No Ride Home 2/28

It didn't look severe to me. Regretful. Stupid tornado didn't materialize. Lame. What time I didn't spend muttering to myself about how I should have biked, I spent observing the general lawlessness that surrounded me. Driving and lawbreaking (and traffic violations do count as the breaking of laws) are basically one in the same. Speeding, failing to use turn signals, not yielding to pedestrians, rolling through stop signs, running reds, blocking the box, not fully establishing oneself in the lane, parking outside of the white lines, passing on the right, and turning from the wrong lane are all things that routinely happened on this one trip. The kicker is that these things are so banal that no one hardly notices, much less felt any sense of approbation, or exhibited any at least. To drivers, just like bicyclists and pedestrians, the following of the "law" is a distant second to following pre-established norms. So, can we all just get over it and stop writing about stopping at stop signs and whatever and just move on to the next phase of the discussion? I don't care about illegal driving; I care about bad driving- the kind that's dangerous and inconveniencing. I think that this is an important distinction and the sooner we can think of ways to tamp down on that (via better planning and awareness) the safer the roads will become for all users. It's time to start caring about outcomes.