Yes, but the automobile industry does not want you to know that. The same auto industry that made crossing the road at any non-90° angle a crime.
You’re not going to die. You are going to get sick, you’re going to be exposed to that 1:10,000 people that are doing something truly awful within eyesight. You’re going to be late. You’re going to spend a lot of time waiting for a ride without any idea who long it’s going to be. You’re probably going to have to change transports multiple times.
And all this assumes you’re in the urban sprawl or the burbs.
As a Taiwanese, I have a perception that the US is dangerous, with lots of drug users and gun shots, and even in schools. Is that stereotype or fact?
There’s a lot of nuance. I’ve lived in a major west coast city for years and I never heard any gunshots in public. Drug users are sometimes visible, it seems to be less common in recent years but you can see it at times. I suppose it depends on what you mean by “drug users”, cannabis is legal in my state and its pretty common to see in public but no one really cares about that, to me “drug users” means hard stuff like fentanyl.
Violent gun crime is a real problem and it is much worse in other parts of the country. Most of the time it isn’t random. There are still mass shootings and random violent crime. I assume Taiwan is much safer. I’ve never been robbed or witnessed any serious violent crime in my 30+ years living here.
Meh, close ‘nuff
it is, but its quite inadequete in many parts of the country. and quite limited in well “funded” areas. also the distates for HSR. also covid made people forget how to drive safely.
You are afraid of public transit because of inflated crime statistics.
I am afraid of public transit because I was late for the bus in kindergarten and got run over chasing it.
We are not the same.
Personal experience and thus anecdotal I know, but the light rail line I used to take for work has had issues to say the least. A coworker ended up murdered in one of the more secluded stations two years ago. I’ve personally had a taser pulled on my face only to find out the guy was trying to sell it. All the cars reek of piss and I’ve seen someone having a mental health crisis try to peel off the thin padding off one of the seats.
I really want public transit to work but it does require a firm hand to keep people in line and safe in such enclosed areas. It’s one of the few venues I’d actually welcome some increased security and fare enforcement in.
Those issues aren’t intrinsic to the situation, the solutions are rooted in better social services and education, so people aren’t struggling with untreated issues to begin with.
I almost puked while this 40 something yr old Asian women across from me on the subway methodically peeled skin off of her bare feet.
Everyone banded together and threw her off at the next stop, right?
I’d rather have some dude freak out at me on the bus than behind the wheel of a multi-ton death machine
Most brainwashed nation there is, was, and hopefully ever will be.
Meanwhile Australia is like “Hold my beer, cunts” while it drinks the anti-migration, pro-mining no revenue coolaid.
I have never in my entire life heard anyone in the US say public transportation is more dangerous than driving.
This is not a thing. We are all very aware that driving is incredibly dangerous.
Plenty of stereotypes, especially in TV and movies, paint public transportation as populated by the poor and downtrodden, and therefore anyone out of their comfort zone on a bus or subway is a target for mugging or worse.
It’s just classism and racism.
And IMO also it would be highly unlikely that the average person would understand that driving is indeed more dangerous, at best most would only parrot the statement back.
It’s a very common thing. People are programmed to think it here. I heard someone mention a bus and 3 other people immediately piped up to agree they would never ride a bus because they would get stabbed/its far to dangerous. Fox news did it intentionally.
The fear of public transit is part of the racism and classism baked into our country.
It is extremely frustrating how often reading into “why are things like this in the US” leads to racism as the explanation
Yeah, it’s kind of odd that Americans seem to be scared to have to interact with strangers. Internationally, the American stereotype is of being very friendly, the person who sits next to you on the bus and wants to have a conversation - which is sometimes a bit socially awkward in countries where we pretty much ignore each other. Maybe they’re different abroad? Or maybe we shouldn’t stereotype lol
It’s not about strangers == danger. I love in one of the biggest metros in the US and we have pretty crap public transport. The commuter lines from the suburbs are full of middle-income professionals, and nobody blinks about those. But transfer over to regular city lines, and it’s mostly low-income minority demographics, and people will immediately caution me about taking those lines to get to my office.
Yeah that sounds like a classism thing. TBF we have the same shit here too, and I bet most countries do.
It’s not entirely unreasonable either, I’ve lived almost all my life in inner city areas with all the problems they have. In fact, I’ve been part of the problem. I’ve been mugged, stabbed (crap stabbing, he wasn’t really committed. But I still gave him my stuff lol), stalked, beaten, hassled cos of my race, all sorts of shit. TBF some - but not all - of that was because I was engaged with that inner city life as a junkie crackhead and occasional runner. Lived much of my life like that.
But underneath that, people make community. There’s also lots of good people in those low income communities who will help you if you get in trouble, feed you if you’re hungry, just generally look out for a fellow human. I’ve had a genuine friendship with at least one very scary person. Most people, if they’re in their right minds, are pretty much okay.
I’d go so far as you say there’s more genuine community in low income areas than there is in suburbia.
Obvs I don’t know where you live and you would know much better than me what the risks are and what you’re comfortable with. Not encouraging you to step outside your comfort zone.
And it feels kinda facile to say ‘No war but the class war!’ But it’s also true that the wealthy want us to be scared of each other. They don’t want us to build community. And that’s one really good way of fighting back - just solidarity and acceptance with other people who might be different from us in one way or another.
Sorry mate, it’s evening here and I just wrote a slightly drunken rant. But after all the shit I’ve seen, I feel like most people are generally pretty decent. And we gotta look out for each other.
More likely the Americans who travel abroad at all are just a different type of person. As far as I know there are plenty of Americans who will never even leave their home state, some barely leave their own town. Those are the people who have never seen a Muslim and still think they are all terrorists. Those are the people who think entire cities are constantly on fire due to evil leftists. The people who travel abroad are rarely like that, because they know better.
In other words, we meet the sane ones when they’re visiting our countries.
Do you really think at this point it’s racism? It’s not. Racism, trans, gays, blah blah blah exuse… They care about money. They would murder any person any time for money
The current federal administration has literally implemented objectively racist policies
I agree
Must depend on where you are. I hear it constantly in the South and Midwest. They’re shocked and horrified when they learn about our coworkers who take the local light rail for their daily commute.
I’d kill for a local light rail. I’m so sick of driving.
I’d kill for a local light rail.
Look at the dangerous people who take trains. This is why we need a 1.5 ton
safety blankettruck to keep us safe.
I’ve never heard the transportation it’s self is dangerous but the people you will be forced into sharing a small inescapable space could be. Equating car accidents to being assaulted is comparing apples to oranges. No one is going to assault you or sexually assault you in your car, do drugs in your car without your consent, make your car smell horrible, piss in your car, etc. for your average driver, all those things are completely possible and more on public transit.
In my experience people tend to operate in their own bubble when they are driving. Most people are fine and still have enough empathy to not be assholes, but some kinda treat it like they are the main character and will endanger everyone else with their vehicle. I don’t see this as being any different than being in close personal contact with other humans. If anything, being in your own person bubble of a car can remove you from the shared environment and make people more willing to be reckless and dangerous.
Agreed. Nobody thinks public transit is dangerous. If anything I would say upper class people like to say it’s for the poors. Generally everyone in my life has been jealous of other countries with better public transit.
I think when it’s thoroughly planned out it’s amazing. The problem is budgeting and stipulations on how long thy have to spend the money; If they had more time to figure out how to make rails better and redo infrastructure in a way whet wit can make a little more sense people wouldn’t complain as much. Blowing out lanes and making sidewalks bigger to scrunch in lanes and making it one car lane and one bike/bus lane that’s not a good infrastructure option.
I’m for public transportation but there has to be coherent planning not just fuck all we have money let’s do this one part while we can and hope it works out.
I fully believe driving is safer (less likely for anything to go wrong) but more likely to get me killed.
I love driving and I know you’re wrong.
Safe depending on how the bus driver feels that day. Safe depending on how that Uber driver feels that day.
Also some Uber drivers have this fucked up mindset like cab drivers used to have, that because they’re doing a job they have some kind of priority over traffic and sometimes try to cut traffic or speed.
Busses I swear your safety with how the driver may be is dependent on how their mood is and you know what no one thinks of, is your safety isn’t guaranteed with other passengers. There’s always, ALWAYS!!! One ride a week that will have some crazy ass fucker in it.
The train is more like, I hope the weather doesn’t derail this and how the fuck is the weight limit not exceeded.
When in reality the only vehicles that genuinely have any priority in any traffic setting are the Ambulances/EMS Vehicles, Police/Law Enforcement Vehicles and Fire Trucks.
Other than that it’s not so bad, I don’t mind it.
As a European, I absolutely love public transit. But I’m not gonna lie, I’d never even approach an American subway station. That shit looks, and to some degree functions, like medieval dungeons.
That shit looks, and to some degree functions, like medieval dungeons.
As criticism, this one kind of confuses me. I’ve taken public transit in the UK, Oslo in Norway and Istanbul in Turkey, and major transit hubs seem pretty similar in terms of design. Getting to the train platform from the airport to Oslo proper feels like taking the endless series of escalators to reach the Long Island Rail Road in Grand Central. The metro stations near where I was staying in Istanbul wouldn’t have looked terribly out of place in the Bronx or Brooklyn.
The major difference was that the stations and vehicles outside of the US were kept much cleaner, and people actually showed consideration for one another while using it. People would queue up in a more orderly fashion, let others disembark before trying to rush in, and there wasn’t anybody (aside from one kid in Oslo on the last tram for the night one day) blasting music or TikTok videos on their phones. Even on the occasions where I encountered homeless people in those systems, it was night and day between what you deal with in the US and what you see over there. That, and the systems were way more developed than what we have in the US. I don’t just mean in terms of destinations or the sheer reach of the transit systems, but that you’ll have cities with metros, trams, buses, light rail and inter-city high speed rail options all within (mostly, aside from the weirdness of the UK) a single system, giving you tons of options to get around.
In short, I’d be less worried about the apparently sinister design of the stations in an American subway system, and more concerned that you have to share that system with Americans.
It’s very different if you’re looking at NYC or high volume subway on East Coast v a smaller bus or subway station not in top tier city. The busiest subways trend to be nicer than small ones.
The MBTA (Boston and Greater Boston Transit) = polish a turd, it’s still a turd.
I would be happy to take the subway in Boston any day. It beats driving.
Depends on where you’re going. If you had to get to Atrius in Somerville from Melrose you’re better off driving. Otherwise you’re taking the bus to the orange line to take the red line. When if you drove or even used an ebike you’re better off because of how much mroe of a straight shot there it is.
I know, leave earlier but you can’t pay me to think that an hour and a half bus and train commute to what could be a 16 min drive or a 23min ebike ride is more convenient, easy and worth any of the shit that comes with it.
i love my city-provided chauffeurs (bus drivers). they are more strict than any school bus driver i ever had 🤷 only time i’ve felt unsafe was when tanner the angry methhead got on, but cops were already babysitting him & he was redirected pretty quickly. cop & bus driver knew him by name so now i do too.
Tanner being babysat by police and bus drivers and a problem of public transportation. They’re a problem of intentionally weakend social services. Tanner should be given access to the health and social services he needs to get better.
I’d rather Tanner the angry meth head was on a bus than behind the wheel.
Totally agree but i dont want to be on the same bus as him… My last trip to the states I spent a few days in Chicago. The place I was staying was just outside the city but we chose it partly because it was very near to the rail station for easy trips into the city. The very first train trip we took had someone huddled in end of carriage with their jacket over them smoking meth. They coukd barely get off the train at the end of the line. The last bus trip I took in my home town, there was a fight when a group of drunk 13 year old girls didn’t like the way someone looked at them. Appalling language and behaviour followed and bus driver didn’t do anything about it.
Im totally for public transport the problem is people are shit and i generally dont want to be around a good chunk of them.
The “danger” comes from the same video of the same crackhead having a public meltdown, so now people believe there’s hundreds of crackheads on each public transport vehicle.
Statistical analyses indicate that motorists face roughly 500 times more crime than transit passengers when accounting for exposure (trips, miles, or hours). While the types of crime differ—transit riders are more susceptible to theft of personal items like wallets or phones, whereas drivers face higher risks of vehicle theft, vandalism, and road rage incidents—the overall risk of victimization is far lower on public transportation.
I wondered if the type of crime, in-person vs not, explains the perception.
I also wonder if there is a perceived danger when being around unknown people in an urban setting. People from the suburbs and rural areas may not be used to being around so many people.
I’d still rather someone flip me off from their car than have some guy grope me on the bus
Another part of this is the disruptive people are more visible on public transport. On a bus you can see two people arguing loudly and feel unsafe from it, whereas on the road those same two people could be arguing just as much and you’d never notice it in your bubble.
The people arguing in the car are more dangerous though because:
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One of them may be driving while operating a vehicle is not the biggest thing on their mind.
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You can’t see that they may be dangerous and move away from them because you don’t know what’s happening
It’s not only people arguing, assholes who drive dangerously aren’t too likely to kill you if you took the train for your commute, but in a car you’re always a few deciseconds away from death.
this is a great point, well articulated
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