole big-corporation medical care business, but if you're willing to forego it, the dream can be yours - for much less then the cost of a small suburban home.

Housing is not cheap, no matter where you go in the US. Sure, the land it sits on may be cheaper in some places, but the cost of building materials is the same everywhere, and houses have to be built to code, and old houses that aren't maintained well enough get condemned so you're not allowed to live in them. Of course, you can always just get an old trailer home or something.

>and gasoline is very cheap in the US.

Yes, and distances are far when you're talking about living in "the middle of nowhere", and if you have an old vehicle, it's probably going to have terribly fuel economy, so you're still looking at a significant fuel bill just to get to the grocery store. No, you're not going to succeed in getting yourself a proper diet with your home garden. And you still need some kind of income to buy that land and whatever structure you live in, and that gas for your car/truck.

>There's that whole big-corporation medical care business, but if you're willing to forego it,

That's not allowed unless the ACA is repealed. Of course, with a low enough income, you might qualify for Medicaid, but that really depends. I believe a lot of states won't allow you to enroll if you're an adult, saying you should just get a job.

My parents do part-time homesteading (My father works - he will retire in a few years) - and they only need to go into town once a month for staples - supplemental chicken feed, milk, fertilizer, etc. Fuel economy isn't that big a deal.

The ACA tax is based on your income. If you have no income, the tax is tiny.

No, of course you can't start all that having nothing. However, most of the posters on HN are more then able to save up to afford this life.

As with Linux, this is only true if your time has no value.

Please.

It's in a corporation's best interest to give the customer exactly what he wants.

We still have "our abilities to take care of ourselves and our communities," but we also have the option of a corporation providing for our every whim.

I think you have misinterpreted what the parent comment was saying. He wasn't saying there are limited options, just that we choose to have corporations take care of things for us, and now that we have chosen this we are more dependent on them. He wasn't stating that you could not take care of yourself if you want to. Just that it's easier to let the corporation do it for you.

In many many cases, it's more cost effective to modify the customer's wishes than it is to change the corporation and what it produces.

A corporation's main goal is to drive up profits and if it's more convenient for them to manipulate a populace into acting a certain way than it is to give the populace exactly what they want then that's what they'll do.

There is probably not a conspiracy from corporations or government to undermine people's freedom and what not but it doesn't mean that it isn't the end result.

We don't watch broadcast TV at home. 30 mins in front of a friend's TV and our kid suddenly 'need' a ton of new stuff. At the cinema "you should get that car Dad", etc..

It's psychological manipulation, it's rarely ever a helpful synopsis of a products comparative specifications.

You may want something with accomplishes some goal without knowing exactly what. If a person thinks "I have to go out but I'm waiting for a call", they may not imagine the cellphone as an object, but they still want something that solves their problem.

That said, 73.6% of all statistics are made up. Many ads in fact are designed with both goals in mind.

It's in a corporation's best interest to instil in the customer an idea of what he or she wants.

...and then yes, your version.

Comcast comes to mind here. Or Better Business Bureau and the sole reason for its existence.

I recall that Mao Zedong tried to get every farmer to smelt his own iron, which rather predictably led to a lot of poor-quality iron, and a food shortage.

I get the appeal of self-sufficiency, I really do (one of my dreams is to grow all of my own food), but I think it's a luxury for the rich and inescapable misery for the poor. Modern capitalism has made everyone richer.

Corporations provide those things because people want them.

Could you give an example of how you can't say no to advertisement?

Read "The Psychology of Influence" along with some of the stuff by, e.g, Kahneman and/or Tversky on behavioral economics and the various cognitive biases humans have that lead them to make poor decisions. I assure you that corporations have read all of this and are taking advantage of it to part you from your money, selling you products that they make you think will increase your happiness. Another resource on this would be Robert Shiller's book "Phishing for Phools, The Economics of Manipulation and Deception".

This isn't about taking personal responsibility. Even when you become fully aware of the insidious way in which our culture works, it's impossible to entirely avoid being taken advantage of by marketing and advertising. We humans are made to think in certain ways, our brains have evolved in a way that gave us cognitive biases we can't escape, even when we're aware of them. Being aware can motivate us to change the culture itself (and its laws), though, so in the future people are less affected by corporate deceit and greed. Yes, this would likely mean lower corporate profits. (Question how we're conditioned to think of lower corporate profits as a bad thing.)

I want the best returns out of the corporations I invest in.

> Question how we're conditioned to think of lower corporate profits as a bad thing.

Perhaps it is my neoliberal worldview, but I think most people are like "corporate profits can go down" for <my cause>. People think that corporations are owned only by billionares.

Lower corporate profits are a bad thing for shareholders.

Why don't we just take poor people's money since they're so greedy for wanting money? Most of the arguments against excess wealth can be used against many first-world people including HNers.

> This puts you almost directly at odds with all non-shareholders who are negatively affected by increasing profits.

Economics is not zero-sum. Few people such as competitors will be negatively affected, but for the average person there will be little impact. For example, if Google makes more profits I am hardly impacted.

On a (somewhat) related note, this conversation reminded me of a George Carlin routine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo...

'In its 1947 strategy plan, the advertising agency strongly emphasized a psychological approach. "We are dealing with a problem in mass psychology." '

Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

That's an interesting thought. I was thinking that probably UBI won't come to pass (politicians corruptible, corporations greedy and short sighted) thus people will have to rediscover self-reliance in order to improve their situation.

You say that like local musicians are somehow a good thing... I'm quite sure there's none in my little area that I'd have any interest in listening to. Whether local musicians are good depends on your taste in music and the local culture where you happen to live.

Having traveled quite a bit I believe the US's public transportation systems, within cities and between regions, is a national embarrassment.

and that is the priority.

you have to be able to drive as fast as the roadway allows to get where you're going without needing to think about the safety of others.

if some kid runs out in front of your car, its not going to be a question of if you were driving to fast but one of "where the hell were the parents?"

the assumption being that the vehicle occupant has the right to get where they're going absolutely as goddamn fast as is humanly possible and nothing had better get in their way.

driverless cars can't get here soon enough.

Hell, I don't let them play in the front yard and wonder how long it'll be before I get the knock on the door because I let them play unsupervised in the fenced backyard with a trained full-grown German shepherd on watch.

Things are seriously screwed up.

And the sad part is that we've been conditioned to it. The parent that lets their kids roam with that kind of societal norm and social pressure? You start wondering...

[1] http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the... [2] http://www.sunherald.com/news/special-reports/dhs/article950...

Holy shit, that is fucking kidnapping. But somehow because a government worker does it somehow it's not the same thing?

As a 6 year old, I would walk next to busy urban streets alone, cross streets, get on trams, and go to school. I don't think the risk of that has really gotten much higher, we just perceive it differently. A good example is how cars didn't have seatbelts (at the back at least), or headrests, and they had a tendency to crumple and have the steering column impale the driver during collisions.

We seem to be more keenly aware of these issues nowadays, and are somehow more averse to them - quite aside from any actual changes for the worse.

I think this is a distinct difference in culture though. Over here its still the norm for kids to walk to school by themselves from the age of eight or nine, and once they reach secondary school to travel relatively long distances either by foot or public transport. I think there has been a drop in the number of primary school kids playing outside by themselves, but I have a feeling I had a less regimented childhood than many of my friends as a result of living on a quiet road.

In contrast older children are expected to walk 3 miles before they get transport cost assistance. Regardless of the social dangers of the route.

I'm not talking about "significant urbanization", but I definitely am talking about suburbanization, which is a pox that affects the whole country, as far as I know.

it's dangerous direction of thoughts, meaning kids won't have to be careful when outside. but you have bikes, you have tons of other dangers.

It will still be possible to hit a pedestrian, but much less likely.

When I was little, I regularly walked 3 or 4 miles to visit friends. I had to cross at least one "big" road on my way, where I just took extra care, because my parents had reminded me to.

The only large-scale problem was the anxiety suffered by parents who started obsessively worrying about their child, and maintaining tighter control over children is mainly medicine to alleviate their anxiety.

Do you know what the rates of accidental death were in the 1970s vs today?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just interested if you know the data.

EDIT: indeed, most children killed in car accidents were inside the vehicles, so driving kids everywhere may be increasing their risk of death. And a decreasing death rate might just be better car safety features - better car seats; better seatbelts and seatbelt laws.

EDIT2: Something like 12,000 US children die each year from unintentional injury, and 29million have non fatal injuries. Most of these are preventable.

Now that's not a very good sample size for a low-probability event, but it's not entirely insignificant either. If children had to dodge death at every turn like one commenter suggested, zero out of several hundred would have been unlikely.

As for non-fatal injuries, that's different, we were CONSTANTLY injured. Not from cars, but from just being clumsy stupid little fucks. It was normal for a kid to have bloody knees or scabs on their knees in my childhood. But I don't consider that a problem.

Statistics about my situation (1992, Austria):

These are the statistics about traffic-accidents back then. Unfortunately there's no distinction whether the children were in the car or walking/cycling.

* Austria had 7.8 million inhabitants back then, 24% were 0-19 years old.

* There were 4.682 accidents involving children 0-14 years old

* 4.843 times a child was hurt

* 56 children were killed

Source: http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/energie_umwelt_in...

there will never be 100% safety, kids do stupid dangerous things, climb stuff that shouldn't be climbed, we all did. in past, people accepted that, accepted the risk of injury and death for their kids, it was part of growing up. we just grew weaker recently, became control freaks, with illusion that we can control everything, while losing so much more. freedom.

fck, i am so glad i grew up in exactly that period of experiencing many good old things, and be able to apreciate new cool stuff too.

Even adults screw up, we can't reasonably expect kids not to when the consequences can be fatal. We could easily make our streets safer and more tolerant of user error if we actually cared, look at Sweden or the Netherlands. We just have to make safety a higher priority than speed in road design.

Think about how insane it is that we're expecting kids to regularly navigate an environment where, if they make even a small mistake, they can die. In what universe is that reasonable? Why are expecting our children to regularly dodge death?

What price a life? What else would you block to save a life? Pen lids? Swimming pools? Marshmallows?

> if they make even a small mistake, they can die. In what universe is that reasonable?

This universe. It is nature's way. Nature is unemotionally brutal, and cares not for a slip-up. We just try to insulate ourselves from its brutality.

Edit to reply to Tullius (I've hit my comment limit): The whole origin of this discussion is the hit to quality of life that losing the 'right to roam' has given. Also, while pen lids and marshmallows are outliers, swimming pool deaths aren't - between 1 and 4yo, drowning is the leading cause of death in the US, and drowning is up there with traffic accidents up until the teen years.

Obviously there's some limit to the degree we can protect ourselves, however as it stands, traffic fatalities are one of the highest-ranked causes of death for kids and youth, and we know of plenty of things that could increase traffic safety while still satisfying our transportation needs. There's no need to debate some silly extreme when we can make vast improvements without compromising quality of life.

> This universe. It is nature's way. Nature is unemotionally brutal, and cares not for a slip-up. We just try to insulate ourselves from its brutality.

Yes, and we could insulate ourselves a lot better if we took up better traffic engineering principles.

I posted some statistics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13549214

These are the statistics about traffic-accidents back then. Unfortunately there's no distinction whether the children were in the car or walking/cycling.

* Austria had 7.8 million inhabitants back then, 24% were 0-19 years old.

* There were 4.682 accidents involving children 0-14 years old

* 4.843 times a child was hurt

* 56 children were killed

Source: http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/energie_umwelt_in...

I posted some statistics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13549214

Everyone's grandparents who survived just fine are exactly that: just fine, because they survived.

Nowadays, with parents having fewer children on average and with tragic childhood accidents being more exceptional, I would only expect modern parenting to favor greater restrictions.

The report estimated that 1,400 children had been sexually abused in the town between 1997 and 2013, predominantly by gangs of British-Pakistani men.[7] Abuses described included abduction, rape, torture and sex trafficking of children.

Perhaps freeways aren't the only factor here.

I'm assuming you're presuming somehow controlling for the fact that one of those two is on motorcycle?

Sounds like you need to pack a pistol and some mace when you run.

I would love to let my 8 year old daughter roam our current neighborhood like that, but we get more speeding cars in an afternoon cutting through our street than I would see in a weeks at my parents'.

More modern roadways are quite distant and independent of even the usual retail/restaurant establishments. You have to take an exit. These roads tend to be toll. I don't know how anyone who hasn't used them would be able to see what I mean, but around Houston, the new 99 and I45 stand as examples of the two approaches.