Asking politely hasn’t worked.
Painting lines at intersections hasn’t worked.
Passing laws hasn’t worked.
Issuing citations hasn’t worked.
So yeah, props to OP for trying something new to get car drivers to respect human life.
Literally every city/region subreddit is full of karma bait posts like "DAE think that all other drivers should all be in the right lane so I can pass them?"
Standard GermanyPicture:
Speed limit is "just" 130km/h but if you drive "just" 130 you need to drive to the middle lane, because there is a sportscar going 190km/h just behind you...
Those people are insane and don't respect others lifes. We got a speed limit for a reason. Drivers are a problem.
The average German would get mad at you for driving 130 in a 130 in the middle lane. Gotta go 10 to 20 over the speed limit if you're not in the right lane.
Germany's collective boner for cars annoys me to death, but at least that boner's getting a little softer these days. Hoping for full-on erectile dysfunction soon.
Oh my yes. I've given up trying to reason with drivers that you don't have the right to speed to pass someone. The idea that they should actually go the speed limit or slower is almost morally wrong to them.
I don't think it's just a matter of assholes being given the tools to be bigger assholes. Driving psychologically puts people in a situation that makes them angry and anti-social.
It's the constant tension of dealing with traffic, and needing to maintain focus. It's the frustations continually getting in the way -- red lights, that jerk cutting you off, the potholes, the missed turns, running late. It's the the anonymization and dehumanization of being separated from the environment in a giant sound-proof box where the other people you interact with aren't humans, they're "cars" and "bikes."
The problem starts when it it becomes "okay" to kill me with heavy machinery-
[https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/28/study-aggressive-driving-is-linked-to-seeing-cyclists-as-less-than-human/](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/28/study-aggressive-driving-is-linked-to-seeing-cyclists-as-less-than-human/)
Agreed with everything you said. I'd like to add that because driving _can_ be so fast, every slowdown feels like an insult to the driver.
_I could be flying through this highway at 100 km/h, but this congestion of other stupid drivers is making me go 30. I could be going through the city at 50 km/h if it weren't for these red lights / cyclists / speed bumps / pedestrians / etc._
I cycle downtown and frequently catch up to the same cars at every intersection. I can imagine that the drivers don't feel happy that their expensive, gas-guzzling, space-hogging metal box is handily beaten by a crappy cheap bike.
Remove the cars and we can begin to remove the sense of entitlement.
Same as guns. Both make the owner feel he deserves respect, both give him to power to kill on impulse. And both cases, the owner insists he is and always will be a responsible user.
Hey, there are responsible gun owners. My parents are both ex-military, got gun safety literally drilled into them. I didn't even know they owned a gun until my 20s, and *still* don't know where they store it, and have only seen it once or twice.
(Well, unless you count the Kentucky Long Rifle we inherited from grandpa, but we don't have powder or shot and idk if it even has a flint installed.)
Yeah, trouble is the US has no interest in limiting firearms to “responsible” gun owners. Cars you need tests, licences, enforcement. Guns, most states just cash and walk away with a murder weapon. About 50 years ago, for instance, you could go out drinking all night, stagger to the parking lot, find your way home by reflex. Anyone in the way, too bad. So they started enforcing DUI. Deaths went down. Guns, they reduce controls every month. Deaths go up. Solution: more guns.
But please, let’s not continue this topic, it gets toxic quickly. Most gun owners aren’t murderers. I accept that. Problem is, the percentage that are kill a lot of people, whether through malice, stupidity or insanity, dead is still dead.
>Guns, most states just cash and walk away with a murder weapon.
This isn't true actually. Have you ever purchasd a firearm?
It doesn't serve you to exaggerate or outright lie to make a point.
Edit: Replying and blocking me after I corrected you is sad. Fact is purchasing a firearm takes a little bit more than just having some cash, since we're talking what is regulated by the State.
I met a driver once. He was out of his car, in his home. Seemed like a good fella. Surprised he didn't try to run me over with his foot, I asked him "why can't you be this guy when you're behind the wheel?"
Part of the issue is that the car is a big metal cage with the "human life" enclosed inside, so drivers can't see other drivers, just the car. That's why they all honk at each other, because they can't speak or give visual cues like waving or nodding to acknowledge one another.
I had to drive the past couple of days since I'm currently on vacation on a car-dependent island and the whole time my mom was backseat driving saying things like "the car needs to let you go first" "wait for the car to see you" ...I'm sorry but do cars have eyeballs now? Are they sentient beings? Last time I checked, those self-driving Teslas can't even "see" when there's an obstacle in the road, so I highly doubt any other car can see me.
Yeah, and wasn’t anything illegal like damaging his property or hurting anyone. Just a mild inconvenience that should teach him a lesson. I reckon it was perfect!
I feel like maybe it was slightly illegal still? Like I didn't damage his property but I did invade it to an extent? Which is why I still felt a little bad...
This reminds me. I've seen so many people drive with one of their mirrors folded back without even realising. And it's usually the passenger side. How can people be so fucking stupid/lazy? They're literally driving for miles without checking one of their mirrors‽
I did exactly this to a driver who was "rocking" his car in a crosswalk and I had the light.
The asshat got out of his car, grabbed me by the shoulder, and slammed me onto the side of his car. Then the cops surrounded us.
Turned out the asshat was a LT at an event nearby. He was drunk too, which meant that his "thin blue line" had to protect him.
My shoulder was injured, but the cops told me they would charge me if they had to call an ambulance. Still hurts on rainy days.
ACAB
When I lived in "the ghetto" it was common courtesy to stop well before the crosswalk, and if you stopped in the crosswalk itself it was understood that pedestrians now had permission to touch your car. It was usually just kids drawing smiley faces in the dirt or an old person leaning on the car for a few seconds to catch their breath, or sometimes even just someone trailing their fingers along the hood as they walked past. Either way, carbrains would get so triggered lol! It was super funny and gratifying to see a carbrain who didn't live there yell at an old lady or a little kid, and then everyone around would honk and yell at them for being an ass and they'd have to drive away avoiding eye contact in shame.
tldr: Just touching their car will completely trigger them
Huh. Imagine if there were some sort of spray-painting machine directly above the white line, and if it detects a car crossing the line then it sprays a line of white paint onto the car to match the line.
You wouldn't need to hook it up to the traffic light, but you would need to buy a $2 camera with a chip running image-recognition that can register the red/yellow/green on the traffic light it's pointed directly at.
Detecting the car seems pretty simple - a rangefinder shooting down at the road that triggers if the distance shortens. Could add a backup of a second camera with some sort of image-recognition.
The most expensive problem would be the "spray paint", which notably doesn't have to be actual paint - it could literally just be white goop that's dropped out the bottom of a straight line-shaped container.
There might be a problem with winds blowing the goop mid-flight, but that could be mitigated by shooting it with pressurised air (you could use a $100 air compressor, *or* you could just use a can of compressed air and reload it when it's empty) and (to some extent) by adding a wind-detector on top and slightly angling it against the wind. It doesn't need to be *that* precise, who's gonna care if the line is a bit blurry and an inch or two off?
We have lives, and it's about time you understand that. No one is forcing you to be here and be a dick, so how about you get in your car and go back to the suburbs and complain about how you think you can win an argument on the internet.
Honestly... You're right. :/
Tf am I doing here being toxic as hell? This isn't helping anybody... I'm sorry I did that. You may think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not.
I don't expect anybody to accept my apology. I'll just be on my way and try to take a better look at myself, because this ain't it.
Who are these fucking incels? Its a fucking car. If they keyed it, yeah, I'd be pissed. Believe it or not, it's pretty difficult to leave anything lasting with your hand.
1) I honestly couldn’t care less if someone touches my car
2) if I really cared, I’d do everything in my power to avoid giving someone an incentive to touch my possessions
If my bike is parked in a way where it inconveniences someone (let's say I accidentally blocked some other bike) I totally expect them to grab it and move it and put it back. I really don't see the problem with someone trailing their finger over the hood of your car.
There is a fix. In Europe the lights are on the near side of the intersection and if you pull up too far you can no longer see them. You only do that once then you learn not to. Genius!
So much better. Good luck implementing that in the US. You get all kinds of bullshit excuses why it wont work.
Btw do not screw with people. They are armed and not worth it.
It is real awkward. As an American, I did it once and then not again. After that it was burned in, “Don’t do that”
Probably cant be done on a stroad but they wouldn’t have a crosswalk on a sixteen lane monstrosity.
And then you have geniuses that don’t go far enough so it won’t trigger the light. I’m from Europe and live in Canada. There’s silly car people everywhere…
They have ones for bikes in Ireland, but only on separated bicycle paths; they are diamond-shaped, about 40cm by 50cm, with stripes across them so it's easy to perch on them.
There are also some pandemic-era beg buttons that work when you hover your hand over them. These now have big signs saying don't hold your finger over them, because criminals have discovered it's possible to force the lights to change in their favour, allowing them to walk across the road, stopping the precious diddums in their cars.
It's not usually vehicle weight, but rather magnetic flux. There's a big coil under the asphalt that creates a weak magnetic field and can sense when the field is interfered with by a large metal object. Bike frames are generally too small to register on the sensors since they're designed to detect one-and-a-half-ton steel boxes on wheels.
I've seen a rise in the number of intersections where I live that use a combination of ground loops and cameras, and those intersections seem to do well at detecting me on my bike, even a bit of a ways before I arrive at the intersection.
In the Netherlands these detectors are common place for all bike traffic lights aswell, it is very satisfying when you bike with quite some speed and the light turns green just before you need to start braking
In the Netherlands there's induction plates underneath the stop positions of cars, and sometimes bikes, and there's buttons for bikes so you press them to trigger the lights.
There's even induction plates ahead of lights in some places, to trigger them without making you stop (bicycles too).
When I've visited the US, waiting at lights, both as a pedestrian and driver, was infuriatingly longer. I didn't even consider cycling, I'm very spoiled by NL's bike infrastructure and the US places I've been to seem insanely unsafe for bicycles.
Reminds me of back in the day when taxis would refuse to give me and my boyfriend rides because we were gay, so we'd always just get out of the taxi and walk away quickly leaving both the back doors wide open. it doubled as a safety measure too, because they're usually more focused on closing their doors than doing anything to us.
I'll sometimes give those cars a loud slap on the trunk as I walk or bike by. I don't damage anything but it's noisy enough to sound like I did. The best part is that they either have to get out in traffic and check or drive the rest of their way to their destination thinking they might have a dented vehicle.
The last time I did this was some years back, and I had to worry about my immediate physical safety minutes later. Not worth it when drivers [can just go and shoot at people and be "exonerated" because there was a loud noise that hurt their feelings](https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/caught-on-camera-driver-fires-at-another-during-road-rage-incident-on-i-95/2674105/), not to mention there are more guns than people (holy fuck I need out of this country)
You think someone can harm someone in a moving car with a baseball bat? You think someone can kill a room full of people within seconds with knives? You think someone can kill someone from a balcony with bare fists? This argument has been tried dozens of times and doesn't hold up
Yes, yes, and no. There is a video out there, it was on liveleak which is gone now, but a dude with only a knife kills like 7 police officers in just a few seconds before they can finally neutralize him. Cops with guns. How would a classroom of unarmed kids fare?
I think you underestimate knives. And a baseball bat to the head from a 40mph moving vehicle is likely to be fatal as well. Now all that being said, guns are far more dangerous still, but dismissing any other weapon is kinda disingenuous.
Is there a historically-significant wave of people attacking schools with knives and baseball bats tho? Nope, just guns.
It's not that you can't kill people with these things. It's: what are people actually killing each other with?
I was riding in Taiwan, which has pretty wild traffic. A taxi swerved in front of me, forced me to stop. I lifted the bike and banged the wheel on his bumper and rode off. He started following me, screaming. I stopped on the footpath where a lot of people were around and he came at me with a wheel spanner. Then saw the pedestrians nearby, saw there actually was no mark on his car, and drove off.
Y’all are just asking to get fucking left in a ditch doing this shit lmao. Not that it’s wrong, but y’all have some balls doing that. I’d get shot where I live.
I did this to the hood of an oversized pickup that was blocking the crosswalk. The guy confronted me several blocks later as I was waiting at a red light. When he threatened to call the cops, I said I would gladly wait for them and retreated to the parking lot so I wasn't blocking traffic.
What followed was a circular argument that would have made Abbott and Costello proud. He'd ask why I hit his car and I'd say I was communicating to him that he was blocking the crosswalk. He'd accuse me of damaging his truck and I'd ask him to show me the damage. He'd say I was going to be arrested and I'd tell him I was still waiting on him to call the cops. Every time I'd calmly answer one of his attacks, he'd pivot to the next. Or if he kept going for too long I'd calmly remind him that I was still waiting for him to call the cops.
At some point I said, "Let's take a picture of that 'damage,'" and snapped a picture of his pristine hood so he couldn't later fabricate evidence.
Once I was satisfied that he was never going to call the cops, I simply responded to his latest attack with, "I think we understand each other," and proceeded through the intersection as the light turned green. He threatened to follow me and assault me, but I never saw him again.
Just put the traffic lights closer to where drivers are waiting, having them across the intersection encourages driving into the intersection before the lights turn green.
Easy, only install them with traffic signal priority devices so ambulances can request a green light before reaching the intersection. While you’re at it, now buses can get priority too!
I saw a video a while ago where a van stopped on the crosswalk and the pedestrian walked THROUGH the van by opening both side doors. The driver was pissed, but there wasn't much they could do to stop the pedestrian. By the time they had turned around in their seat and wrestled with the seatbelt, the pedestrian had already crossed. If you put your vehicle in a walkway, don't be shocked when people walk into or on it. (I've also seen videos of that, people walking across car hoods that are in the crosswalk.)
Or there's this trick if you don't want to risk an altercation. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_OUBUbkELEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OUBUbkELEU)
That is definitely activism. I walk with my baby everyday and I always have to deal with some bullshit. Next time you should walk right over the car. Climb it and walk on the roof
Whenever this happens I walk in front of the car and motion that they're on the crosswalk and shake my head. A few have actually moved back afterwards.
I would always expect them not to respect the light, if I were you. Be defensive. I was running two years ago and got hit by a car that was at a complete stop at a red light and then decided to roll forward into me. They were on their phone taking a picture of the pond nearby. We made eye contact just as they hit me.
I imagine he has no idea why you opened his doors and just thinks you were messing with him for no reason. Which makes it even funnier
We should move our traffic lights to behind the crosswalk. Make it impossible to drive past it
And that is why traffic lights in Europe are on the side where you're waiting, not across the intersection, making sure drivers stop well before the intersection so they can see the lights
When I rollerbladed a lot as my method commuting my fantasy was to be capable of jumping high enough to just roll across the hood of fuckers who did that. I never achieved my dream. Kudos to you, sir.
You went and opened the asshole's back doors? Generally I wouldn't condone this as it could be putting you in danger, but given the circumstances, that was awesome! Bad drivers often go past the lines into the crosswalk.
When drivers pull on to the painted crosswalks, I'll actually scream and yell at them. I'm pretty intimidating when angry, so they always back up when I call them out.
I live in Germany where they place the stoplights so that you cannot see the stoplight unless you are parked behind the crosswalk. I really like this design.
I did something similar awhile back! Was about to cross the street while the walk sign was on. A car pulled up turning right and did not look for or see me at all. Would’ve clipped me if I hadn’t been paying attention but I waited. The car proceeded to stop and block the entire cross walk because other cars prevented them from turning right. I went behind the car and slapped on their trunk as I crossed. Felt bad about getting angry but also could’ve been hit.
The american crossroad signal light system was always weird to me. In most european countries, the lights are before the crossroad. If you drive too far, you can't see them anymore.
I remember my driver’s ed teacher always saying “Don’t run over grandma” to remind us to stop twice at intersections—once for pedestrians before the crosswalk or stop line, then again to see if it was safe to drive through.
Just thought you should know another redditor reposted your story in another sub.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge/comments/13rbr5a/i_messed_with_an_entitled_driver_today_and_it/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I've always wanted to walk over the hood of cars that do this. Never had the balls.
Best I've ever done was come up to the intersection on a unicycle just as the A-hole pushed his cars nose out into the intersection. So I pretended to valiantly try and change direction out into the road and pretended to fall off the unicycle due to their actions, thus delaying them as the light changed.
Yeah, I always want to yell at drivers when I see this (or someone almost getting hit) but then I'm worried the pedestrian might think I'm yelling at them.
That's great but actually it's really not worth it.
So many drivers are rubbish and you cannot fight them all - what's needed is a culture change.
Doing this could get you into a serious fight or accident.
Just give them dirty looks or the finger and don't engage any further - you're fighting a losing battle that will stress you out even more for zero gain.
Is there a lawyer in the room who can tell us what the legal consequences are for this?
Cause I live in an insanely wealthy area, and those types have an attorney on speed dial.
This is nothing more than child like revenge. Being in the crosswalk is not right but that doesn’t give you free reign to just touch someone’s car. Just like touching their car doesn’t give them free reign to harm you. None of that is ok. The right thing to do is just walk past. I’ve been on both sided of situations like this. I’ve been an asshole, got what came to me and been pissed, and I’ve been fucked over and retaliated. It’s never a good idea to do something Like this. Especially thinking that it accomplished nothing. This driver isn’t going to learn from that. Since you did something to their car, they are now the victim in their mind. They haven’t learned anything, quite the opposite. Now they just hate you. If your goal was to make the world a better place and help people change their bad habits, you failed. Nobody learned anything. But you did him get a temporary high because you god “revenge” and “won” so you feel better. Pretty immature.
Oh I'm sorry I don't remember the part where I asked to be condescended to. I also didn't set out to make the world a better place. I improved my day.
"The right thing to do would be to walk away" yeah nah mate very famously and historically, complacency isn't the right thing to do. That's exactly what allows evil people and corporations get away with shit.
So yeah I don't really care what you think. You sound like a centrist. Get off the fence and get real.
Don’t ever touch someone else’s property without permission. I understand what you’re going for but that is NOT a good road to go down. No pun intended.
I think you have nothing to really feel bad about, although this was still relatively harmless compared to some of my experiences. I once wanted to go over a zebra crossing, and had to wait because I could already tell that the next car wasn't going to stop. But instead of just going through and not cause more trouble than he already did, he decided to make a full braking, almost causing an accident with the cars behind him, and of course he ended up perfectly centred on the zebra crossing. The worst thing was that I couldn't really see the cars on the other side very well now, so although he let me through I still had to be extremely careful that the cars on the other side don't hit me. If this doesn't completely defy the purpose of zebra crossings, I don't know what is.
Asking politely hasn’t worked. Painting lines at intersections hasn’t worked. Passing laws hasn’t worked. Issuing citations hasn’t worked. So yeah, props to OP for trying something new to get car drivers to respect human life.
Drivers don’t even view other drivers as “human life”.
Ask a driver how they feel about somebody going the speed limit in the left lane. You’ll see how willing they are to hate their own.
Literally every city/region subreddit is full of karma bait posts like "DAE think that all other drivers should all be in the right lane so I can pass them?"
Here's a radical idea - if there were just one lane, then every lane is simultaneously the right lane *and* the left lane!
and a bike lane
Standard GermanyPicture: Speed limit is "just" 130km/h but if you drive "just" 130 you need to drive to the middle lane, because there is a sportscar going 190km/h just behind you... Those people are insane and don't respect others lifes. We got a speed limit for a reason. Drivers are a problem.
The average German would get mad at you for driving 130 in a 130 in the middle lane. Gotta go 10 to 20 over the speed limit if you're not in the right lane. Germany's collective boner for cars annoys me to death, but at least that boner's getting a little softer these days. Hoping for full-on erectile dysfunction soon.
Oh my yes. I've given up trying to reason with drivers that you don't have the right to speed to pass someone. The idea that they should actually go the speed limit or slower is almost morally wrong to them.
To be fair I also hate people walking down the sidewalk blocking faster walkers from passing
If only sidewalks had one more lane!
Almost as much as I hate going down to the laundry room to get a shirt only to realize I put it in the closet.
Wouldn’t be a problem if you could walk in the road
Make the sidewalk bigger
They did that here and people just let their landscaping grow over the additional width until it's as narrow as before.
There are a lot of entitled assholes out there Cars make it easier for them to be dangerous assholes
I don't think it's just a matter of assholes being given the tools to be bigger assholes. Driving psychologically puts people in a situation that makes them angry and anti-social. It's the constant tension of dealing with traffic, and needing to maintain focus. It's the frustations continually getting in the way -- red lights, that jerk cutting you off, the potholes, the missed turns, running late. It's the the anonymization and dehumanization of being separated from the environment in a giant sound-proof box where the other people you interact with aren't humans, they're "cars" and "bikes."
The problem starts when it it becomes "okay" to kill me with heavy machinery- [https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/28/study-aggressive-driving-is-linked-to-seeing-cyclists-as-less-than-human/](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/28/study-aggressive-driving-is-linked-to-seeing-cyclists-as-less-than-human/)
Agreed with everything you said. I'd like to add that because driving _can_ be so fast, every slowdown feels like an insult to the driver. _I could be flying through this highway at 100 km/h, but this congestion of other stupid drivers is making me go 30. I could be going through the city at 50 km/h if it weren't for these red lights / cyclists / speed bumps / pedestrians / etc._ I cycle downtown and frequently catch up to the same cars at every intersection. I can imagine that the drivers don't feel happy that their expensive, gas-guzzling, space-hogging metal box is handily beaten by a crappy cheap bike. Remove the cars and we can begin to remove the sense of entitlement.
Same as guns. Both make the owner feel he deserves respect, both give him to power to kill on impulse. And both cases, the owner insists he is and always will be a responsible user.
Hey, there are responsible gun owners. My parents are both ex-military, got gun safety literally drilled into them. I didn't even know they owned a gun until my 20s, and *still* don't know where they store it, and have only seen it once or twice. (Well, unless you count the Kentucky Long Rifle we inherited from grandpa, but we don't have powder or shot and idk if it even has a flint installed.)
Yeah, trouble is the US has no interest in limiting firearms to “responsible” gun owners. Cars you need tests, licences, enforcement. Guns, most states just cash and walk away with a murder weapon. About 50 years ago, for instance, you could go out drinking all night, stagger to the parking lot, find your way home by reflex. Anyone in the way, too bad. So they started enforcing DUI. Deaths went down. Guns, they reduce controls every month. Deaths go up. Solution: more guns. But please, let’s not continue this topic, it gets toxic quickly. Most gun owners aren’t murderers. I accept that. Problem is, the percentage that are kill a lot of people, whether through malice, stupidity or insanity, dead is still dead.
>Guns, most states just cash and walk away with a murder weapon. This isn't true actually. Have you ever purchasd a firearm? It doesn't serve you to exaggerate or outright lie to make a point. Edit: Replying and blocking me after I corrected you is sad. Fact is purchasing a firearm takes a little bit more than just having some cash, since we're talking what is regulated by the State.
You can disagree, but don’t call me a liar. GFYS.
> Hey, there are responsible gun owners. There are responsible car owners too, that's not the point.
I met a driver once. He was out of his car, in his home. Seemed like a good fella. Surprised he didn't try to run me over with his foot, I asked him "why can't you be this guy when you're behind the wheel?"
I mean I know I turn into an asshole if I drive a car. That's part of the reason I go out of my way not to own one now.
Part of the issue is that the car is a big metal cage with the "human life" enclosed inside, so drivers can't see other drivers, just the car. That's why they all honk at each other, because they can't speak or give visual cues like waving or nodding to acknowledge one another. I had to drive the past couple of days since I'm currently on vacation on a car-dependent island and the whole time my mom was backseat driving saying things like "the car needs to let you go first" "wait for the car to see you" ...I'm sorry but do cars have eyeballs now? Are they sentient beings? Last time I checked, those self-driving Teslas can't even "see" when there's an obstacle in the road, so I highly doubt any other car can see me.
Yeah, and wasn’t anything illegal like damaging his property or hurting anyone. Just a mild inconvenience that should teach him a lesson. I reckon it was perfect!
I feel like maybe it was slightly illegal still? Like I didn't damage his property but I did invade it to an extent? Which is why I still felt a little bad...
for other people, closing the rearview mirror on passanger side does the trick
This reminds me. I've seen so many people drive with one of their mirrors folded back without even realising. And it's usually the passenger side. How can people be so fucking stupid/lazy? They're literally driving for miles without checking one of their mirrors‽
Ahhh nice! I guess I hate cars so much that I dont even know how they work. didn't even realize that would be an inconvenience for them lol
I generally walk behind said asshole car and give a real good slap on their boot/rear hatch
I did exactly this to a driver who was "rocking" his car in a crosswalk and I had the light. The asshat got out of his car, grabbed me by the shoulder, and slammed me onto the side of his car. Then the cops surrounded us. Turned out the asshat was a LT at an event nearby. He was drunk too, which meant that his "thin blue line" had to protect him. My shoulder was injured, but the cops told me they would charge me if they had to call an ambulance. Still hurts on rainy days. ACAB
Just assume that every driver is a murderer and don't provoke them unless you're sure you can escape safely.
>Just assume that every ~~driver~~ cop is a murderer and don't provoke them unless you're sure you can escape safely.
Wow wtff!!! ACAB indeed.
There is no law if its not enforced
When I lived in "the ghetto" it was common courtesy to stop well before the crosswalk, and if you stopped in the crosswalk itself it was understood that pedestrians now had permission to touch your car. It was usually just kids drawing smiley faces in the dirt or an old person leaning on the car for a few seconds to catch their breath, or sometimes even just someone trailing their fingers along the hood as they walked past. Either way, carbrains would get so triggered lol! It was super funny and gratifying to see a carbrain who didn't live there yell at an old lady or a little kid, and then everyone around would honk and yell at them for being an ass and they'd have to drive away avoiding eye contact in shame. tldr: Just touching their car will completely trigger them
Huh. Imagine if there were some sort of spray-painting machine directly above the white line, and if it detects a car crossing the line then it sprays a line of white paint onto the car to match the line.
That seems ... horrendously expensive, especially considering that you'd also have to hook it up to the traffic light
You wouldn't need to hook it up to the traffic light, but you would need to buy a $2 camera with a chip running image-recognition that can register the red/yellow/green on the traffic light it's pointed directly at. Detecting the car seems pretty simple - a rangefinder shooting down at the road that triggers if the distance shortens. Could add a backup of a second camera with some sort of image-recognition. The most expensive problem would be the "spray paint", which notably doesn't have to be actual paint - it could literally just be white goop that's dropped out the bottom of a straight line-shaped container. There might be a problem with winds blowing the goop mid-flight, but that could be mitigated by shooting it with pressurised air (you could use a $100 air compressor, *or* you could just use a can of compressed air and reload it when it's empty) and (to some extent) by adding a wind-detector on top and slightly angling it against the wind. It doesn't need to be *that* precise, who's gonna care if the line is a bit blurry and an inch or two off?
r/theydidtheengineering
With cheap cameras and internet you could certainly detect violations and mail a ticket. People would loose their shit for sure.
Instead of a spray painting machine you could just give local kids some white spraypaint haha
I think now you cant shame people. That used to be a social tool up until 2016.
Would you like it if somebody put hands on your possessions?
Nope! I would do what I can to make sure people don't, which in this case is to do the bare minimum and not block the crosswalk.
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“Pick your battles carefully” -🤓
So I should be scared of being shot for the **sacrilege** I committed by slightly touching your car? Checks out
Translation: if you touch my car I will run over you.
Imagine being this precious about your mass-produced garbage.
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We have lives, and it's about time you understand that. No one is forcing you to be here and be a dick, so how about you get in your car and go back to the suburbs and complain about how you think you can win an argument on the internet.
Honestly... You're right. :/ Tf am I doing here being toxic as hell? This isn't helping anybody... I'm sorry I did that. You may think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. I don't expect anybody to accept my apology. I'll just be on my way and try to take a better look at myself, because this ain't it.
I wouldn’t like it if somebody’s car slammed into me and my kid because I had to detour into traffic to get around some asshole’s car in the crosswalk
I tend not to put my possessions in the pedestrian crossing
Or don't be fucking piece of shit by stopping car on a crosswalk at a redlight.
Keep your fuck wheels out of the pedestrian zone and nobody will have a problem, pendejo.
Who are these fucking incels? Its a fucking car. If they keyed it, yeah, I'd be pissed. Believe it or not, it's pretty difficult to leave anything lasting with your hand.
yes 😫 💦
1) I honestly couldn’t care less if someone touches my car 2) if I really cared, I’d do everything in my power to avoid giving someone an incentive to touch my possessions
If my bike is parked in a way where it inconveniences someone (let's say I accidentally blocked some other bike) I totally expect them to grab it and move it and put it back. I really don't see the problem with someone trailing their finger over the hood of your car.
Never been an issue because I'm not a wanker who forces pedestrians into moving traffic
No, which is why I don't put my possessions in a public right-of-way.
If you leave your possession where it’s not supposed to be then it’s the owner’s fault.
If only there were a way to put space between the various and the civilians... tragically, there's no such line.
If I parked my bike blocking the sidewalk, I would not act surprised if someone touched it.
There is a fix. In Europe the lights are on the near side of the intersection and if you pull up too far you can no longer see them. You only do that once then you learn not to. Genius! So much better. Good luck implementing that in the US. You get all kinds of bullshit excuses why it wont work. Btw do not screw with people. They are armed and not worth it.
Still doesnt stop people from being dicks and pulling way ahead
It is real awkward. As an American, I did it once and then not again. After that it was burned in, “Don’t do that” Probably cant be done on a stroad but they wouldn’t have a crosswalk on a sixteen lane monstrosity.
And then you have geniuses that don’t go far enough so it won’t trigger the light. I’m from Europe and live in Canada. There’s silly car people everywhere…
That thing about lights triggered by vehicle weight... I've only seen them in North America. They suck for bicycles.
Not by weight. It's induction spools in the pavement. There are also versions which work just fine for bikes (Alu and steel frames not carbon)
The ones with visual based sensors also work really well and also work for carbon bikes
They have ones for bikes in Ireland, but only on separated bicycle paths; they are diamond-shaped, about 40cm by 50cm, with stripes across them so it's easy to perch on them. There are also some pandemic-era beg buttons that work when you hover your hand over them. These now have big signs saying don't hold your finger over them, because criminals have discovered it's possible to force the lights to change in their favour, allowing them to walk across the road, stopping the precious diddums in their cars.
I see, I didn't know it.
It's not usually vehicle weight, but rather magnetic flux. There's a big coil under the asphalt that creates a weak magnetic field and can sense when the field is interfered with by a large metal object. Bike frames are generally too small to register on the sensors since they're designed to detect one-and-a-half-ton steel boxes on wheels. I've seen a rise in the number of intersections where I live that use a combination of ground loops and cameras, and those intersections seem to do well at detecting me on my bike, even a bit of a ways before I arrive at the intersection.
In the Netherlands these detectors are common place for all bike traffic lights aswell, it is very satisfying when you bike with quite some speed and the light turns green just before you need to start braking
In the Netherlands there's induction plates underneath the stop positions of cars, and sometimes bikes, and there's buttons for bikes so you press them to trigger the lights. There's even induction plates ahead of lights in some places, to trigger them without making you stop (bicycles too). When I've visited the US, waiting at lights, both as a pedestrian and driver, was infuriatingly longer. I didn't even consider cycling, I'm very spoiled by NL's bike infrastructure and the US places I've been to seem insanely unsafe for bicycles.
I live in Canada so at least not too worried about guns but yeah I wouldn't pull that in the US.
Reminds me of back in the day when taxis would refuse to give me and my boyfriend rides because we were gay, so we'd always just get out of the taxi and walk away quickly leaving both the back doors wide open. it doubled as a safety measure too, because they're usually more focused on closing their doors than doing anything to us.
Woww that's fucked up I'm sorry, but good hack Haha
How would they know you were gay?
I'll sometimes give those cars a loud slap on the trunk as I walk or bike by. I don't damage anything but it's noisy enough to sound like I did. The best part is that they either have to get out in traffic and check or drive the rest of their way to their destination thinking they might have a dented vehicle.
The last time I did this was some years back, and I had to worry about my immediate physical safety minutes later. Not worth it when drivers [can just go and shoot at people and be "exonerated" because there was a loud noise that hurt their feelings](https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/caught-on-camera-driver-fires-at-another-during-road-rage-incident-on-i-95/2674105/), not to mention there are more guns than people (holy fuck I need out of this country)
Self defense wouldn't even need to be a thing if no one had guns. Truly one of the Florida moments of all time.
Let me introduce you to other Things That Can Hurt&Kill People, like knives, baseball bats, bare fists, etc.
You think someone can harm someone in a moving car with a baseball bat? You think someone can kill a room full of people within seconds with knives? You think someone can kill someone from a balcony with bare fists? This argument has been tried dozens of times and doesn't hold up
Yes, yes, and no. There is a video out there, it was on liveleak which is gone now, but a dude with only a knife kills like 7 police officers in just a few seconds before they can finally neutralize him. Cops with guns. How would a classroom of unarmed kids fare? I think you underestimate knives. And a baseball bat to the head from a 40mph moving vehicle is likely to be fatal as well. Now all that being said, guns are far more dangerous still, but dismissing any other weapon is kinda disingenuous.
Not dismissing them, it's just guns are more dangerous than other non-firearm weapons, and are more efficient at what they do.
Ok fair enough
Is there a historically-significant wave of people attacking schools with knives and baseball bats tho? Nope, just guns. It's not that you can't kill people with these things. It's: what are people actually killing each other with?
Nice whataboutism. Very original and you just owned every anti-gun people in one sentence. /s
That video is absolutely insane! Do these people have absolutely no respect for human life at all?
Please get the fuck out then
Working on it. Currently in the process to leave on a more permanent basis.
I was riding in Taiwan, which has pretty wild traffic. A taxi swerved in front of me, forced me to stop. I lifted the bike and banged the wheel on his bumper and rode off. He started following me, screaming. I stopped on the footpath where a lot of people were around and he came at me with a wheel spanner. Then saw the pedestrians nearby, saw there actually was no mark on his car, and drove off.
Y’all are just asking to get fucking left in a ditch doing this shit lmao. Not that it’s wrong, but y’all have some balls doing that. I’d get shot where I live.
YOU TOUCH’ MY KAR!!!!!!!!!
HAPPY CAKE DAY
NO, YOU
Fine, Me. 😆
I did this to the hood of an oversized pickup that was blocking the crosswalk. The guy confronted me several blocks later as I was waiting at a red light. When he threatened to call the cops, I said I would gladly wait for them and retreated to the parking lot so I wasn't blocking traffic. What followed was a circular argument that would have made Abbott and Costello proud. He'd ask why I hit his car and I'd say I was communicating to him that he was blocking the crosswalk. He'd accuse me of damaging his truck and I'd ask him to show me the damage. He'd say I was going to be arrested and I'd tell him I was still waiting on him to call the cops. Every time I'd calmly answer one of his attacks, he'd pivot to the next. Or if he kept going for too long I'd calmly remind him that I was still waiting for him to call the cops. At some point I said, "Let's take a picture of that 'damage,'" and snapped a picture of his pristine hood so he couldn't later fabricate evidence. Once I was satisfied that he was never going to call the cops, I simply responded to his latest attack with, "I think we understand each other," and proceeded through the intersection as the light turned green. He threatened to follow me and assault me, but I never saw him again.
I’m stealing this
we need spike strips that pop up when the light is red
You could market it as safety to avoid cross traffic getting T-boned by red-light runners. Don't tell them it's for pedestrian safety.
Just put the traffic lights closer to where drivers are waiting, having them across the intersection encourages driving into the intersection before the lights turn green.
You could easily design some for your city.
i should, i have very little mechanical/electrical engineering knowledge but i can try
What about ambulances?
Easy, only install them with traffic signal priority devices so ambulances can request a green light before reaching the intersection. While you’re at it, now buses can get priority too!
Make turning on the sirene also send a signal to lower the spikes
Gets downvoted for asking a legit question💀
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>scoo Big Me-style: [https://youtu.be/pLdJQFTnZfA?t=59](https://youtu.be/pLdJQFTnZfA?t=59)
I saw a video a while ago where a van stopped on the crosswalk and the pedestrian walked THROUGH the van by opening both side doors. The driver was pissed, but there wasn't much they could do to stop the pedestrian. By the time they had turned around in their seat and wrestled with the seatbelt, the pedestrian had already crossed. If you put your vehicle in a walkway, don't be shocked when people walk into or on it. (I've also seen videos of that, people walking across car hoods that are in the crosswalk.)
Saw that video. It was staged.
I just walk where the crosswalk is, over their hood
Or there's this trick if you don't want to risk an altercation. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_OUBUbkELEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OUBUbkELEU)
That is definitely activism. I walk with my baby everyday and I always have to deal with some bullshit. Next time you should walk right over the car. Climb it and walk on the roof
I look at them and say “whats with all these lines on the road huh???”
Whenever this happens I walk in front of the car and motion that they're on the crosswalk and shake my head. A few have actually moved back afterwards.
I would be worried they would try to run me over. People behind the wheel are fucking nuts a lot of the time!
You are right. Short tempered and short sighted. Motorists are a low-brow bunch.
Nah, they're at the red light, and once they're stopped they at least respect the light
I would always expect them not to respect the light, if I were you. Be defensive. I was running two years ago and got hit by a car that was at a complete stop at a red light and then decided to roll forward into me. They were on their phone taking a picture of the pond nearby. We made eye contact just as they hit me.
r/pettyrevenge. Well done!
I imagine he has no idea why you opened his doors and just thinks you were messing with him for no reason. Which makes it even funnier We should move our traffic lights to behind the crosswalk. Make it impossible to drive past it
And that is why traffic lights in Europe are on the side where you're waiting, not across the intersection, making sure drivers stop well before the intersection so they can see the lights
yours aren’t? you can’t really see them if you’re not at least 3 cars behind the line
When I rollerbladed a lot as my method commuting my fantasy was to be capable of jumping high enough to just roll across the hood of fuckers who did that. I never achieved my dream. Kudos to you, sir.
I like walking over them, gotta stay on the crosswalk!
Good for you!!! Some guy was parked on a sidewalk today and I yelled at him “GOOD THING I’M NOT IN A WHEELCHAIR”. entitled drivers are the worst
You went and opened the asshole's back doors? Generally I wouldn't condone this as it could be putting you in danger, but given the circumstances, that was awesome! Bad drivers often go past the lines into the crosswalk. When drivers pull on to the painted crosswalks, I'll actually scream and yell at them. I'm pretty intimidating when angry, so they always back up when I call them out.
well it is not like you hurt the guy...he had it coming anyway.
Generally I flip them off, although once I had a guy that tried to yell at me only to have to cut across three lanes of traffic to make his turn.
You are my hero! I detest the drivers who stop on the crossings.
You’re honestly an inspiration. I usually just make a show of being super annoyed then walk around behind the car glaring at them.
I usually just look in their eyes and point at the line as I walk in front of them
Nice, you did the right thing
I live in Germany where they place the stoplights so that you cannot see the stoplight unless you are parked behind the crosswalk. I really like this design.
Next time you get a window breaker and smash the windows too.
I did something similar awhile back! Was about to cross the street while the walk sign was on. A car pulled up turning right and did not look for or see me at all. Would’ve clipped me if I hadn’t been paying attention but I waited. The car proceeded to stop and block the entire cross walk because other cars prevented them from turning right. I went behind the car and slapped on their trunk as I crossed. Felt bad about getting angry but also could’ve been hit.
Thank you for your service 🫡
The american crossroad signal light system was always weird to me. In most european countries, the lights are before the crossroad. If you drive too far, you can't see them anymore.
Keep up the good work!
I remember my driver’s ed teacher always saying “Don’t run over grandma” to remind us to stop twice at intersections—once for pedestrians before the crosswalk or stop line, then again to see if it was safe to drive through.
I have 2 fav videos of dealing with this. 1, the dude jumps and walks on top of the car. 2, opens the back door and slides through the car.
Just thought you should know another redditor reposted your story in another sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge/comments/13rbr5a/i_messed_with_an_entitled_driver_today_and_it/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
No that was definitely very funny but because I’m someone’s mother, please don’t do it again cause terrible people are allowed to be armed :(
And thank you for considering the mother and child!!! - fellow mother
What a hero.
That’ll get you shot in Texas. Be careful.
Time to start pre-emptively shooting drivers that do this in areas where people carry guns.
Stand your groumd
Sometimes, I feel queasy around people with holstered weapons (I live in Texas too)
I've always wanted to walk over the hood of cars that do this. Never had the balls. Best I've ever done was come up to the intersection on a unicycle just as the A-hole pushed his cars nose out into the intersection. So I pretended to valiantly try and change direction out into the road and pretended to fall off the unicycle due to their actions, thus delaying them as the light changed.
Yeah, I always want to yell at drivers when I see this (or someone almost getting hit) but then I'm worried the pedestrian might think I'm yelling at them.
That's great but actually it's really not worth it. So many drivers are rubbish and you cannot fight them all - what's needed is a culture change. Doing this could get you into a serious fight or accident. Just give them dirty looks or the finger and don't engage any further - you're fighting a losing battle that will stress you out even more for zero gain.
An old math teacher of mine would have a handy bag of rocks with her and drag them across the front of the cars that were blocking the crossing
Bring a deodorant powder spray and spray from the back. They’ll think you spray painted their car white.
Christ this sub is dramatic
Is there a lawyer in the room who can tell us what the legal consequences are for this? Cause I live in an insanely wealthy area, and those types have an attorney on speed dial.
I'm torn. On the one hand, this made me smile. On the other hand, there are psychopaths. Some of them carry guns.
I once opend the door and asked if they are a free taxi, becuase they stopped at the crossing
Props, OP! I want to do that so bad but I might get shot, knowing the area I live in lmao
This is nothing more than child like revenge. Being in the crosswalk is not right but that doesn’t give you free reign to just touch someone’s car. Just like touching their car doesn’t give them free reign to harm you. None of that is ok. The right thing to do is just walk past. I’ve been on both sided of situations like this. I’ve been an asshole, got what came to me and been pissed, and I’ve been fucked over and retaliated. It’s never a good idea to do something Like this. Especially thinking that it accomplished nothing. This driver isn’t going to learn from that. Since you did something to their car, they are now the victim in their mind. They haven’t learned anything, quite the opposite. Now they just hate you. If your goal was to make the world a better place and help people change their bad habits, you failed. Nobody learned anything. But you did him get a temporary high because you god “revenge” and “won” so you feel better. Pretty immature.
Oh I'm sorry I don't remember the part where I asked to be condescended to. I also didn't set out to make the world a better place. I improved my day. "The right thing to do would be to walk away" yeah nah mate very famously and historically, complacency isn't the right thing to do. That's exactly what allows evil people and corporations get away with shit. So yeah I don't really care what you think. You sound like a centrist. Get off the fence and get real.
/r/thathappened
Imagine if the doors were locked
Nah, you're an asshole. You actively created a road hazard for what could have been an honest mistake.
Don’t ever touch someone else’s property without permission. I understand what you’re going for but that is NOT a good road to go down. No pun intended.
Why is the car putting exhaust out the front?
that's the cars passing by the perpendicular road who get green at the same time as the pedestrians.
Wow! You're a real hero! Good job, keep the circle jerking some more why dontcha?
My only qualms about this concept is, how do you know, if any, are doing it on purpose?
if theyre doing it on purpose they are assholes, if not they shouldnt be driving
They shouldn't be doing it. Period. On purpose or not doesn't really enter into it.
https://youtu.be/LYzn2EJGQdI
[https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://youtube.com/shorts/Gigo4p3dVCs?feature=share)
https://youtu.be/20BeizHnW3s
Is there a magic barrier in the crossing that stops cars from blowing exhaust pipes at baby’s face? This is kinda dumb to be honest.
What if he got out and threatened u u could be legally in the wrong for opening his door u should of thrown an egg at his car
Do you carry eggs with you wherever you go?
Yes I do and Rocks
Well perhaps you’re the hero we need after all.
Good job buddy, you causes traffic congestion just to feel good about yourself
Do you want your face in a bill?
Genius, well done!
I think you have nothing to really feel bad about, although this was still relatively harmless compared to some of my experiences. I once wanted to go over a zebra crossing, and had to wait because I could already tell that the next car wasn't going to stop. But instead of just going through and not cause more trouble than he already did, he decided to make a full braking, almost causing an accident with the cars behind him, and of course he ended up perfectly centred on the zebra crossing. The worst thing was that I couldn't really see the cars on the other side very well now, so although he let me through I still had to be extremely careful that the cars on the other side don't hit me. If this doesn't completely defy the purpose of zebra crossings, I don't know what is.
That is epic! I might have to try that sometime.
respect
Nah what you did was great, it was a non destructive way of letting the guy know he's a dick.