Honestly what is it about driving that turns people into such self-entitled cunts?
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Car dependency on streets that are too small for cars
Not sure it’s just limited to driving. Lots of self entitled cunts everywhere.
But thanks to cars, they're now two and a half ton entitled cunts.
Lol, true!
This comic is why I decided to move out of the city. I've sacrificed a number of things, but it was worth it to get away from this crap on the daily.
I've lived/worked in a few large US cities, and have absolutely no interest in ever doing that again. (Fuck DC, especially. What a dumpster fire - once missed a turn and it added 2 hours to my drive because of how bad the traffic is. I should've driven over the median).
You're safe in your box and it dehumanises all the other road users a bit
I've had this theory for a while that it's an Id/Ego thing. My very basic understanding of those two things is that Ego is what the world sees and Id is all your internal unfiltered behaviour. I reckon that when you get into a car, that car becomes what the world sees and you, as the consciousness safely inside it, instinctively revert to being more Id led. You feel safe and enclosed so you stop filtering your behaviour the way you would walking down the street.
As someone who has driven in different countries though, terrible behaviour is absolutely not limited to the UK. In France I experienced drivers who actually go out of their way to ruin your day. In the Middle East it was an almost complete lack of caring at all and a comically enthusiastic attitude to risk taking. In Greece everyone seemed to be ok with today being the day they die on the road and in Argentina people just pointed their cars in a direction and hoped for the best!
You've described my driving experience and that of friends/family to a "T".
Can't pay me to drive in France (well, outside of cities, maybe).
Britain... Well there can be some inconsiderate knobs, but in somewhere like London it's as bad as Boston or New York, maybe worse in it's own way due to the city being 1000 years old, with lots of growing pains. (Which is why Boston is a good comparison - they have similar organic growth).
I did rush hour in Paris once. Made NYC look like F1 racing. You want to go? you physically insert your car in front of them or you're not going ANYHERE.
Driving in Seoul is thousands of people staring straight forward because if you don't look at other drivers, they have to let you in.
Of course, the diesel SsangYong I had was all I needed to tell them "You should wait for the light."
It was also common for cars to park anywhere and leave their phone number on the dash so you could call them to let them know you were blocked in.
It was so much nicer to just take public transit.
Nah, the id/ego/superego thing was made up by Freud. Freud was a late 19th century crackhead who thought that everyone was in love with one of their parents. We do not listen to Freud. We do not trust Freud.
It can still be a useful model for understanding how we behave, sometimes.
He may have been a coke fiend with some wonky ideas, but sometimes, some of them can still be useful.
If nothing else, the idea of how ego plays a part here makes sense, and how we probably think of the car as an extension of our body.
I think people find driving stressful because they struggle to operate machinery more than they are comfortable to admit
Modest mouse has a whole song about it.
What's it called?
I think it's called invisible
Thank you!
Number of times I was almost run over in a crosswalk by someone blowing a red light:
- car:0
- cyclist: 2
Getting cursed out by the dickhead running the red is a great experience. #vancouver
(downvotes? You think that's not the number?)
This is exactly my experience when taking my child to school on the bike. I've literally seen every issue and had people saying we shouldn't be on the road from their unnecessarily massive car, with one kid in, parking on the no parking areas and hitting 40 on the school street beforehand where we have roughly 900 children at the primary school (ages 4 to 11), so not like they should be careful or anything with their killing machines...
Strap a propane cylinder to your bike. You can't win when they run you over, but you can take them with you
Very good idea. I could skip the tank and have a sign saying "This e-bike battery may explode on contact. Hit me and we'll find out together"
"I need to park here...But get that walking stick away from my wanky vinyl wrap!"
How dare you disparage my wanky vinyl wrap!
When you have to spend about 1/3 of your wages to look like what you think is successfull I imagine you have to inject a lot of your ego into it.
"This thing costs me £750+ per month, you can fucking bet I'm going to draw attention to myself"
if you're a cyclist you just can't win lol
I always cycle on the pavement. it's less busy than the road most of the time and if there's someone in front of me I ring my bell to alert them just in case
If I'm walking on the pavement and a cyclist rings their bell to make me get out of their way, I'm gonna get mad
I know cars suck. But you're meant to cycle on the road - You're not supposed to cycle on the pavement. I don't care if you do if the road is horrible, fair play, but ringing your bell at me? It's my right of way, so no thanks
Bicycle bells are to make people aware of your presence, not to tell them to get out of the way.
I know cars suck. But you're meant to cycle on the road
This is not true everywhere.
If you're biking at the appropriate speed for being near pedestrians, you don't need to alert of your presence because you are no danger.
You only need to alert your presence if you're going faster than what is safe to do, which is being a dick and pedestrians are right to be mad at you.
Literally the bike bell is a courtesy to let you know someone is there to avoid collision, it's not to force you out of the way. At least that's how it is for me. Sharing the path you're on is a shared expectation regardless of if it's another walker, runner, someone on roller blades, a skateboard, or a bike.
My toddler has a little bell for this reason, and you can get bent if you expect me to put a 4 year old on a busy street.
Don't be a dick is the first rule, and you're already failing by being so self centered around shared pathways.
Plenty of paths, the same width as your sidewalk, are MEANT for all pedestrians, including bikes. And we get a long just fine.
And since your city doesn't have safe pedestrian oriented infrastructure, like one with dedicated walking & cycling paths. Bikes are forced onto sidewalks.
Mate idk where you live but in the UK you aren't allowed to cycle on pavements. Call me a dick if you want but it's just how it is.
If you wanna use the pavement, get off your bike and walk. Dont get mad at me cos you don't like cycling on the road. Neither do I. So I walk.
Cycling on the pavement can be a lot safer. people on bikes have been knocked over by buses and cars when they're cycling on the road. i ring my bell if there's someone in front of me walking with their back turned and can't see me
To be clear, you're complaining about entitled drivers while demanding pedestrians get out of your way on a highway you're not supposed to be on in the first place?
I ring the bell to get their attention so they know I'm coming. if they're walking in front of me and have their back turned the bell gets their attention. as I said cyclists just can't win no matter what they do lol. also I'm a petite woman with an equally tiny bike so it's not like I take up the whole pavement
I get shocked when I'm on a pavement and a cyclist rings a bell at me, so if I'm cycling on a pavement I either stop and wait till the person is past me or dismount and walk past the pavement. Pedestrian priority.
Cyclists ringing their bell at pedestrians on the pavement is like cars honking their horns at cyclists in a bike lane
It's not your space, so don't impose on the people using it properly
I'm sorry that roads can be bad for cyclists, but making the pavement bad for pedestrians isn't the answer
I cycle in the middle of the road as the highway code intended. Keeps me most visible and reduces dangerous overtaking, plus gives me more swerving space.
As an occasional driver: thank you. It feels harder to overtake cyclists when they go towards the edge of the road, as they are harder to see and it feels like people are pressuring me to overtake when it isn't safe to do so. Just stay in the middle of the lane where I can see you!
My feeling is that unless there is a bike lane you should go on the pavement. You're not going to hit a pedestrian, not if you've been careful, and the roads are just not set up for cyclists.
However if there is a cycle lane, and as long as cars aren't parked in it, you should be using it.
That is pretty much exactly what my street looks like - except it's missing the bunch of "Apple Maps" users taking a detour down our residential street at 40mph (rather than one of the two parallel main roads), because there were some roadworks round the corner for two weeks, half a year ago.
That last one isn't wrong, though it'd be ideal to first make the roads safe for bikes.
A kid on their bike on the pavement is not really a threat imho
On a residential street like that there is zero reason not to be on the road, especially if there are cars on the pavement, but I don't really mind cyclists being on the pavement if it's a busy A road.
There's a road near me with a speed limit of 50 and I regularly see cyclists on that road. It's insane that they're risking their life to be on a road when there's a perfectly good pavement right next to them and there's never anyone on the pavement. No one wants to take a walk along a road with a 50 mph speed limit.
I've been hit by kids on bikes. if you have average able bodied as per work safety regulations strength you can probably pick up the whole bike along with the kid. even if not its not much worse than slipping on ice. The one time I had a kid crash in to me and the parent was not combatative about it I picked up the whole bike and turned to put it on the other side of me and the parent just apologized and said he hopes the kid won't expect him to do that now. now if it was an electric fatbike then no, not happening.
Anyone who tells people not to bike on the sidewalk, and who owns a car, deserves to have it magically explode right then and there. And I hope they're driving it when they do.
I have wondered if I could get a wheelchair (disabled person optional) and push it down the street with people parked like that. Get stuck and use force to dislodge them.
Or call 999 and see if some firemen want to give it a go. I do wonder how they would deal with it.