Since the US seems to be trying to emulate Russia these days, I figured now might be a good time for a reminder about how Russians deal with douchebag drivers
I love it! Can someone translate the stickers?
I got to say though watching some of these interactions with total strangers makes me tense. Especially when the drivers act all tough behind the wheel. Some basically wanting to end your life so they themselves can gain a few extra seconds in their lives.
More info: https://www.boredpanda.com/car-stickers-for-bad-drivers-russia-stopxam-stop-a-douchebag/
And yeah, drivers get really fucking unhinged when you challenge their sense of entitlement. I've been deliberately rammed by drivers more than once while trying to keep them out of a bike lane. (The incidents forced the city to install plastic barriers to keep out the cars, so I won. The lesson is that this sort of direct action is a very effective tactic.)
We've known that driving makes people fucking crazy since at least 1960, BTW:
Very satisfying. I put cards on cars parked by douche bags that say ‘The way you pulled in makes me wish your dad pulled out’. Sticker is even better.
This one has a satisfying body slam of douche bag driver after he assaults them https://youtu.be/ibl6SHbq8sY
I watched like 6 videos before a driver pulled a gun. They still didn’t back down and he got ticketed by the police.
I used to watch this back in the day but there were persistent rumours that it was state propaganda of some kind. I don't see how exactly it is meant to work but it's credible that Russia was active on YouTube and social media at the time. Anyone know?
The organizer of these raids is Nashi (means something like Our Own Kind in Russian, not in a racist way, but like our own close-minded people) which was basically a youth wing of the United Russia party. They don't do anything without the purpose of state propaganda.
And also, if you watch them all, you can see that in a number of these videos, the activists are definitely pushing too hard and being assholes themselves when the driver was not really even pushing back and could just move their car easily, just to get rage views.
Why would this be state propaganda? How would the Russian plutocracy benefit from this?
The politics in these videos is very interesting and regional shit I don't really understand comes up a lot. There's a lot of "things are better now, the cops are no longer corrupt", there's a bunch of messaging I can see but not really contextualize.
Channelling discontent in some way, with a bit of classic divide & conquer
legend. You can see their car brain evaporate when they try to remove the sticker, it's like falling from the Olympus back into being a mere mortal pedestrian, haha, fucking KAPEHs
Great work they're doing, although I gotta say this looks like a prime spot for a bollard (even a guerilla one if the government isn't helping) or even just some paint. I think someone could sincerely confuse that for a road.
Second Amendment ☠️
I too agree that pedestrians should have the right to keep and bear arms against motorists. Especially those that intentionally use their vehicles as weapons with the intention to kill.
Though I do think stickers used to bring shame and self reflection are very well deserving in this content.
Absolutely not.
What you're describing is a wild west anarchy where people just murder each other because of super minor disagreements.
To solve the issues, governments need to build good and correct cycle infrastructure. See the Netherlands as an example, I can't even remember ever having an incident where a motorist purposefully hit a cyclist because of a shared road issue.
If is rather obvious what if you mix cars with cyclists that it's going to cause issues. To play the devil's advocate for a second; if you're in a car and you're supposed to be able to drive fast but you're stuck behind a guy on a bicycle, that is annoying. But the point is that the cyclist shouldn't be on the road with cars in the first place.
Adding weapons to that mixture is not going to help, it's going to escalate small issues to deadly incidents for no good reason. Sorry, guns don't solve problems, they escalate problems. I want to live in a place where I can happily ride my bike safely, not where I need to ride around with my hand on a gun.
Fix the infrastructure instead.
Yes, that's true: a pedestrian who is deliberately rammed by an unhinged driver on the sidewalk would be justified in shooting the driver in self-defense.
You just know that's not how a court or jury would see it though. Unless the driver is literally chasing you, injuries or deaths by means of car are always considered accidents. As if the driver wasn't in control (which of course they often aren't, but it's very silly that's used as an excuse to remove culpability).