Monthly Archives: December 2018

Traffic violence

Every day hundred of thousands ride the bike. Some of them use bike lines and / or roads together with cars and motorcycles. This last fact makes possible to discover the real violence on the streets. Yes, you have read violence. And I am not talking about the undesirable, possibly common bike accidents. I am referring to a subtle, invisible force with capital letters. It is easiest to discover if you live in a city in which urbanism have been developed under bad, people-damaging, car-oriented premises, meaning with wide and straight avenues, long distances between zebra crossings, and few speed radars if any. Perhaps you have get used to it without realizing how harmful and noxious it is. Paying a little bit of attention of the car drivers stuck in traffic jam behavior helps to discover it. Moreover, if you were able to determine each and every speed car in those avenues, you will astonish as most of them do not fulfill the traffic regulations. Furthermore, cars do not often respect the security distance when they overtake a bicycle. The use of turn signals to indicate others what they want to make is not frequently use.

So, are public institutions calming the traffic? Yes and no. Yes because every day actions are taken in this direction around the world. But also no since urban traffic is still too violent to be considered as calmed.

The solution to traffic jams

Every day millions of cars enter to cities creating traffic jams around the world. The negative effects of such habit encompass psychological problems like stress and drivers bad mood as well as pollution. Apart from the clear excess in the number of cars we suffer, another key point is the real source of that. The more distance between where one lives and where one works, buys or studies, the more traffic jams. The bad behavior of driving dozens of kilometers every day converts people in a kind of simple-minded persons. If they sum up all the money they waste in gas plus the personal cost of all the hours they spend stuck and the drugs they need to overcome the psychological problems it causes, they probably realize how to overcome them. What about living nearer to the work place? Or moving to a closer area? Or using public transport? Or riding a bike? Or sharing the car (as figures show the mean occupation by car is 1.2 people)? But not. Most of them prefer poisoning everybody, including themselves, instead of changing how and where they live. Reducing distances and using green ways of transport is both beneficial for their pockets and the environment.