Why Is America Such a Deadly Place?

What you just described so elonquently is life as we now know it. This forum is a microcosm of what life is like around just about any metropolitan area. If you see something you want, you take it. If you see someone you don't like, you punch them, if someone says something you disagree with, you silence them.

My suggestion to you is to stay here, and use this forum for what it is: entertainment. It sounds like you have found happinenss, peace and contentment in your life..that is all that matters...not what Gatorchump007 thinks of your post. F#@* Gatorchump007*

*Gatorchump007 is a fictional name I just made up, I hope. LOL

 

I think it might be more natural to have fear of places we don’t frequent often, especially if those places are far away. Typically we only hear of other cities in the news if something bad happened there, and the farther the distance we are from there the more compressed the area of that locale is in our perceptions.

I’ve had European friends talk to me as if I was taking my life into my own hands every time I went to the grocery store, because of all the murders in the US. I would tell them I was much more likely to die from a heart attack than to be shot dead on the street.

Come to think of it, I’ve never had a heart attack, but I have been shot at twice and hit once. Maybe I need to revise my outlook.

I just finished a fascinating book about the Northern Ireland troubles recommended by @tampagtr. Listening to that book I realized that I was going to school in England at the same time the IRA decided to move their bombing campaign to London. London was a big place, and I had no fear traveling around there even with the IRA lurking about.

 

Hope you liked it.

 

Very much, although some parts did infuriate me with the treatment both the British and the IRA did on citizens.

Some of the story I knew from documentaries like I, Dolours, but the book fleshed out so much more than I knew.

 

We were in Amsterdam recently and I could easily adapt to their biking mentality. (Not a big fan of their weather tho). I don't bike as much as I used to and have never lived close enough to bike to work.
I'm also lacking the death wish. Most places don't have bike lanes and there is a definite anti biker attitude from many.

 

I think it's possible to hold two opinions at the same time re: health & safety: 1) We can do better as a country in this regard and should continue to pursue solutions to what ails us and 2) we don't live in a Cormac McCarthy version of the West. Despite our issues, I'm grateful to live in the US and have access to quality healthcare and a reasonably safe environment.

I'm not saying the OP and article don't provide some interesting information, but I've come to realize that we all experience a daily bombardment of sources that love to manufacture fear and outrage in the populace. My suggestion is glean facts, learn, hopefully be better (as a person/citizen), and appropriately put it in it's place. I'm not suggesting putting your head in the sand, but I'm saying to take a step back and really assess what's actually unfairly harming you or yours and what really isn't. IMO so much of the issues of what the right AND left are so consumed by don't really affect their lives. But your sooo mad! Why? Take stock, count your blessings, and try to be better.

 

Wait wha...You've been shot at 2x and hit 1x? You can't just leave that out there!

You eloquently captured what I was trying to get at. Explains key reasons why we humans aren't all that great (read: often bad...really really bad...terrible) at determining personal risk. Speaking of murders, exactly that. Most people are at extremely low risk of being murdered. Probability almost indistinguishable from zero, generally, but it varies slightly depending on various characteristics of the individual and place.

Then there is a subset of the population who share a combination of characteristics that put them at much higher risk, Top of that list are young males under aged 30 from poor communities who are in gangs or involved in street crime and violence already. And they're being killed by others w/those same characteristics.

Post the book title or pm please? I'd like to read it (or actually listen to it)

 

Need to get to Amsterdam.

The Dutch are leading the world in cycling infrastructure, methinks. So much so, they have had some issues with bicycle storage, e.g. at Amsterdam station. They recently built some damn cool underground bike garages.

I had stopped biking for about 8 years (due to getting really fat). Have since gotten back into in a big way, but yeah, i I hear you. I have a conscious fear about getting hit. It's a risk I'm willing to take. We don't have great bike lanes where I'm at. Nothing separated by any barrier, mainly gutters with painted bike lane signs. Can be a little harrowing at times but I try to stay off main roads when I can and I use a radar to know if cars are coming up behind me.

Oh and yes the anti-biker attitude is alive & kicking. Thankfully I've never had someone roll-coal on me but there has been no shortage of cars speeding up while they go by me, violating CA's 3 foot distance drivers are required to give. Have had some where drivers who yelled things or honked at me for no reason. I know my experiences are not uncommon. Often a discussion among folks that I ride with.

 

Our family buys all organic and farm-raised beef.
We've done that for the last several years..
We try to eat as clean as possible

 

The book about The Troubles is Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. Besides details and insights into the IRA and the British forces in Northern Ireland, the book also deals with one issue that might be of particular interest to you. The book raises the question of what kind of confidentiality can be kept legally when someone reveals information to a researcher. What part does academic freedom play in this? I won’t give away the resolution.

Regarding getting shot, the first time was my first year at UF. I went deer hunting along the Suwanee River, and my dorm roommate came along. Late morning we were walking through the woods along the edge of the river. All of a sudden 4-5 shots rang out maybe 30-40 yards from us. We both dove to the ground as the brush around us became shredded by buckshot.

We then heard the sound of a motorboat taking off down the river. We ran to the spot where the shots come from and saw the tail-end of the boat as it disappeared around the bend.

The place where the boat left was a clearing in the woods and there were chicken feathers all around. I figured the people had set illegal traps using live chickens as bait. They were probably just trying to scare us off to give them time to escape, but the pellets came disconcertingly close.

The second time was duckhunting in California. My brother and I were standing in the water at the edge of a very small lake with our backs up against the trees. The sun was setting directly behind us.

Across the lake from us a hunter came walking down to the shore and flushed a duck. The duck flew directly at us. Because we were in the shadows, the hunter didn’t see us, and raised his gun and fired at the duck before we could say anything.

We could see the pellets starting to hit the water as some dropped out of the air heading towards us. We both turned sideways toward the pellets and covered our heads just as we got peppered by the shot. Fortunately, the shot was most likely #4 and our jackets provided adequate protection.

 

I am one of such people.
Why is it that bikers think they should ride on the road? There is a bike trail that leads for many miles going through Winter Garden. (Near Orlando)
But bikers are using roads in the areas where I live. These people are stupid or crazy. I am shocked at the poor decision making.
It appears to be a death wish. It infuriates me.

 

Food isn’t killing us. But the lack of it is killing some.

 

It’s horrible driving from Horizon West into downtown Winter Garden. I don’t mind the bikes, per se, but the vast majority ignore traffic laws. They just blow through stop signs, pass you on the right side inches from your car at traffic lights, then ride down a 45mph road at 20 mph in groups of 10 or more. Every month we have a biker get smacked by a car or run into a stopped car in my neighborhood because the biker rides his bike on a sidewalk/bike trail and enters a cross walk without slowing down…despite a giant “stop” painted on the bike trail.

 

Interesting, car crash fatalities were up during lockdowns in 2020 when the roads were supposed to be empty.

 

Its amazing, zooming around on a bike is so easy and safe, its unlike anything in the US really. You are in more danger from other bikers than cars haha. Its insanely walkable too, that place isn't built for cars.

 

Mainly because roads are not only for drivers and most cities don't have a network of bike trails that can keep people off roads or that allow them to get to their destinations without using roads. And in the US, many if not most bike trails that go through cities use the edges of the road in large parts or for the entirety of the "trail" with many off road trails more for very casual riders on short rides. Not only that, a lot of bike as their main form of transport in cities.

I'll ask for fellow cyclists in Winter Garden, please don't be hostile to them whatever your frustrations. Keep in mind that humans on bikes are no match for 2k+ lbs cars.

 

Yea, it’s awful. There were thousands of bikes thrown into their waterways. Amsterdam was interesting but not better than the US.
I mean pick a damn language already.

 

You’re not getting it. These bikers have a choice. They are choosing for leisure only, to bike on dangerous roads over the huge bike trail. This bike trail is nearby, not parallel to the roads I’m speaking of.
It’s 45-55 mph on these roads and they are hilly and serpentine.
I curse them out almost daily.

 

What language other than Dutch do they have? Are you thinking of Belgium?