Agreed- the city of Richmond, especially Central (downtown to carytown), does not need to be as car centric as it is. Currently, we are because we cater to cars and the traffic isn’t yet horrendous compared to other cities. The more people move here and use their cars though, this will change.

We can do this though. We have a fairly good bus system when it is able to run at full capacity with drivers (which obviously is a big hurdle, not downplaying that.) We also have a walkable central city area, a small, but growing amount of protected bike lanes, and overall a small city size sq mile wise. I’d love to see someone on council (either current or in the next election cycle) focus on increasing GRTC and other non car options.

This. I go from Midtown to Church Hill around 4pm everyday. I refuse to take the interstate anymore. Straight down Broad. Idc if it takes me 10 more minutes.

Or insurance. The one time I went to court to try to get a speeding ticket reduced to traffic school, I'd say at least 5 people ahead of me in the docket all were in there because it was the umpteenth time they'd been caught driving without either or both of those things.

People do not care and if they need to risk driving without those things to get to a job, they will. I have an umbrella policy of $1 million on top of my car insurance because I'm aware one bad crash with an uninsured driver might bone me into bankruptcy if I'm unable to work a long period of time or need ongoing home health help because I'm crippled.

I am trying to make this happen by biking everywhere. But I feel like you kinda have to be crazy to make this choice, with the way people drive. I have had three near-misses with cars over the past couple of weeks. None of them have been my fault, but it doesn't matter who is right or wrong when two tons of metal is coming at you at 40 mph.

So I don't blame people for weighing the dangers of biking vs driving and electing to go with the latter.

Agreed, and this sub is great supporting evidence, there's like 5 threads every day about drivers having a bad time. Sounds aggravating and psychically damaging.

It's not really "crazy" from an economic perspective.

In order to convert our past 60 to 100 years of suburban sprawl everywhere as a country into public transport you'd have to invest hundreds of billions of not trillions nationally into light rail and bus systems. It's also not clear where the land to run those lines would come from either because it's all privately owned and would have to be seized by eminent domain, if for example you wanted to build light rail through the Richmond metro area.

Stakeholders don't want to change anything. People driving mostly want to keep driving themselves, and business owners don't want to risk losing any volume because the parking or road outside their business has been taken away. We couldn't even convince a handful of places on Broad St to give up a small amount of 2 hour parking spots to have the Pulse run along the curb instead of in the middle of Broad.

It's also simply cheaper to maintain existing highway and road networks than it is to try to end those things or replace some of them. And COVID just fucked budgets everywhere, too, so it's not like there is a surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars sitting around.

So you'd have to essentially convince people to be taxed more to pay for this massive renovation, convince all the people who prefer driving to stop, convince business owners to go along with it, and convince politicians to risk being the ones advocating for this mostly unpopular stuff.

It's never happening. No one wants to hear this, but there is about zero chance cars are replaced to any degree in Richmond in the next 50 years let alone most of the country. This isn't to say we shouldn't try to get some of them off the road, but rather being realistic - the political will, voter will, and money isn't there for a magical massive public transportation conversion. We're mostly stuck with this.

I was in a black ice fender bender years ago on route 29. The other driver and I got out of our cars (I was young and dumb, don’t know about them) which were on the shoulder. We almost immediately realized our mistake and scrambled up a nearby embankment just as the first of several more cars smacked into our vehicles

The problem is the roads aren't designed for the volume they do get. Which is why this is literally not possible!

In the 1950s, guess what, it is 100% meant with those rule were created for and when.

That length is intended for the vehicle in front of you goes from full speed to 0 in an instant. (basically if they hit a parked car, barrier, etc.)

Yeah.... Adding that one to the list of douche excuses alongside "well you shouldn't dress like a slut"... Let's all be careless with everyone else's health because acting like a decent human being is such an inconvenience... Sigh.

The people who tailgate cannot fathom any higher values or ethical considerations besides “But I wanna go faaaaaaaaaaast.” 😭❄️

Many times I’ll be passing a line of cars on my right and someone decides I’m not doing it quickly enough and gets 2 inches from my bumper

I don't think you can draw too much from those statistics alone. How many accidents per miles driven? England has more developed, and better used public transportation, I'd be a lot less people are commuting 30-45 minutes every day to get to work.

Less rural and suburban areas, etc.

Not saying anything about slower traffic keeping right, not saying your argument is even wrong, just saying I don't think you can support it with those numbers alone.

I'd also add, people driving cars with a 5.7 liter engine does not help either when the some cars have a 1.5 engine. It's hundreds of different types of cars on the interstate outpacing each other, which in turn can lead to road rage.

Yet it’s perfectly acceptable to go ten to 15 mph over the speed limit in the left lane, huh?

Edit to better explain my snark, it’s so backwards how much we complain about people riding in the left lane when literal speeding is considered acceptable by the majority.

It just happened again twice on my way home on 64. It is an everyday, multiple times a day occurrence for me.

Every conversation on tailgating I’ve ever seen, someone pops up and says but what about the people going slow in the left lane. Honestly, it’s getting tiring and it seems like a tactic to try and deflect to a different issue altogether.

What about the vast majority of tailgaters who are just impatient selfish whiny crybaby assholes who can’t stand the fact that they don’t get to go 15-20 over the limit at all times and so they ride your ass because you’re not passing fast enough to satiate their compulsions and whims? Or when you’re in the middle lane minding your own business going the speed limit. Or all the other scenarios where tailgaters tailgate.

Tailgaters are the real problem and yet there is zero accountability so they keep doing it.

There are also many drivers that are now speeding up in the right lane just as someone goes to pass them. I have yet to make sense of this besides people driving staring at their phones but there’s also a good bit of people that seem to want to speed up to get in front of the other person and then slow down creating a tailgate situation.

To the people that do this - You are not helping to slow the roads down, you are creating multiple angry drivers that will only want to speed up faster once there’s an opportunity. You are creating road rage and a more dangerous environment for everyone when you could just live your life. I get that speeding kills, but again I am confident driving like this causes more speeding and likely more accidents. I don’t ever see this behavior mentioned on this sub and all I’m hoping is to open at least 1 persons eyes as to how stupid this type of thing is.

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From my perspective in the middle lane and a strict left-lane passer only that "loafer" would be a relative term. Unfortunately traffic volume doesn't always facilitate a left-lane for passing only and you do get traffic traveling at high rates of speed... it's not uncommon for the left lane to be going 80 in high volume traffic and there still one person 4 ft off someones bumper trying to go 90 creating a dangerous situation for everyone in the immediate vicinity. And since everyone is tailgating everyone there's not always room for everyone to be constantly getting over to the right because D-bag wants to go 90 instead of 83 with the rest of traffic.

so yeah, while people should get over to the right so others can pass on the left... people traveling in the left lane need to recognize that just because someone isn't getting over it doesn't give them the right to drive aggressively.

My personal opinion is that if someone is so hung up on people hanging in the left lane that person is probably a speeder, tailgater, and roadrager.

Even the article admits the only point of the law is to prevent those types of people from road raging, not that the act of "loafing" (again, often times at speeds greater than the legal speed limit) itself is dangerous or causes traffic.

"Murphy said left lane loafers are a major cause of road rage, which leads to unsafe passing maneuvers in the right lanes or tailgating or vengeful braking, which leads to collisions, which leads to more traffic jams. The American Automobile Association says 56 percent of fatal crashes are caused by aggressive driving.
“People get so frustrated that they can’t get around the slower driver, so they end up honking their horn, flashing their lights or tailgating, and the person in front slams on their brakes,” he said. “Or the faster driver has to pass on the right, then cuts back in front and slams on his brakes.”

Be super duper careful if you get out of the car. Don't do it if you see headlights in the rear view mirror at all. Cars are at least designed to be hit, so if you're buckled up in the car and get hit you still have a chance of getting through with no major injuries. If you're outside of your car and get hit at highway speeds, well, the odds are not good.

From the link:

>Don’t become a pedestrian fatality on the highway. Be patient while waiting for help.
If you must leave your car, keep away from traffic and walk on the right side of the road.
Crossing a highway or trying to stop traffic is dangerous, especially at night or when visibility is low.

Ohh maybe. Was it two middle eastern guys in a clunker sedan who rear ended you? If so, I can pull my dash cam footage if you need it.