It is not enough, apparently, to have air bags built into the dash, door panels and seats of a new car. Because what about people outside the car?
Oh yes, Johnny! – as Ed McMahon used to say.
Subaru announced the other day that it will be offering a “cyclist safe exterior airbag” in its popular Forester crossover. Japan-only models, for now. But if you think we’re safe, think again.
“Safety” is now what style was, once in that it seems to be the most important thing about new vehicles. This shift in what’s desirable has been psychologically engineered over the course of the past 50 years – by engineering neurosis into people’s minds. Cars – which used to be regarded as exciting to look at and fun to drive – are now regarded as dangerous things to drive. It is nothing less than astounding just how successful Ralph Nader and his inheritors have been in terms of making people afraid of cars and driving them.
When Nader went after the Chevy Corvair back in the ’60s, he was generally regarded by most people as a whining, effeminate ninny; the kind of guy most men don’t like having around and most women didn’t want around, either. But that changed. Bit by bit and then all-of-a-sudden. America became something whiny and effeminate. Men – not all, but enough to tip the balance – became as obsessed with “safety” as women, which perhaps the men thought might make them more appealing to those women. It didn’t. It merely made the women hold those men in even greater contempt because not many women find effeminate men attractive, no matter what they say about it.
Anyhow, here we are.
Do you think it is absurd to equip cars with external air bags? Then you do not understand the logic of the thing. If it is accepted that it is necessary to install air bags in the dashboard, door panels and seats of a vehicle because it might “save lives,” then it is logical to install air bags anywhere else they might “save lives.”
Or – to put it another way – how could you logically argue against installing bags outside?
This is the jist of Subaru’s argument. What happens when a car hits a pedestrian? Is it not essentially the same thing as the car hitting something with a person inside it? Both are persons, are they not? And the presence of an air bag can cushion them from impact forces if there’s a carsh. Ergo, it is logical to install air bags both inside and outside the car.
Indeed, it would be remiss – even dangerous – to drive around a car that does not provide such protection to those outside. Just the same as it was argued with regard to driving around in cars that lacked seat belts for those inside. 
Here is that argument – being made by a car journalist, which is itself a measure of just how deep the rot has gone:
“Car safety has come a long way from the days of steel dashboards and seatbelt-optional cruising. Still, no one wants to be in an accident, no matter how many features modern vehicles pack in. When crashes do happen, airbags offer clear and proven benefits. That’s why Subaru just rolled out an updated cyclist-safe exterior airbag on the newly refreshed Forester in Japan.”
Italics added. Dissection unnecessary, hopefully.
So, here’s what’s almost certain to happen next. Subaru will bring its “cyclist-safe exterior airbags” to the United States soon, because then only Subaru will offer this new “safety” feature and thus Subaru will be able to market its vehicles as the safest ones on the road – for both passengers and pedestrians. Cyclists, too.
The Spandex Legions will shivver with delight.
Subarus having external bags will create pressure – of the virtue signaling kind – for other vehicle manufacturers to equip their vehicles with exterior air bags, too – and quickly. Before this even happens, it is likely – because it follows – that there will be “calls” for the government to require that all new vehicles be equipped with these external air bags and it will be essentially impossible to logically argue that they ought not to be equipped with them.
The only contrary argument that can be made is the usual weak one about it costing too much. You know, like mewly Republicans argued that Obamacare cost too much. That what “we” need is a “more affordable” version of Obamacare.
It is a weak argument to argue that external air bags cost too much, too – because it is not a principled argument, such as it is not the government’s legitimate business to impose air bags (external or internal) on anyone. Because such an imposition is effronterous. Because we are not the governments children but – in theory – grownups who have the right to weigh cost-benefit (and risk-reward, which is another way of putting the same idea) for ourselves.
But that is an old and outdated idea these days. We are all Ralph Nader – and Joan Claybrook now.
Or at least, enough of us have become them such that the rest of us are in thrall to them. Kind of like it was during the height of Diapermania, which was itself a manifestation of essentially the same thing.
And they ask me why I drink.
. . .
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I told you 5 years ago that I had a customer from Blacksburg, who was part of a group of safety-nazi engineers at VT, that was working on developing external airbags. We both thought it was insane, but vio’la, here the crap is, for real now.
If 1/10 of the money was spent making better drivers, none of this stupid shit would be here.
Nader, a literal non-driver, attacked Chevy and the Corvair, for personal retribution. His closet lover, Lenny Bruce, a poorly skilled driver, killed himself wrecking himself in a Corvair, in a one-vehicle crash. With no one else at fault to blame, Nader went after Chevy to avenge his lover.
Notice, there hasn’t been a peep from Nader, or any of the saftey-nazis, about all the EV fires, related deaths and environmental destruction & misery they, and their batteries, have been causing worldwide.
Dude, Bruce died of a morphine overdose in his house. Unless there’s another Lenny Bruce.
Seems like this is what many (all?) here are discussing:
‘American Strong Gods’
“Hugely influential liberal thinkers like Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno helped convince an ideologically amenable post-war establishment that the fundamental source of authoritarianism and conflict in the world was the “closed society.” Such a society is marked by what Reno dubs “strong gods”: strong beliefs and strong truth claims, strong moral codes, strong relational bonds, strong communal identities and connections to place and past – ultimately, all those “objects of men’s love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies.”
“Now the unifying power of the strong gods came to be seen as dangerous, an infernal wellspring of fanaticism, oppression, hatred, and violence. Meaningful bonds of faith, family, and above all the nation were now seen as suspect, as alarmingly retrograde temptations to fascism.” …
As linked to in this: ‘Why There Will Never Be a Reckoning’
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/04/no_author/why-there-will-never-be-a-reckoning/
A.k.a, esp. ‘the hill people’: in Vietnam, in Pakistan, in Appalachia, etc. The resistors, the un-masked & un-vaxxed.
[Hmm, “elevate “critical thinking” over character”. Fascinating. And, “I think that’s what drives people that yell “It’s all the British Pilgrims Society [you sheeple morons]!!!” or whichever society they’ve done the most research into.”]
Sadly, “What this should tell us is that there is no hope whatsoever in a political and legal reckoning for these crimes. They got away with murdering JFK in broad daylight. They got away with turning the Twin Towers to dust with a directed energy weapon and by the use of holographic planes. And they will get away with the plandemic, the greatest crime against humanity since the crucifixion.”
Profoundly: “… the underlying purpose of all the evils we are witnessing, and the ultimate motive of their agents, is to manipulate us, through either fear or seduction, into choosing our own damnation. What causes damnation? Essentially, choosing unreality over reality, our own wills over God’s will, the path of self-centered power over other-centered love.The demons and their willing accomplices are committed to substituting their own counterfeits of reality, their own psychopathic wills, and their own diabolical power for God’s Reality, Will, and Authority. And they are not content with forcing these on us, though this gives them enormous pleasure. They want us to consent to it, to cooperate with it, to desire it.
To take just one example, consider the mask mandates. They didn’t just compel us to wear them; they managed to get us to want to wear them. What is more, they were able to get us to want to wear them while knowing full well what wearing them truly meant—not an act of love of self and neighbor, but an act of simultaneous self-aggrandizement, dishonesty, scapegoating, and enslavement to unreality. In short, the mask was the perfect sacramental of sin itself, and many wore it with great pleasure.”
And, if you didn’t wear the face diaper & refused their B.S., The Truth was within you.
Pardon the long-winded comment, but, wow.
If we only allowed Whites to drive and brought back prohibition we could get rid of all airbags.
There should be seat belts and airbags inside caskets, in case one of the pallbearers had “one too many”. Even corpses deserve protection!
Seriously, since when did happiness become “illegal”?!
I saw a not-bad Sean Connery flick once (hmm, died in 2020, vaxxident?) where a casket with Donald Sutherland in it (2024 vaxxident?) had a string & bell on it in case the ‘deceased’ woke up. I gather that was fairly common back in the before 1950 days. …I wonder, is that practiced anywhere today? ‘Cause, you know, the super fuck-ups, like declaring people as dead, who are not, happens.
I think I saw some scary ’60’s & 70’s films featuring that. …But, maybe I digress?
I tried asking Chat GTP, “when did happiness become “illegal”?” but it wanted my email address, as if it was a stalker. So, I asked, getvoila:
“… There have been many times in history when regimes or laws severely limited personal freedoms, which could be seen as making happiness “illegal” in a figurative sense:
Totalitarian regimes: In some dictatorships, public celebrations, gatherings, or even smiling in certain contexts could be punished if seen as a threat to control.” …
Wow, “even smiling”.
Hmm, I wonder, has happiness ever been legal? Maybe, tolerated? But, legal?
Our hyper-feminized clown world has long since become irrational and tiresome. But how did it get that way? With the acceptance and promotion of ‘harmless truisms’ which are in fact falsehoods. Women dictate the conditions, but it’s their simps (men) who impose and enforce those. The more dominant the yin becomes, the more dominant the yin becomes.
Round and round it goes, where it ends, everyone knows.
I can’t wait for the new bike stickers:
“YOUR AIR BAG PROTECTS ME!”
Wait, that reminds me of something…
It makes one wonder if those who come up with this safety crap have air bags between their ears instead of a brain? Not that they would use it if they had one….
I have a better idea: Just make the body of the vehicle inflatable. Roving bounce-houses. Very safety!
I was thinking more along the lines of a Nerf car.
I hesitated to even say it.
As a young person, I enjoyed Nerf footballs. Problem is, they were not in the least, durable. Which is why they would be perfect, as cars. …For those who sell them. For those who bought them, not-so-much.
Ha ha ….
They had that 25 years ago in New Zealand.
It’s called a “Zorb”…
Not necessarily SAFE..
Some assholes started rolling down a hill in
??? Some country and the thing went over a cliff
Oops …Bing Ding Owww😂😂
I’m at the end of my day (& the Sun is coming up!) what the heck is a Zorb?
“Unlike a hard plastic hamster ball,”???
I’m clocking out.
[I would say, “I’m punching out, but in 10 yrs, that’s prolly a retroactive aggression penalty in this weird world?]
Hmmm. Goodnight Gracie.
Nocturnal are you, Helot? I’m a little bit more “second shift”, but the I can’t handle the graveyard shift for long. I need my sunlight.
Hey Expat,
What I found was this:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2809784/Car-rolls-hill-20mph-world-s-biggest-zorb.html
I’m inclined to conclude that it wouldn’t be incredibly useful for transportation.
Just a FYI for anyone who may have moved over the last few years please check out your current state and previous state’s Unclaimed Property division.
Here is the one for VA:
https://www.vamoneysearch.gov/
You wouldn’t believe the amount of mail that is not forwarded to new addresses and ends up in the state treasury. I just located a $700 Virginia state refund for one of my older clients from a few years ago and a $400 for a dividend that was payable to a family member. Is the money going to make any of us millionaires? No, but a couple hundred dollars could put groceries on the table for the month and it is YOUR money.
Not trying to send like a sales pitch…just throwing it out there.
Another big source of things that “Escheat” to the state is Bank accounts. If inactive for 2 years.
Good point, Ugg. Especially ones where someone may have passed and the family never knew about it.
The previous comments are precisely why I have been relegated to “old timer “ status ..
“Robbie pass grandpa the turkey gravy “..
Youse guys are waaaay too whipper snapper sharp for me!
Every time I have a thought seems some comment beats me to the punchline..
I’m sticking to shoehorning in travel stories when possible …Yikes 😳
Not cool- I consider cars a potential weapon if needed, like being surrounded by a hostile crowd as seen so much in 2020, or even a street takeover today. If you give it auto stop and an exterior that blows out, the crowd could have their way with you since you know it will be programmed to not run once that thing blows. With a normal car, you can move forward and plow if needed.
I hate to break it to ya’ all but the exterior air bag idea has been around a long time and Subaru is just the first to adopt it for production.
This is all coming in response to the laws that your Congress voted for and which you implicitly consented to when you voted for them to represent you.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/9408/text
Ya’ all that have bought a vehicle since 1997 have fed the beast.
“Pedestrian crashworthiness was first introduced in the European version of NCAP (EuroNCAP) in 1997, more than 25 years ago.”
These EuroNCAP regs have fed into vehicle design for decades – raising hood lines and ensuring space exists between the hood and the engine to provide a “crush zone” for a pedestrian flopping into the hood.
Automakers don’t adjust vehicle designs between Europe and America – so you’ve been getting this for decades.
Enjoy your serfdom bitchez’ – vote harder.
Keep buying those new vehicles and implicitly supporting the OEMs in this nonsense! Decisions to buy new cars has consequences you don’t even realize you were supporting because you didn’t care to be informed or to push back by not buying.
Here’s the link to the whiny ass bitch bikers organization that was demanding that NHTSA do even more to protect bikers by forcing safety regs into cars.
https://tinyurl.com/2rcwkb8y
Welcome to Mericanistan’ where everyone is voting to steal from others or to suppress someone else’s freedom to simply exist.
How’s that democracy working out for you.
Gang rape = democracy in action
I’ve gotten religion, BID –
No more voting for me. I withdraw my consent – explicitly. I feel better already.
Same here.
“
I think the external airbag would only protect an idiot cyclist if he/she/it crashed into the Forester from the side. Don’t all these new vehicles out there have a plethora of safety-nanny features on them like AEB (automatic emergency braking) with pedestrian detection? That should be enough to protect those stupid steroid jock cyclist queers.
But, “Doing right ain’t got no end.”
But, “Doing right ain’t got no end.”
Outlaw Josey Wales
“Don’t piss down my back and ell me it’s rainin’.” – Fletcher
F you
CAPTAIN REDLEGS..
You need to take a Missoura Boat Ride!✔️
I can’t understand why there are bike lanes on main thoroughfares.
Plenty of backstreets to find and bike on, you’ll feel safer and cars won’t be honking at you.
1100 bicyclists were killed in traffic accidents in 2022.
In 2023, there were more than 341,000 nonfatal preventable injuries due to traffic accidents.
Just search it out.
Bicycles can tip over, grab a leg, they’ll hit the deck. Don’t do that, somebody could get hurt. It would be hilarious, though, in Bill Hicks’ style of humor.
When one of the cyclists yells at you, you yell back that it is a hiking/walking path, so get off the trail. A few cyclists could be riding a 5000 dollar Stumpjumper, so they have more at stake. They think the road belongs to them and everybody must defer to their presence on the streets.
Follow the rules of the road, simple stuff like that applies.
I can’t understand why there are bike lanes on main thoroughfares.
It’s there for the same reason that dogs pee on trees. It’s the anti-car brigade’s way of marking their territory.
As a (former) cyclist myself I get why they yell and scream. It’s fairly difficult to traverse any road in a bicycle. Lots of room for error. I don’t defend cyclists, though, as a group. The spandex mafia is insufferable and demanding. They are largely liberal, left wing and carry on like they are better than everyone else.
As a motorist first, and a cyclist second, i never demanded special privileges such as bike lanes or additional trails. The only thing I asked is for larger break down lanes and the ability to do the “Idaho Stop”, which makes it so you don’t have to stop if no one is around.
Riding today is extra dangerous. Today’s cars are designed with shitty visibility and people are playing with their phones way too much for comfort.
It was fun while it lasted, but you couldn’t convince me that riding is a good idea today
Agree-I don’t have time to ride either my bicycle nor own a motorcycle anymore but it’s insane to do it on the roads where I live. Backroads here are almost worse (central California)
Hi Jetta,
I ride motorcycles and – you’re right – it can be terrifying due to the regularity of having to avoid “drivers” who are either recklessly oblivious or severely incompetent. But I still ride – counting on my paranoia and situational awareness to keep me alive and because a motorcycle – unlike a bicycle – is generally much quicker than any car and that gives one a big advantage.
How’s that Seattle bike lane working for ya? Apparently he was going too fast to see the SLOW marking in his special bike lake. Bike doesn’t become a pretzel at 5 mph. Sorry for his injury but why zip around in a crowded urban environment?
https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-man-bike-safety-green-lake-drive-north-june-3-2024-aviv-litov-wheelchair-king-county-physical-occupational-vocational-speech-therapists-cycling
I, as we speak, am hard at work designing a new type of bike helmet that fits over existing helmets to create a ‘Helmet for your Helmet’!!!
Gadzooks! It’s Wunderbar!!!
I see this being used in the NFL.
I guess MIPS was just not enough for bike helmets?
Wow, talk about designing a car around an air bag!
Scotty, beam me up, NOW!
Oh my gosh the past couple of months there has started a young cycling group in our neighborhood made up of 20 somethings that literally race on our pedestrian trail system. (These were built as pedestrian trails in 2000 and are very popular with all ages.) They ride in packs of about 20 cyclists and they race at about 35 mph on these twisty trails shooting around women with baby carriages, couples with dogs, runners. They actually scream at people to move as they rush past riding so they take up the entire width of the trail and have the worst freaking entitlement attitude ever. You now cannot wear ear buds on the trail because if these idiots come along you have about 3 seconds to jump out of the way (and get your animlas off the trail too) or you are dead. They make the kids on ebikes look polite. I guess they don’t want to risk their “safety” by riding in the bike lanes that are everywhere so they decided to terrorize the pedestrians
They do not care about anyone so I do not care about external air bags for them.
Hi RS!
This is a hot-button topic so I expect a lot of responses – some of them angry ones. But, here goes: Being a Gen X guy, I rode a bike until I was old enough to drive a car. Most people got off their bikes when they were old enough to get into a car (legally) at 15-16. After that, if they rode a bike, it was occasionally and they generally avoided roads. As kids, we did the same. We rode around the neighborhood – and on the lightly travelled back roads – but avoided roads with traffic moving faster than 25 MPH and even then, deferred to traffic. We didn’t act as if we were driving cars and occupy a lane and we definitely did not wear spandex outfits or even helmets. We typically wore shorts and sneakers and that was it.
Then along came the movie, Breaking Free – followed by the Lance Armstrong cult – and suddenly, packs of adult cyclists in spandex on every road, even heavily trafficked ones with traffic moving at speeds above the capabilities of bicycles to maintain or even reach. Yet they insist in using these roads and often do not defer to traffic.
I understand the roads are public rights-of-ways. And I have no issue with people who need to get somewhere by bike doing so. But it’s beyond that and worse than that. Especially the Spandex outfits!
PS: Thanks for the donation!
The Spandex is to prevent chafing from ball sweat. I don’t ride in packs, but what the hell is it with cyclist hate? Is it the Pelaton assholes? Or is it that you think you own the roads, and others are not entitled to use them as a public right of way, even to exercise (like walkers and joggers do)? I can’t ever recall impeding a motorist more than a few seconds. But sure, provide childish rants about cyclist shorts and cleats.
Oh here we go – the sacred cycling cult.
Worshiped here in WA, they rule the roost in Seattle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/15jqslo/why_are_cyclists_so_inconsiderate/
And yes, as a tax paying motorist, I DO OWN THE ROAD – get the f out of the way. Ride two and three abreast on a public road then get their spandex in a twist when honked at. Ride single file you morons.
Sparkey, I’m not in nor have I ever been to Washington or Seattle, not sure how I can get out of your way. But go on with your sanctimony. I normally ride by myself, or with a small group that always goes single file as a car approaches. And, I co-own the roads with you, having duly paid my state, federal, and motor fuels taxes, so there’s that.
Not on the damn pedal bike you are riding you don’t, that is one of the issues, the others you look queer in your spandex!
Hi Cederq,
Just before “COVID” – when I used to spend time working at the coffee shop – I looked up from my laptop to find one of my friends standing there in his Spandex riding outfit. I almost ruined the laptop by spilling coffee all over the thing because of the involuntary reflex action of seeing his codpiece so close and with no warning of its impending appearance!
Dude, it’s like the ‘naked pants’ the chicks wear these days. …Probably.
I guess our tolerance for Libertarian variety is brushing up against our desire for cultural norms? ‘Er sumthin’? Idk.
I hear you, Helot –
And to be clear: Whatever people choose to wear is their business. Whether I like looking at it is another matter!
Why are you looking at a dude’s sweaty crotch? Does that secretly turn you in, Cederq? Do you go to queer shows, that you are so familiar with what they look like?
Hi BAC,
I think the issue here (as usual) is asshole/incompetent conduct on both sides. Me personally? I would never ride a bicycle on a road with a speed limit above 35 MPH that hasn’t got shoulders good enough for me to ride on. For reasons of both courtesy to others and self-interest (survival). But if others want to, that’s their right – I just wish those who do would defer to vehicular traffic that’s moving faster (same for slowpokes in cars). And I wish more drivers possessed the competence to pass slow-moving bicycles without needing to be entirely in the opposing lane if traffic!
Back in 2008, I rode my longest ride from Sanford, FL to St. Augustine and back again. It was about 200 miles total over varying types of roads. The most comfortable roads were 4 lane highways with posted limits higher than 55 mph. They generally have great line of sight, alignment and grade. You can see everyone and they can see you (well, not today with the “safety cars” we have been afflicted with since beginning with the 2008 model year.)
That’s because there is a limited time that you are in other driver’s danger zones.
The most dangerous roads were the lower speed limit road with a lot of traffic on them. The worst is when you have some well meaning liberal (well, they are not so well meaning now) staying behind you trying to anticipate where you are going. I prefer when somebody makes a quick pass and is not hovering in my space.
Residential isn’t as safe as everyone thinks it is. Lots of people backing up, trying to get into their property, kids playing, etc.
A lot of it depends on road design. Since Texas uses a road design manual from 1939, it is particularly dangerous. Florida was much better as they have wider shoulders and permit rights on read.
“ And I wish more drivers possessed the competence to pass slow-moving bicycles without needing to be entirely in the opposing lane of traffic! “
Well, here in WA is the 3 ft rule so at times if they won’t move over / riding 2 or 3 abreast you will be well into or completely in the opposing lane to maintain that clearance. I’m a ahole but I do respect the distance rule – yes Sparkey the place to argue is here not on the road.
Can attest.
I started with the Spandex when I started doing club rides & it is so insanely much better there is no going back.
No I don’t look good in it, (almost) no one does. But I’m too old to GAF anymore. And there’s extra padding in the butt, which becomes a consideration at some point.
I hide in the car with my loose fit Carhartt pants and 2XL Wrangler work shirts, cotton everything is my go to.
AC on high no sweating! Once a slight glisten crops up it’s time for air con!
RE: Sweating privates, the older GM cars had that handy AC vent just under the steering column, man spread and adjust that vent no “hot rocks”.
Of course and we girls rode bikes everywhere too. These bikes are super expensive road bikes. Ive owned one and can verify you can go very fast on these things. They’re very fit individuals on fast bikes racing. For fun on these ped trails. I actually was a fan of the spandex groups for years, they were pretty respectful and I applaud any means of staying fit. But this is a complete lack or respect for others. Taking over a trail and demanding then essentially daring people not to get out their way when they have the speed and power to take out pedestrians (which I am sure they would just leave on the ground while they continue on) is beyond. Heck if I am running and see a couple walking I slow down and reel in my dog so we do not disrupt anyone. The cyclists have expensive bike lanes just for them. If pedestrians cannot walk on the walking trails then where the heck are we supposed to go.
I’m Gen X and ride a bicycle recreationally and to work on average a couple times a week.
I pay road taxes. And sales taxes. And property taxes. The majority of cyclists have cars, too. Not all but I doubt you car guys will see many of them, being those who live in the urban hellscapes of Manhattan or Chicago. I don’t live in those place intentionally. Screw that, life’s too short to be packed into a shitty apartment in the middle of pavement.
I’m used to people yelling at me. Car drivers yell at me on the road for going too slow, walkers yell at me on bike paths for going too fast. I basically follow the rules of the road. I don’t blow stops, don’t hog the lane if it’s possible to ride the edge safely. I’m absolutely on board hating on entitled cyclists, respect isn’t automatic. On bike paths I try to go pedestrian speed. It cuts both ways after all. People get mad at me on a motorcycle because I can zip in and out of traffic better than them. Too damn bad, get out of your cage you lazy slug.
Doesn’t bother me if people get upset, it’s your blood pressure. I live in a smallish rural town so my commute is a couple of miles, it’s really pointless to drive. It’s also a nice way to wake up and a way to blow off some steam after work. When the weather is less good I might drive the motorcycle. Snow is very rare here but that’s when I’ll drive the truck.
I hear a lot of smacking lips about individualism and wanting to be left alone but really want to impose your ideal conformity. Sorry, not sorry about having a different plan for my life.
Agreed. I used to ride a lot in Florida and a little while in Texas.
Texas road design is just too dangerous.
The irony is that Texans seem to be more tolerant of cyclist than Floridians though the roads in FL are much more conducive to cycling.
Go figure. I more than pay my fair share of road taxes.
I wish I could ride to work like I used to.
I race cars. I ride bikes. I love doing both, and I’ve been doing both for a very long time, and I’ve got my feet in both worlds.
Those entitled spandex wearing a-holes on bikes aren’t representative of all of us. You don’t notice most cyclists because they don’t get in your face or in your way, and you remember ones which do, it’s just how human perception works.
That being said, the ratio of a-holes is quite high. On my 20mi/day commute (on bike), I’d guesstimate that about 1/3 of the bikers that I encounter are entitled road-hogs.
I even met one who carried a spray bottle of brake fluid to spray cars to “punish” them for pissing him off in some way. Brake fluid removes paint. He was proud of this.
Hi OL,
Yup. One hair spoils the soup. Sigh. If only common courtesy were to become a thing again.
Might want to carry a walking stick.
Would be a shame if you didn’t hear a bike coming on a pedestrian trail and the walking stick ended up in the spokes accidentally.
Excellent suggestion, Burn It Down!
Seems like a terrible suggestion. You’d prolly get totally railroaded & ruined for that. And, for what?
Like it’d make a big diff. anyway?
Now, if a big crowd, a community walking event (yes, I wrote, ‘community’) were to stroll down the way & be injured. Well, that might have an impact? Maybe walk hand in hand & sing Cumbaya, ‘er sumthin leftish? Is that how Solzhenitsyn would work the system against itself? Idk.
‘HyperNormalization’
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/04/charles-hugh-smith/whats-normal-in-a-hyper-normalized-world/
When you hit a moose that is running out onto the highway and you can’t stop in time, you will want an external airbag so the moose survives the impact.
It does happen. So the answer is to save the animals, retrofit every vehicle with external airbags.
Think of the poor deer out there too.
Why not airbags on the bicycles?? Let the granola crunching, road hogging crowd “share” in the costs and inconvenience.
Yep. Love it.
There’s something very bad about this thought line.
Lotsa non-granola crunching, non-road hogging individuals would pay the price for that Jack-boot idea, too, ya know.
And, of course, why stop there, why not airbag suits being required of walkers? Advanced bubblewrap cones-of-shame, maybe? ‘Cause, crossing a street or walking on a bike path can be dangerous, don’tchya know?
Spiral down some more & require helmets in order to step into a bathtub. Maybe, a body harness attached to the ceiling to prevent slips & falls.
…A helmet requirement for walking on streets & bike paths? Maybe, have 6G danger detectors in those helmets, too? GPS trackers would be needed, you don’t mind being tracked, do you?
Frickin’ Twilight Zone stuff.
As an avid cyclist, I’ll say this – would be better to train drivers how to share the road, to be courteous, and also to simply drive around us. Dangerous to have them pacing behind me at 17 mph 10 feet off my back tire, yet there they sit. Or the assholios who like to rev up the engine or see how close they can get, you know, vehicular assault. With all the vaccinated drivers out there, maybe external airbags aren’t that bad of an idea after all.
It’s pointless to argue about sharing the road. The childization of everyone is that no one can tolerate being slightly inconvenienced. Daddy government, he’s different, make him go away! Fine, throw your bottle, get it out of your system. Then you can drive on, feeling smug you showed the cyclist who’s boss. It’s human nature to hate the “other” who isn’t like you and your herd. I get the 3rd degree from cyclists when I tell them they need to quit rolling stop signs, wait in line, signal their turns. What, you’re taking the car’s viewpoint? No, not exactly. Courtesy given, courtesy received. Everything in the world is absolute and polarized. Riding a bike is seen as some of fundamental insult to the sensibility of driving. What is so wrong with not driving sometimes anyway?
Alex, I think that the Idaho stop should be legalized. Bikes are different than cars.
There used to be a time when a truck had to drive a different speed than a car because of weight and handling differences.
Our road network in general is designed to accommodate varying types of vehicles and drivers. Our laws need to recognize the difference.
>simply drive around us
Sure. Just cross the double yellow into opposing traffic and cause a head on collision with another motor vehicle. If you are lucky, *all* the occupants of *both* motor vehicles will be killed.
More “road space for the righteous,” eh?
And especially for the fat tired electrically powered bicycles now defined as “active” transportation, though no human effort is required to operate one.
Funny Adi, I’ve been riding for over thirty years, have been passed by cars going around me thousands of times, and never once witnessed a head on collision. I myself have driven around many a bicyclist without incident. Maybe your driving skills need improvement? Or is this just hyperbole? Because you think all cyclists are self righteous leftists that need to be run off the road for inconveniencing you for thirty seconds?
>I myself have driven around many a bicyclist without incident.
So have I. The intent of my post was to convey the thought that *sometimes* it is not possible to safely “just go around.” In which case, the motorist can either a) put his own life and that of others at risk by crossing the double yellow, or b) ride (sniff) the ass of the “entitled” cyclist(s) until it becomes safe to pass. Perhaps you need explicit [sarc] tags.
>never once witnessed a head on collision.
My life has been touched by head on collisions twice. The first, in which I was not personally involved, claimed the life of the daughter of a close friend, two days short of her 21st birthday.
The second, which I survived, claimed the life of a motorcyclist who crossed the double yellow and managed to off himself on my front bumper. His error in judgment unfortunately cost him his life.
So, yes, I am sensitive to the need to avoid head on collisions. A CHP officer once told me that in any head on collision, CHP expects to see *at* *least* one fatality.
Having survived a head on collision in which the other driver lost his life, I can also tell you from personal experience that post traumatic stress is very real, and a very crummy thing to experience. I sincerely hope you never have that experience. It sucks.
I am not understanding the hatred toward bicyclists. I don’t view them any differently than a tractor on the road, a motorcyclist, someone driving a golf cart (the official transportation of Florida), or someone walking. I slow down, give them enough space, and pass when it is safe to do so. An extra minute of my day isn’t worth losing my temper over.
I think it comes from the snarky, haw haw liberal type of spandex wearing cyclist. They definitely ride with attitude and their personalities are insufferable as a rule.
I say that as someone who rode plenty myself. I mostly rode a lone and not with the organized groups.
Whoa! Fucking spot on:
“America became something whiny and effeminate. Men – not all, but enough to tip the balance – became as obsessed with “safety” as women, which perhaps the men thought might make them more appealing to those women. It didn’t. It merely made the women hold those men in even greater contempt because not many women find effeminate men attractive, no matter what they say about it.”
This is the primary problem in society. Many men (perhaps most) stopped acting like men. Without sufficient masculinity in society, chaos ensues. This, of course, is what’s intended in order to create the need for controls being imposed on the chaotic society. There has been an ongoing war against masculinity since at least the 60s, which they now refer to as “toxic.”
Those in power always promote things that weaken society like feminism, prescription drugs, seed oils, welfare and “gender-queer” nonsense, and then demonize things that strengthen like eggs, the nuclear family, masculinity, animal fat, real education and self-reliance. The weaker society becomes, the more their power grows.
Thanks, Mister!
I’m feeling “toxic” this morning…
It’s those pasture-raised eggs of yours!
Hi ML,
I agree with you and Eric. No one woman is attracted to a Beta male. A woman uses that kind of man, she doesn’t adore him.
My question is why have men stopped fighting? Is it the lab created ingredients in our foods, the fluoride, the prescription drugs forced onto young boys, fathers walking away not involved in their children’s upbringing, or a sick perverse society constantly reprimanding men for portraying their natural inclinations? The glaring aspect is men suffering from a lack of confidence in themselves and their abilities.
The tear down of the nuclear family and social media are probably the biggest culprits in the destruction of boys views of their self worth. Society has overemphasized the empowerment of women to cheer the effacement of men. I am disappointed by the inability of men to confront these issues, but even more upset at women who refuse to realize our involvement in this. Our sons need to be just as encouraged and lauded as our daughters. Toxic masculinity doesn’t exist and I am tired of it being linked to men and boys whose natural instincts to protect, fight, and succeed are deemed harmful to women.
>overemphasized the empowerment of women
Perhaps that comes with the territory for those who trace their ancestry through their matriarchal, rather than patriarchal, lineage. Speculation.
Why have men stopped fighting? That’s an easy one.
There are no women worth fighting for anymore.
It isn’t fighting for women, letme. It is fighting for men’s own survival. That’s what I don’t understand. But, maybe my point on the lack of confidence is true. Maybe, you guys don’t believe you are worth fighting for.
If there is something worth fighting for, I’ll throw down in a second. The problem is, most things that people want to fight over, when it’s man vs man, is utterly ridiculous shit. I’ve literally seen people fight over quarters on the pool table. Weak cowards run and hide when the tax man comes, but by golly they’ll bash your skull in for 50 cents and the next game. I won’t fight for quarters on a pool table, or some psycho woman that gets her kicks watching men fight over her worthless ass while she drums up drama just because she has tits on her chest.
Stupid men fight over stupid shit.
The smart ones don’t mind walking away until something worth fighting over actually comes up. Like, freedom for oppressive government. I’ll fight to the death over that. Any day we decide to get the posse up and running, and start doing our good and proper hangings, I’m in.
But don’t come to me with petty drama. I have more important video games to play.
Thank you for your insight, letme. Maybe we should be thankful that less people are popping out babies.
>less people
https://tinyurl.com/uy2yyrc8
Oh, Adi, if your goal is to provide me grammar lessons this is going to become a full time job for you. 😁
Are you taking a break from kitchen remodeling?
>this is going to become a full time job for you.
My pleasure, RG. 🙂
Glad you survived tax season. 🙂
LOL. You must be retired. 😉
I don’t have full brain capacity back yet. It takes about a month after tax season ends to regain it. If you read one of my posts and it doesn’t make sense don’t be surprised.
Well said, RG. I do think a big part to blame are the chemicals, plant estrogens and highly processed foods. Those should be avoided at all cost and removed from society. As far as the social pressures on boys and men not to be masculine, well I won’t piss and moan about that because that would not be a proper masculine reaction. The proper one is to ignore it all and man up. Would encouragement be helpful? Probably so, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Without the poisons, it’s in our nature to be masculine (testosterone and all).
I think EP made a great point about men foolishly taking on a more feminine persona in the hope that might make them more appealing to women (usually trying to get laid). As EP (and you have) pointed out, this doesn’t work and makes women hold those men in even greater contempt. As an unapologetically masculine man, I’ve tried to learn what women really want, rather than what they say they want. Those can be very much two different things, and many times women don’t even recognize it.
The dynamic (YIn and Yang if you will) between men and women is a fascinating one. I’ve spend a lot of time studying it. Here’s an insightful video showing one facet of this dynamic, titled “How women get men to lose” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rwrgPtai_Y
Thanks, ML. I will watch it this evening.
Just curious if you have found out what women wanted yet? 🙂 As a woman with three sisters the men that we choose are far ranging and our wants and needs are as well.
I have a tendency to believe a woman’s relationship with her father probably plays the biggest role on how she views men, but the dynamics of that relationship are as individual as the woman, herself.
As I said, I’ve TRIED to learn what women really want. This can be challenging. No doubt women’s desires can vary, but I think most are more-or-less hardwired with evolutionary desires and impulses, such as hypergamy, the need for safety and security, access to resources, a strong desire to procreate, etc. I’ve found that confident masculinity generally tends to satisfy those desires and impulses quite well. The thing I believe women DO NOT want is a relationship of equals. They seem happiest when the man is in the driver’s seat expecting high standards from both himself and her, and creating a sense of calm stability in her life.
Men and women think very differently. Once I realized that women and men are not the same but just in different packages (as we are constantly told), things made so much more sense to me.
Of course all of these comments would be considered chauvinistic by feminists (both female and male), but that’s all BS. Women have been sold an awful bill of goods over the past 60 years. Feminism is at odds with their nature, and it’s a source of much anxiety and depression for them.
Interesting theory regarding hypergamy, ML.
I am of the opposite assumption. I believe the happiest of relationships is when a man practices it. My family thinks I am nuts, but they have yet to produce a valid argument against it. It doesn’t help that I used their own relationships to prove my theory. 🙂
Men are (usually) ambitious creatures. The joy is in the chase and the win. A man that marries up knows he has to perform at a higher level than a woman that marries up. My thought is that a woman who has obtained or has been reared in a certain life style is not willing to forego what she is accustom to. If that man is interested in her he will raise his game to keep that woman.
A woman that marries up (and many do), provides no challenge to the man to keep her, because what is there for her to teach him or push him harder?
The thing about marrying up or down, is that it’s in the eye of the beholder, and doesn’t necessarily equate to just visual physical attractiveness. You mentioned something about needing to adore a man. If you adore your husband that tells me he checks off your hypergamy box and you don’t need to find an upgrade. In other words, taking into consideration all of his qualities (including what you perceive to be his ambitious performance) and your circumstances, you see him as the best you can do. If you didn’t you’d tend to lose respect for him. You speak so kindly of him in this forum it’s clear he has your respect.
Also, despite this, your husband might also believe that he married up. This is the win-win that can come from a good match.
It’s been my observation that women do not date/marry down (again, as they perceive it).
Hi ML,
I am not referring to attractiveness in regards to marrying up, but actual class status. You are right, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am referring to upper class to middle class, middle class to lower class and then the tiers within each of these classes.
Don’t get me wrong. I realize most people stay within the class that they grew up in, but women (in particular) shouldn’t discount a man whose economic status is beneath her own.
I will use my own family as an example. My maternal grandmother was raised upper middle class in a five bedroom home in NW DC during the 1930s and 1940s. She wore tailored clothes, Italian shoes, went to the best schools, she had a new Cadillac every year, etc.
My maternal grandfather came from nothing. His father was a drunk, couldn’t hold a job, and then would come home and beat the kids. My great grandmother finally left with all six children. My grandfather would tell stories how they were evicted every few months because his mother couldn’t feed the six of them and pay the rent on top of it. My grandfather joined the Army at 17 because there was no other choice if one wanted to make something of themselves.
After returning home from being stationed in Japan they met in 1952. Two kids from very different lives, but they clicked. They had a few tough years as my grandfather made his way through the DOD, but my grandfather far out exceeded anyone’s expectations. My grandfather stated that he knew my grandmother had grown up a certain way and he felt it was his obligation to provide her that.
My mother and father’s marriage is similar. As is my own. It would not surprise me if my own daughter showed up with some farm boy out of Appalachia.
I just don’t think a woman marrying a class below to what she is used to should be discounted or dissuaded. That man could surprise you.
Okay, ML, I watched the video and a few others from PyscHacks. I could understand where the good doctor is coming from, but it all seems overly complicated. Why must there be games of manipulation from either side? Why can’t two people meet, connect, and just enjoy being with each other? I would believe that would be the simplest test of all. If I have to run out for a bite to eat or choose to stay home with a movie is it more enjoyable with or without this person? Not only that but does the other person offer a rescinding “yes” when I ask to be with them? Do relationships need to be so complex and why is testing required?
If someone cares for someone else wanting to do nice things is automatically ingrained in them.
RE: “Why must there be games of manipulation from either side?”
‘Cause, we’re Human Beings, and that’s how things are. It’s how we were Created, by our Creator. No big bang, from nothing, for nothing, to nothing, nonsense.
Perhaps, you prefer the life of a chicken? A rooster dances before you, you hunker down & get ready to be taken? Or, you get Wild, and run? And, the rooster chases you, until he wins?
…Oh, wait. Huh, I didn’t see it as just like that until right now.
Anyway, testing is required to solidify trust. Dangerous/survival times are much about trust.
I imagine, everyone here trusts you.
While it may seem so, It’s not complex.
Also, RE: “If someone cares for someone else wanting to do nice things is automatically ingrained in them.”
Yah, you’re a Divergent.
I’m afraid engaging in the dance (some say games) is just the reality of human beings. Humans are very complex social creatures with evolutionary hardwiring.
PsychHacks provides some good insight, but not all the answers.
It’s simple chemistry and by that I mean declining testosterone levels. I heard RFK in a interview the other day say a teenage boy now has the same testosterone levels as a 68 year old man. Low T males don’t just have low sex drive, they have this “who cares/why bother” attitude about everything. I have seen that attitude more and more and it’s a shame, actually gets on my nerves when I see it. I hope RFK can get to the bottom of this crisis but he is kinda a wet noodle himself.
RE: “a teenage boy now has the same testosterone levels as a 68 year old man”.
I was thinking about just That as I was reading the comments.
Women wanted to be like Brie in those commercials.
Strong. Independent. Didn’t need a man.
Then the starter battery in the Rogue died.
Hi Roscoe,
I always laugh at women who state they don’t need a man. If all men evaporated I would give the women in society about 24 hours before they followed. When the first transformer blew on the power lines that would be the end of it.
In all fairness, neither would men survive without women. WRT cyclists vs motorists there are total assholes in both populations… We libertarians tend to evaluate individual individuals on individual merit not what group they belong to… It sort of pains me when libertarians make generalizations that don’t really hold up to the rigor of evaluating people based on their individual merit… that said, Ralph Nader was a horrible excuse for a human being
Hi Giuseppe,
All true. My post was not to be attributed to all women, everywhere, just those who don’t think we need each other.
As much as I would love for merit to be the basis of evaluating individuals we are a long way from that. Stereotypes sell. Whether it is media exposure, a blatant disregard or dislike for a particular group, or the intentional segregation for control from the elites there is money and power to be had for keeping us disassociated.
Not exactly true. Men would survive just fine for the remainder of their lives (although they would probably grow very lonely), but human civilization would of course be doomed.
Depending on the class of the transformer, we would all be in trouble. The US doesn’t make the largest transformers anymore.
RE: “The US doesn’t make the largest transformers anymore.”
I can hear my Millennial nephew now, “That’s the old ways. We don’t need that, we have cell phones, and computer video games, and headsets, and ‘Arby’s, Has the meats!'”.
I keep coming back to this bit:
“they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/04/charles-hugh-smith/whats-normal-in-a-hyper-normalized-world/
It would probably upset your world view but I ride a bike, primarily mountain bikes but do have street bicycles. I would hesitate to call them road bikes, it’s not like anything Lance Armstrong would ride. They’re more for commuting and bar hopping. I sometimes race cyclocross, which kind of look like those bike. But with knobby tires. In any case I ride streets to get places regularly not as much as an endeavor onto itself.
But I also hunt (even sometimes use a MTB with a trailer to get further into a roadless areas here in Wyoming for such), brew beer, grow a garden, keep chickens, rebuild engines (I like fixing and driving old Scouts). In fact I for a while fabricated custom bike frames as a side gig to my main job at the time, welding and fitting food production pipe. Now I’m in industrial process controls, my background being electrical engineering prior to getting a 5 position, 3 process welding certification. But riding a bike is mentally relaxing and physical fitness for me. I don’t have any $10K bikes but I do spend significantly more than Walmart money on the hobby.
So how do I fit into the stereotype?
Exterior air bags? To quote Charlie Brown, “Good grief!” Given that there were efforts just a few years ago to ONLY allow people who’ve been vaxxed to participate in modern society, If we should end up with someone like Pete Buttigieg as President in a few years & government decrees that ALL new vehicles must have exterior air bags, what are the odds that such decrees will expand to say that the ONLY vehicles allowed on “Public roads” will be vehicles with exterior air bags?
Subaru is practically the State Car of Oregon, with most of their models sold in the Northwest imported through the port at Vancouver, *WA* — aka “Vantucky’ at our house — just across the river.
Of course the saaaaafety “feature” will show up on the vehicles imported into this country.
We lived in Vantucky for four years. God only knows why.
They’ve been popular with the lesbian set as well. I’ve heard the Subaru Baja (2003-2008) referred to as the “Les Camino.”
Perhaps if cyclists stayed the hell off of busy roads, they wouldn’t be so vulnerable. And, Subaru wouldn’t need to make an asinine argument for a foolishly stupid bit of kit.
Have you been to Portland recently?
But MH!
Share the road!
Real public opinion is being censored while media monopolies push the illusion of public opinion.
It is all agenda driven theater.
At first I thought this was something from Babylon Bee or The Onion.
The real insanity of this is that for the current gas-bags (the cancerous chemicals used to make the explosions to inflate the bags is hardly “air”) to be effective you need people to be buckled in place. Thus, when the bags inflate they cover a specific area where passengers are located.
With pedestrians and cyclists you have an infinite degree of angles, motions and speeds that in no way can be adequately addressed by a stationary gas-bag deployment. This is lunacy.
However, wait until the free-range thugs figure out how to deploy these bags while strolling by and watch the madcap merriment begin. A fungo bat should do the trick.
Make mine a double scotch, neat.
Hi Mark.
Remember when the Bee’s headline lines sounded crazy and now seem rational compared to the MSM?
Somewhere in japan the remains of a Samurai are spinning at an incredibly high speed. Whatever happened to them? They went from screaming Banzai (long life) while charging machine guns to external car air bags in less than 75 years. 🙁
The reason so many cyclists are hit by cars is that most of them are idiots. I see them going through red lights, cutting off cars, cycling in the middle of lanes on blind curves and over the crest of hills; and I’ve got no sh*ts to give when they get hit. I feel for the dent’s the car has received more than the idiot that deliberately rides a bicycle in an unsafe manner. Skip the earbuds and listen for a car coming and move over then you’re a lot less likely to get hit.
I’ve been hit on my bicycle once in my life and the car driver was 100% at fault. Sun in her eye as she was turning into a side street.
As for safety nannies; might I suggest weekend HALO jumps for all senior positions would either turn them into thrill junkies or DOA from heart attacks. Either way problem solved.
In the useless trivia portion of my rant why does sh*t not upset the spell checker but Camaro does?
It’s like that in Germany, too…perhaps even worse. They thought Jewish people were different enough to do what they did…yet they roll over and let Muslims walk all over them.
“…to do what they did”?
What, exactly, are you claiming they “did”?
‘Here is that argument – being made by a car journalist, which is itself a measure of just how deep the rot has gone’ — eric
Why do we even have ‘car journalists’ anymore? We don’t have dishwasher and dryer and washing machine journalists — yet these appliances are at least as rewarding as the costly, overly-complex cellphones on wheels that we’ve all grown to loathe.
Maybe these gasbag scribblers will graduate to a career outlined for them by Billy Joel in his song ‘Piano Man’:
Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he’s talking with Davey who’s still in the Navy
And probably will be for life
And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it’s better than drinking alone
And they ask me why I’m fentanyl-patched like a spotted giraffe.
>But it’s better than drinking alone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpzqQst-Sg8
No spandex faggots here. 🙂
Oh, and the standard male equipment is known as “the family jewels,” not “junk.”