Our policies regarding how our streets are used consistently frame avoiding being killed by (the driver of a) motor vehicle as an individual responsibility, not a collective one. 2/
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Moreover, these policies consistently privilege the interests and convenience of people in motor vehicles (i.e. people who are actively creating a risk of harm to others) over people who are not. 3/
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If you are going to take children in your own vehicle, you are responsible for following a long list of regulations designed to reduce their risk of dying in an MVC. 4/
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They have to wear seatbelts, and depending on age and size they have to sit in the back on booster seats. All new vehicles have airbags. 5/
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By contrast, we are almost completely indifferent to the risk that same vehicle imposes on people around it. 6/
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You can have tinted windows and a bull bar, and you can jack your tank-sized people mover up so high that you can't even see if a child is walking in front of it. Society shrugs at this. 7/
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And if you have children who aren't in a motor vehicle, the responsibility for avoiding their violent death at the hands of others is placed entirely on you (and your children.) 8/
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Child road traffic deaths are only as rare as they are because of the extreme lengths to which we have gone as a society to restrict our children's movement in order to protect them from
#carownervirus. 9/Show this thread -
Look both ways before you cross the street. Actually, don't cross that street at all. 10/
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In light of this hundred-year history of victim-blaming transportation policy, it's completely unsurprising that we've framed covid vaccination as an individual intervention intended to reduce individual risk. 11/
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And that we consistently prioritize the selfish desire of a minority to forego vaccination over the societal interest in preventing disease and death (and, possibly, further lockdowns.) 12/
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(Many of the same points could be made about climate change, by the way.) 13/
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Anyway, "your child is more likely to die from being hit by a car than of covid-19" isn't the mic drop that certain columnists think it is. And we need to stop reframing collective action problems as individual risk problems. 14/14
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postscript: the definitive account of how automobiles took over North American streets (which had previously been shared spaces), despite widespread opposition, is "Fighting Traffic" by Peter Norton. Lots of lessons for our time. 15/14https://twitter.com/n_j_klein/status/1421113519563489283?s=19 …
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postscript: I'm a pretty loyal
@OntarioNDP supporter, but this policy is not just wrong; it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of the issue. Do better,@AndreaHorwath. https://twitter.com/PnPCBC/status/1423056836853436425?s=19 … 16/141:59Show this thread -
postscript:
@sarahshulist separately made a very similar (but much more concise) argument in a single tweet, minus the rant against motorism. https://twitter.com/sarahshulist/status/1423272424611749888?s=19 … 17/14Show this thread
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