cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
Unsafe behavior isn’t made okay just because the risk of death is minimal. The mother could have been concussed or had a broken bone, for all we know. If things go pear shaped and the trailer tips over, you could have the kids dumped out into traffic on one side, or down a ditch on the other, for all we know. This line of thinking, that it’s okay as long as it’s not equally dangerous as it would be in a car, makes no sense.
There will always be people who do not act with regard to the safety of others. I would rather those people be on bikes than in cars.
I’m not discussing the morality of this action in a vacuum. I’m discussing it in comparison to the same person behaving equally as unsafely in a car.
Sure, all other factors being equal, it would be less severe with everyone on bikes, but your initial post read rather dismissively to me. Rather than, “Well at least it wasn’t a car and they didn’t die,” it came across to me like “Nobody was in a car and it was unlikely to kill them, so it’s not a problem.” Perhaps that wasn’t your intent, but it’s certainly how I interpreted it. We can advocate for a safer mode of transit while also calling out dangerous behavior by people using our preferred mode.