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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 18-Jan-2025 09:05:05 JST Paul Cantrell

   That thing where a driver does something dangerous, and you notice their car is •already• damaged in exactly the way that the accident they nearly caused would have damaged it

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     Nazo (nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 18-Jan-2025 11:26:50 JST Nazo

     in reply to

     @inthehands Sometimes I legit wonder how many people on the road are even allowed to have a license. You'd think it would have been revoked for actively hostile endangerment of human lives. Sometimes I wonder as someone forces me off the road why the police don't seem to care.

     Then a police car pulls an idiot stunt and I realize that heck, it might actually be an off duty police officer in that car.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 18-Jan-2025 11:26:50 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Nazo

     @nazokiyoubinbou

     If police •actually• were what our society pretends they are, they’d be some of the best drivers on the road, models of safety and diligence about the law. Instead, they’re frequently the worst.

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     PaulDavisTheFirst (pauldavisthefirst@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 05:25:38 JST PaulDavisTheFirst

     in reply to

     @inthehands vaguely related observation. in the aughts we got a toyota sienna minivan, and fairly soon afterwards my wife backed one of the rear corners (can't recall which one) into a bollard or wall corner or something of similar height and hardness.

     we soon started noticing that more than half the siennas we would see all had the precise same bump.

     sometimes these things are the driver, but sometimes the evidence points to the design of the vehicle.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 05:25:38 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • PaulDavisTheFirst

     @PaulDavisTheFirst
     Good point. Even in those situations where it’s just •obvious• that the driver is at fault — pulling out suddenly into traffic from a parking lot, say — the design of the vehicle can play a non-obvious role in encouraging or preventing the driver error.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 05:27:58 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Nazo

     @nazokiyoubinbou
     Yeesh. I’ve seen plenty of instances of police flaunting their impunity by engaging in gratuitously awful driving, but your story is next-level.

     They do break every rule, and I think even “they just don’t care” is being too kind to them. They •do• care, it’s on purpose, and they want you to see it and know that you can do nothing. Police officers think their job is first and foremost about asserting their own power.

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     Nazo (nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 05:27:59 JST Nazo

     in reply to

     @inthehands Yeah, the police on the roads legit scare me. They break every single rule and just don't care.

     One recent runsin that really drove this home for me is when I saw this big black SUV that I *knew* was going to fail to yield and pull out in front of me so I flashed my lights to warn him I was coming. He still pulled out in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes. Tires screeching and all.

     1/2

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     Nazo (nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jan-2025 05:27:59 JST Nazo

     in reply to

     @inthehands I managed to avoid the accident, but a short while later I see police lights behind me. It's the same vehicle. He pulls me over and says "why did you flash your lights at me?" He was completely unaware he had pulled out in front of me (despite the brakes and horn and all!) Then he threatens to give me a ticket for "having my brights on." (We both knew that he didn't want this to go into a courtroom, but still, geez.)

     (This isn't even my worst incident with police.)

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