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female-malice · 8 months ago

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Women's freedom of movement and freedom to cycle have been at the heart of feminism for 130 years

And men know this. And that is why they harass female cyclists. They want to intimidate us and keep us from claiming our freedom through cycling.

The most recent counts by the City of Portland estimate that only three out of every 10 bicycle riders are women and the gender split hasn’t budged since counting started in 2006. In east Portland, the City tabulated just 17% of all bike riders as women. As we ponder the reasons for this disparity, a survey has revealed one factor that’s causing it: the high rate of demeaning interactions and aggressive behaviors some women experience while riding.

A survey conducted in February by nonprofit BikeLoud PDX asked women to describe the worst or most common incident of abuse they’ve experienced while cycling. A shocking 311 out of the 329 women who answered that question reported some level of traumatic incident. The woman who led the survey project, Cathy Tuttle, analyzed the results and found that 229 respondents experienced a Level 3 Trauma (swearing, honking, catcalling, rolling coal, etc), 53 experienced a Level 2 Trauma (deliberate close pass, tailgating, menacing, etc), and 29 experienced a Level 1 Trauma (hit and run, throwing projectiles, aggressive stalking, etc) — the most severe category of abuse.

The vast majority of these aggressive behaviors came from people driving cars. Respondents said 88% of the aggressors were in cars, 7% were identified as homeless people and 5% were other bike riders.

In a summary of the survey results made public Monday, Tuttle shared several examples of the responses. I’ve pasted a few of them below:

A man screaming “get the f*ck off the road” repeatedly while I was cycling on a low traffic route downtown, revving their engine constantly and pulling up too close behind me. I finally got off the road, shaking and crying and called 911. The dispatcher told me there was “nothing we can do, it’s not illegal.” She didn’t want me to report the behavior, even though I had the license plate.

I had a driver stop to tell me that I needed a rear bike light so they could see me. I didn’t respond so the continued to verbally harass me. When the light changed they followed me and kept trying to yell at me. Eventually I came to park and biked into it so they couldn’t follow me. I was scared to bike for a while after that.

A woman yelling out her (passenger) side window “hit the bitch” after I pointed to the stop sign that they were rolling through when I had right of way.

Tuttle also included a longer response from someone who took the survey that is worth reading (edited slightly for brevity):

After he physically threatened me with his car, and after honking, I was told by a man, “I’m going to kill you the next time I see you” while I was biking — legally — on a typically busy (but not at all busy right then) 3 or 4-lane one-way road that has no cycling-specific infrastructure and doesn’t see much bike traffic, but which was at the time a crucial connector that I needed to be on to get across a freeway without going extremely far out of my way…

He didn’t yell it. He said it slowly, deliberately. I’ll never forget it. It wasn’t inflamed reactive rage; it was a slow, methodical, simmering threat. He looked right at me. I can still hear it many years later: I’m going to kill you. I’ve had men in SUVs and trucks deliberately swerve into me, almost, but not quite, hitting me more times than I can count. This is a cross-Oregon problem, in urban, suburban, ex-urban, and rural areas, all of which I’ve biked in extensively. I’ve been called a dumb c—, a stupid b—-, and other misogynist slurs, again, more times than I can count. I’ve also been treated to yelling misogyny from male street joggers, who run in the street against traffic all the way to the side of the road, right where cyclists typically are… This is weirdly common in Portland, and they are often very rhetorically and even physically aggressive. I’ve also been in collisions with street joggers, and their dogs, and I, the cyclist, have always been the more injured person, so it’s a real problem actually. I’ve encountered groups of 3 men jogging with 2 or 3 huge dogs who are taking up literally the entire street and are very aggressive when confronted with a cyclist — me, one woman — trying to get to work. Once I was biking to work in Portland with a male cyclist who was behind me, and a truck deliberately swerved into me at a high rate of speed to threaten me or worse, and the man who was biking behind me chased the driver down and yelled at him because he saw it all happen in a way I did not have the vantage to and he was pissed. The truck driver was likely annoyed by my male companion, who he encountered first, but didn’t do anything. Then when he encountered me, he became enraged and deliberately tried to intimidate me by swerving into me. If anything had “gone wrong,” I’d probably be dead now, due to the speed of the driver. Still have a pretty visceral reaction to light blue Leer-brand pick-up truck toppers to this day because of this decades-ago incident. None of these described incidents are rare, aberrant, unusual, or even, really, worthy of note anymore, but they’re the specific ones that come immediately to mind with no thought at all, but that are representative of a whole problem. They happen ALL THE TIME, for seemingly no reason often. The misogyny comes out almost immediately, reflexively. I feel that if a female cyclist doesn’t preemptively display deference to motorists — of any sex, but especially male — they will be targeted, and if we’re assertive, then all the more so. But cyclists need to be assertive to be safe. Male cyclists too often seem like they’re not our allies (aside form the aforementioned male cyclist — this was actually a rare instance in my experience). The dismissive ‘male glance’ is real, on the bike as in all of life. I can distinctly recall men realizing another cyclist (me, almost 50) is behind them, at a red light or whatever, and looking back, only to discover a woman who is older than he is, on a not-interesting-to-him bike, with no interesting blingy gear on it, and have him turn away, barely able to acknowledge I was there at all. What was he expecting to see? A sexualizable object young enough to be worthy of his attention? Men are far more sexist than they can admit. As many jobs become more gender-integrated, men find new ways to assert their male supremacy. There seems to me to be a distinct strain of “biking everywhere with no infrastructure makes me a man” in the Portland bike ecosystem and it’s detrimental to a lot of folks, not just adult women. We live in a deeply sexist society and misogynist backlash to feminist gains is observantly real across both dominant culture and most if not all subcultures. Women already experience this whether they have the interpretive lens to see it or not. Many women I know just don’t want to be extra-burdened by the physical and emotional danger of biking routinely for transportation, because they’re already burdened enough in a way men just aren’t.

The responses to this survey give us all a lot to think about and should add urgency to create a better cycling environment in Portland.

Tuttle based her survey on one conducted by the Women’s Freedom campaign in London. She said after hearing similar responses to their survey, bike advocates in London built an entire campaign around it with rides, petitions, letters to city council, etc.

What should Portland do to address this problem?

— Read the survey summary here.

#cc

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twaaaaaa · 5 years ago

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Race report: Ironman 70.3 Augusta

This is the first race report I've written for a U.S.-based race since college. And like a true American, I'm going to do it using bullet points. (Get it? Because we have an uncontrollable gun violence problem here?)

Also, I apologize for the lack of pictures here. Tumblr doesn’t play nice with photos in the middle of text, and figuring out the HTML for it is too close to my real job to be enjoyable.

PART 1: THE LEAD-UP

This was the first race I've done in more than two-and-a-half years. I took a hiatus because of burnout and an international move, spent 2018 building up a base and really started training again this year.

Going into it, I felt I was adequately trained on the bike. I hadn't done enough long runs, but that was balanced out by the amazing speedwork I've put in. Shoutout to Gerald and the Tuesday morning track crew.

My swim is also at the best it's ever been, though that's not saying much.

The race was in Augusta, Georgia. I have a bit of a shameful history with it – I registered for it in college in 2011. And then midterms happened, so I couldn't make it. To date it's my only DNS. Consider this time grade forgiveness.

I flew out with a bunch of teammates from Triple Threat. It's such a delight to race with a supportive team like this. Many of them were doing their first half-Ironman. They're so cute when they're new.

I got into the rental car with my teammate, Ann, and it took five minutes before I hit the first complication for the weekend. As soon as the speedometer hit 65 mph, WHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAP. Something on the front of the car was rattling. So we turned around and swapped it for a free upgrade to an SUV. Later, my coach would complain the same rental company was out of cars, and I'm partially to blame. Sorry, coach.

Most people paid $350 a night or so to stay at the host hotel. Screw that – do you know how much ice cream $350 can buy? The value inn a half-mile away had a soft bed, a warm shower and a stale continental breakfast. That's more how I roll.

Turns out the cheap hotel was ideally situated – two blocks away from the starting line, damn close to the transition check-in and right at the edge of the downtown area. No regrets.

Augusta is … not the most august location. It has a stench to it. From the river, I learned – the same river we were to start the day swimming in. Greeeeeat.

But at least it wasn't Waco.

We crowded into the Mellow Mushroom for dinner to give the newbies last-minute advice and reassurance. My advice in summary: it was going to be freaking hot, relax on the down-river swim and do a cannonball when you jump off the dock to start.

I found a Publix the day before the race! You have to understand what this means to a Floridian trapped in Texas. Texan friends, it's like finding a Whataburger and a Buc-ees next to each other in the middle of nowhere. Canadian friends, same but for Tim Horton's. UAE friends, imagine if a small town was entirely made out of malls. It just felt right.

I got my chicken tender PubSub and my guava pastries for maximum homeopathy to Florida Man. You could hear Jimmy Buffet playing in the background. Pitbull yodeled. The alligators lurking in the Savannah lifted their heads in praise. God shrugged and turned a blind eye. It was glorious.

At some point I bought a badass helmet with a visor that made me look like Judge Dredd. It was good for 15 minutes of confidence before Devon, who tests these things in a wind tunnel shamed me for it.

The morning of, we trudged down to transition for final prep and then made out way 1.2 miles upstream for the start. Three school buses were working as shuttles, but the line for them stretched almost as long as we'd have to walk.

Here's the nice thing about having a hotel next to the race start: instead of standing in line for the portable toilets before the start, you get to bask in the air conditioning and proper ventilation of your hotel room. Makes quite the difference.

This was my first time racing long-distance in a two-piece kit. I didn't realize you need to apply sunscreen to the small of your back, where the top rides up on the bike. This would later result in a sunburn tramp stamp.

PART 2: THE SWIM

The pros started off at 7:30 a.m., and us age groupers had to wait until 7:50 to start. Except it was a rolling start, with two people going off every three seconds. It took 90 minutes to get everyone in, as the sun rose ever higher.

I made friends with a guy in my age group while waiting in line (thanks to a fast seed time, we only ended up standing around for 35 minutes). His name was Houston, he told me, and he had roots around Delaware, Ohio. Sounded to me like he couldn't decide on a state. I declared I lived in Dallas and that made us rivals.

Oh buddy, you better believe I did a cannonball.

Augusta is a down-river swim. It ranges from easy to easiest, depending on the current. There are videos of them floating a coke bottle or bag of chips down the river and making the cutoff time. This year the current wasn't too swift, but a personal record was still a foregone conclusion.

I became best friends with some river weeds. Best friends hug each other and stick together, right?

I did not have to punch or shove anyone out of the way, thankfully. Guess all the breast strokers started behind me.

I popped out of the water in 33:49. That's a PR for me, but only enough to hit 67/135 in my age group. I aim for top 50% in the swim, so that was just baaaaarely acceptable.

3:55 T1, because I took some time to towel the grass off my feet before donning socks. This was not the most luxurious transition location.

PART 3: THE BIKE

My choice of a disc wheel and 50mm front was a good decision for the day. It wasn't too windy and the road conditions, while not amazing, were not enough to give me trouble. The 56-mile course starts off flat for 17 miles or so, then has a few hills, then goes back to mostly flat for the last 15.

Ten miles in or so I see a yellow jersey up ahead. Is that … yup, it's Houston. I ding my bell and whoop as I pass him.

Five miles later, I get passed by a dude in a yellow jersey. He waves back at me and compliments my helmet (yessss). We would continue to pass each other every few miles for the remainder of the ride. “Tag, you're it.”

Aid stations on the bike are chaotic. I've found the best way to let the volunteers know what you need is to roar it. It may scare the bejesus out of a middle schooler when some dude rides by on a spaceship-looking bike, points at her and screams “BANANA! BANANA!”, but that's part of the fun. Whatever gets me my potassium.

Nutrition-wise, I nailed it. The usual strategy of super-concentrating my electrolytes in one bottle and picking up water at each aid station worked perfectly. I head enough caffeinated gels to keep my energy going, and while I came close to cramping near the end of the run I never did.

I keep a bell on my aerobars, mostly because I don't want to waste the breath to yell “on your left” each time I pass someone. Because I'm a slow swimmer but a fast cyclist, and I pass a LOT of people.

You know what the bell is also useful for? Cheering a teammate on the other side of the road while your mouth is full of banana. You go, Jeff.

Years ago, star USF time trialist and all-around hammerhead borrowed my disc wheel and put an 11-23 cassette on it. I've never taken it off. You know what that cassette is good for? Flat land. You know what awaited me in the middle of the course? Not flat land.

In races, they say you only have so many “matches” to burn before your legs tire out on you. Most people burn their matches pushing up a steep hill or going fast near the end of the run. Me? I burn them to see if I can hit 40 mph going downhill. While screaming at the top of my lungs. I may not have the best time, but I'll be damned if I'm not having the most fun.

(Garmin reports my max speed was 40.1 mph. Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh.)

I RODE PAST A DUDE WITH A GOAT ON A LEASH.

Despite the hills, I managed to keep a steady heart rate for most of the bike course. Don't know about my power output because my P1 pedals have refused to play nicely for a while. I can finally send them in now that it's the offseason.

I'm happy to say I passed Houston a mile before the end of the bike. But I stopped for the bathroom in transition, so he still beat me to the run.

If there's no volunteer to jump out of the way of your flawless flying dismount, did it even happen? Conversely, if there's nobody around when you jump onto gravel in your socks, did you even scream?

Total bike time was 2:56:25, with a more than 19 mph average page. 57/135 for my age group – that's behind the upper-third that I aim for. I still have a ways to go to regain my bike strength.

PART 4: THE RUN. ALLEGEDLY.

By the time we got to the run, the sun was high in the sky and the ambient temperature was 95. With the humidity, it felt close to 99. A course record by a generous margin. Crap.

I caught Houston within the first mile, and for a while there were four of us 25-29 men within 15 seconds of each other. Every peer I passed got a fist-bump.

We had a nice chat for the next few miles as we admired the beautiful downtown course. It's a zig-zag through the street, with spectators lining the sidewalks. Many of them had water guns, hoses or sprinklers, and I love everyone who cooled us for a few precious seconds.

The very best, though, was the homeowner with a giant inflatable unicorn spouting water from its horn.

I was holding a steady heart rate and pace for the first four miles, but the heat got to me as it got to everyone. Houston dropped me at an aid station and went on to beat me by 20 minutes.

From then it was all about heat management. How much could I push myself before overheating and being forced to slow down? How much cold water could I take in? Was I balancing the right amount of liquid and electrolytes?

I began walking in the shade of every building and running to get to the next patch of shade faster. It served me decently for the rest of the race.

I came up on a cute girl around my age (they write it on your calf) and had fantasies of using a pickup line on her as I passed her. “Excuse me, can you remember this number for me? 727-555-1234.” Thank God I didn't, because a mile later she caught a second wind and dusted me. How humiliating would that have been?

After an hour or so I began to get some underarm chafing. I asked for a bit of sunscreen at an aid station and slapped it on. That hurt. Then the volunteer saw what I was doing: “You know we have Vaseline too, right?” Oh well, too late.

Speaking of which, the second-best sign on the course was “chafing the dream.”

The very best one, though, was a drawing of Marvel's Iron Man next to the words “MAKE STAN LEE PROUD.” At that point I was so worn down that I teared up a bit. And then I picked up my legs and ran for as long as my body would let me.

What stage of heat stroke is it when your body has no idea whether it's cold or hot anymore so it just tells you it's both? Because I had that starting around mile 8. Maintaining homeostasis is not one of my strong suits.

Three times I called out to the onlookers, “Hey man, can I pet your dog?” Three times I was denied. Augusta can burn in hell.

At some point around mile 10 (of 13) I did the math and realized I could still hit a sub-6-hour time if I pushed it. So began a frantic but calculated series of runs and walks.

Thank goodness I was in one of the run stages as I passed my coach and relay teammates on the sidelines. They got a decent picture of me – I'm only panting a little bit.

I made across the line with two minutes to spare. Then I grabbed a water and laid down under the pizza table with two other dudes. For 45 minutes. Good race.

Total run time was 2:20:39, and frankly I'm surprised it was that short. 53/135, which surprisingly was again better than my bike performance, comparatively. I blame my running coaches.

Total race time was 5:58:05. 53/135, which again isn't where I usually shoot for. But I knew I wouldn't hit the top third going into the race.

Total calorie burn for the day, according to Garmin: 5,200.

The overall goal of this race wasn't a time, but nor was it just a finish. It was to have my body do what I told it to – or at least what I could negotiate with it – without cramping, collapsing or bonking. And I did. I have my mojo back. The heat collapsed everyone's plan A, but I was able to pull off plan B without much of a struggle. I could not have done that a year ago.

Unfortunately, the deal with myself was that if I pulled this race off I'd sign up for another Ironman in fall 2020. So it's either Cozumel or Argentina for me next year. I'm going to try to enjoy my social life while I still can.

PART 5: THE AFTERMATH

I ran into Houston a bit past the pizza table and collapsed into the chair next to him. His mom and sister were there to cheer him in his first half-Iron race. He snuck the pizza and beer. Hooray for supportive families.

After collecting some teammates and nursing a pizza slice for an hour, I made my way to the rest of the team to yell at passers-by. And someone finally let me pet her dog. She was from Dallas – go figure.

The walk from my hotel to downtown takes ten minutes. The post-race walk from downtown to my hotel takes 30. The difference is staggering.

I came back to my second batch of car trouble: someone had backed my rental in the parking lot. No note or anything – just a bunch of scrapes and misaligned panels.

I talked to the hotel manager, who earned a great Booking.com review into pulling the security footage. We watched as a family three doors down from me backed their car straight into mine, got out, saw no witnesses and sped off. Thank God for my credit card's insurance coverage.

The geniuses were staying through the end of the week – the hotel had their driver's license and video evidence of them leaving the scene of an accident. Easiest police report the cop had ever filed.

As I was packing up the next morning, and after the policeman had talked to her, the woman approached me apologizing. I shrugged and wished her best of luck against the insurance and rental car companies. If I have to deal with this load of paperwork, so does she.

In the day after the race, I polished off three meals' worth of leftovers – including two different pizzas. Between those, the finish-line pizza and the week of carb-loading, I never wanted to eat another slice in my life.

That resolve didn't even last three days.

I bonded with a fellow athlete seated behind me on the plane ride back. Turns out his carry-on was not a suitcase, but a reusable bag of fresh vegetables and a half-eaten box of Life cereal. The absolute legend.

I learned later that day that over the weekend my Abu Dhabi friend Leanne had taken fourth place in Ironman Cozumel that same weekend in her debut as a pro. But I didn’t pee myself on the bike, so who really came out ahead there?

So now I'm in the off season. It's nice to get eight hours of sleep most nights. I'll be tweaking my workout schedule to build a base over the fall and winter, and then it's back to training. I'm looking at one or two half-Irons and a full next year, plus whatever local sprints and olympics bubble up.

When I came back to the US two years ago, I left important parts of my identity behind. Bunches of friends, a journalism career, my expat status. And triathlons were placed on hold. This past season has made me feel more like myself again, and it's a comforting feeling after so much doubt and uncertainty. It's good to be in love with the sport again after a few years of burnout.

The hardest part of the next year will be persuading my mom not to disown me if I get an Ironman tattoo after next fall. Wish me luck.

#Race report #Ironman 70.3 #Augusta #Georgia #Triathlon

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destinywaits · 8 years ago

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Tagged by @jencforcarolina to do an eleven random facts meme, thank you!

I absolutely love fruits and vegetables oml never ask me what my favourite is or you’ll end up with a wall of text about how wonderful potatoes are

For our very first lab in honors chem, we had to burn steel wool with Bunsen burners. We fired it up and were then propping it sideways when one of my group members accidentally turned the gas on max and the flame got so big it almost reached the gas line

On a somewhat related note, on one of our last labs, I accidentally burnt a hole through one of the plastic aprons and somehow no one noticed until cleanup

One of my earliest memories is singing to Everybody by the Backstreet Boys in front of a mirror whilst trying to imitate my dad shaving

When I was around 4 or 5 I accidentally finished an entire bottle of children’s cough syrup. Luckily, I threw it all up so no hospitalization or long-term damage, I think

I’ve ridden a plane more than 15 times, and I don’t get why people hate on airplane food??

One time I was at a pool and there was this one kid that liked me and I heard that he was about to confess and I didn’t know how to deal with it so whenever he’d come close I just swam away to the deep end (we were 7 and he couldn’t swim as well as me)

I’ve almost gotten hit by: a garbage truck, an SUV, a grocery cart, another truck, and a motorcycle

Once, I was somehow hit by a speeding cyclist- I was walking on the sidewalk and his handlebar hit me in the chest and I fell backwards and he just kept biking away

I’ve gone swimming in a natural underground cave lake, under a waterfall, in a man-made lake, and in jellyfish-infested waters

I usually have really bad memory and an even worse attention span, but once in a blue moon I get into these periods where I’m actually focused and productive, which would be great but they almost always happen at 2 in the damn morning

Tagging @insaiyan7 @bronzegothluv @ask-tevis-nightstalker @tamawu @cantstopwontstopdestinytrash and @jirga-para-lhao but no need to do it if you don’t want to!

#wow almost half of this is me nearly dying #alex talks #p

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ali-bhutto-blog · 5 years ago

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Road rage in Karachi

Feature published in Newsline.

Kamil will never forget the afternoon of December 21, when he was exposed to a vast anger lurking beneath the surface of Karachi’s streets. It came in the form of a Daihatsu Cuore. Recklessly switching lanes, the vehicle nearly collided with his. Startled, Kamil rolled down his window and asked, “What are you doing?”

That was all it took.

“The Cuore driver got out, took his belt off, folded it in half and proceeded to belt my car with the buckle-end,” recalls Kamil, a middle-aged businessman. By then, both cars were at a red light and traffic was at a standstill.

A minute earlier, it had seemed like a good day in a city that appeared to redeem itself in the winter months. But within seconds, Karachi had swung from one polar extreme to the other. “If the Cuore driver had broken my windscreen, the belt would have gone around my neck,” says Kamil. “Had the doors not been locked and the windows rolled up, he would have strangled me to death.”

Nobody helped. Inches away, in an adjacent car, two girls laughed through the entire incident, which lasted until the light turned green. Having noted down the number plate of the Cuore, Kamil learnt from the Clifton Police Station that it was a Careem vehicle.

“The atmosphere has become very strange in this city,” he laments. “The aggression on the streets of Clifton and DHA has multiplied tenfold; it is probably worse in other areas.”

This is hardly surprising in a city that currently has 4.4 million registered vehicles on its streets, with a thousand new vehicles added each day for the last five years, according to updated figures provided by the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department of Sindh. In 2018, the number of vehicles on Karachi’s streets is expected to increase to 6.5 million. It is a grim prospect for a metropolis in which commuters lack lane discipline – largely because there are no lanes.

An unexamined phenomenon in Pakistan, road rage lies under the radar of the law and media, occupying a grey area.

According to Dr Unaiza Niaz, psychotherapist and director of the Psychiatric Unit and Stress Research Centre, heavy traffic, congestion, time constraints and obstructions in large cities create a high-stress environment. “Everybody is uptight and on an edge,” she says. “Road rage makes people think unreasonably and illogically. They get angry at everyone – including the police.”

Such a chain of thought becomes habitual and, according to Dr Niaz, is infectious. It essentially boils down to a battle of the egos: to not react aggressively is to be weak. If you give way, or patiently wait for your turn, you are viewed as naive.

Although Kamil happened to be behind the wheel on the day of his unfortunate encounter, he normally doesn’t drive, having used a chauffeur for several years – a privilege not afforded to everyone. Chauffeur-driven, he is less involved with the traffic or any untoward incident that may occur. “If someone picks a fight with my driver, then at least I can be the mediating force, and prevent the situation from escalating,” he says.

Yet escalate it almost always does.

“Road rage is only an expression of the aggression that resides within people,” says journalist Ghazi Salahuddin, whose ‘Karachi Diary’ column in the late 1970s and ’80s covered various facets of the metropolis, including its traffic problems. Dr Niaz too attributes it to “the inability to control one’s anxieties and frustrations in other aspects of life.”

Kamil has instructed his driver to maintain a safe distance from SUVs in particular, especially after the December 3 tragedy near Farhan Shaheed Park in Do Darya, where road rage led to the murder of 18-year-old Zafir Zuberi. It is a testament to how far anger drives people on Karachi’s trigger-happy streets.

Fahim Zuberi received a call from South City Hospital one Sunday morning, informing him that his son Zafir had been brought in with a gunshot wound. “He was soaked in blood,” Zuberi told Newsline. “He had been brought to the hospital dead.” Months after the incident, Zuberi is still in a state of disbelief. He can’t put it into feelings. “I feel like he has gone out with his friends and is about to return.”

Zafir had stepped out for breakfast with three friends, when their car accidentally hit a motorcycle. The bike was part of a convoy of four SUVs – regulars on the Do Darya drag racing and motorcycle stunt scene. “From an SUV in front of our car, Khawar Burney opened fire on us,” recalls Zaid, who was the first to be shot – in the shoulder. Burney was not aiming for the tires; his first two shots hit the bonnet. “As we passed Burney’s car, Zafir was shot,” says Zaid. The seats were soaked in blood. While Burney fled, his friends broke the car windows with the butt of a rifle, gave their prey a thrashing and stole their wallets, mobile phones and car keys.

“It is the parents’ responsibility,” says Zuberi, who feels that the streets of Do Darya in particular are dangerous as they are used for car races.

While the murder of an innocent youth grabbed national attention, its root cause – road rage – remains unaddressed and roams the streets freely. Day-to-day traffic incidents of lesser severity are brushed under the tarmac as part and parcel of life in Karachi. “When you feel that you are constantly being shortchanged on the street, your patience eventually runs out,” says Atif, who commutes daily from DHA to Sharah-e-Faisal and back – a jaw-grinding journey.

Vigos may have become a symbol of bad ettiquette on the road, but any vehicle can behave like a Vigo.

The 2.4 million motorcycles on Karachi’s streets make up just over half the total number of vehicles in the city. Moving in swarms like locusts, they are the merchants of road rage. At the same time, motorcyclists were victims in 60 per cent of all fatal traffic accidents in 2017.

Individuals who break traffic laws can engender widespread rage. Statistics indicate the fallout of existing trends. According to the Traffic Analysis Report 2017, 508,156 traffic tickets were issued to motorcyclists in District South alone for not wearing helmets. It was the highest number of tickets issued in any district of Karachi.

“I was told by a taxi driver that some motorcycles are deliberately driven with the headlights turned off,” says Kamil. Some believe that they target cars and provoke minor accidents so that they can push for financial compensation. But there is no proof to back this theory. And according to DIG Traffic Imran Minhas, the law does not guarantee that motorcyclists will receive compensation in such a scenario, especially if they are driving without headlights, which in itself is a violation of Rule 151 of the Motor Vehicle Rules 1969. In addition, “under Rule 34 of the Pakistan Highway Code, all slow moving vehicles – including motorbikes – are required to remain in the left lane and only use the right lane while overtaking,” says Minhas. “But motorcyclists do not seem to be aware of this and instead occupy every lane.”

After receiving a bullet in the shoulder and seeing his best friend shot dead, Zaid had not seen the last of road rage. In February, barely two months after the first incident, a motoryclist was banging on his car window after having rammed into the vehicle from behind.

Salahuddin says that although road rage is a universal phenomenon, Karachi is unique in the swiftness with which people become violent. “It is a cultural thing,” he continues. “As a society, we lack civility. In other countries people wait patiently for as long as two hours in a traffic-jam – but not in Karachi.” It is partly to do with upbringing, he says. Underprivileged citizens do not receive an education and are not properly socialised into living in the city. As an example, Salahuddin refers to the Pashtun drivers who used to run the ‘yellow double’ mini-buses. “They would exercise their tribal sense of freedom on the roads, as they had not been conditioned into Karachi’s lifestyle,” he says, pointing out that while every city has its own way of doing things, in Karachi there is a free-for-all: “Different communities live according to their own ways in little ghettos across the city.” Minibuses, along with privately owned buses currently operating within the city, accounted for 56 per cent of the traffic accidents in 2017.

But the underprivileged aren’t solely responsible for the chaos on the streets. Naeem Sadiq, who has done extensive research on the registration of vehicles in Pakistan, says that approximately 10 million people in the country own cars. “What should the remaining 190 million people do?” he asks. “There is no room on the streets for pedestrians or cyclists.” Due to a lack of proper foothpaths, zebra crossings and pedestrian bridges, 24 per cent of all fatal accidents in 2017 involved pedestrians.

According to Sadiq, the state caters only to the rich, which is why it focuses not on public transport, but on making room for more cars on the street. “In Pakistan, the government spends all its money on underpasses, flyovers and signal-free corridors. Even in Lahore, more money has been spent on these than on public transport,” he continues. “Who’s convenience are these thoroughfares being built for?”

A former commissioner of Larkana district, who requests not to be named, recalls seeing the convoy of a former minister for petroleum, who has since been indicted for financial corruption. “He had three police mobiles with him and six personnel in each vehicle. One mobile was in front, the other at the back, and the third on the side (just in case anyone attempted something from the side of the car),” he says. “His vehicle had the Pakistan flag on it, even though he was not a federal minister at the time. My driver tried to overtake the convoy, which was taking up a lot of room on the road, but I told him to let it go.” Both happened to be going to the same destination – a postcolonial club in the city, where the former minister had a permanent room. “‘What’s all this?’ I asked him when we got there, referring to the convoy. ‘Protection,’ he replied.” According to Sadiq, the Sindh government alone has a total of 28,000 vehicles at its disposal.

Road rage in Karachi tends to be directed primarily at young to middle-aged males. Attitudes towards females are different. Women may receive catcalls, but during traffic incidents, including accidents, they are usually accomodated and treated with a degree of respect by the general public. Numerous women residents of Karachi recall encounters on the road in which they were moved by the helpful and considerate attitude of all those present.

On such occasions, Fawad, a private banker, wishes that he too was a woman. Rage may have become an uncontrollable hazard on Karachi’s streets today, but it has always existed. In 2004, when Fawad’s car gently hit a taxi at Do Talwar, his sense of entitlement drove him to punch the other driver, the ring on his finger drawing blood. “I began to panic because it quickly dawned on me that he was built like a rock,” recalls Fawad, who has seen his share of brawls. Fawad’s behaviour towards the taxi driver invited the ire of others in the vicinity, who saw it through the prism of class conflict. A policeman emerged from a check post. A group of Pashtun labourers working at a nearby construction site put down their tools and walked towards him.

“The policeman, probably out fear of what was going to happen to me, grabbed me and the taxi driver and put us both in my car,” recalls Fawad. The labourers surrounded the car and closed in on it while hurling profanities at him. Tensions heightened when one of them shouted “kafir” with a crazed look in his eye. Under the instructions of the officer, Fawad slowly reversed towards the check post and was hustled inside, out of danger’s way. In the end, despite not having a license on him, he got off scot free after his father came and fished him out. The taxi driver, still bleeding, was the loser in this situation.

But Fawad was not as lucky while driving past SZABIST in Old Clifton. After a heated exchange with a student who was driving down the wrong side of the street, Fawad had to quickly apologise when the kid pulled out a Glock pistol and pointed it at his head.

On lawless streets, “might is right prevails,” laments Dr Niaz. “Since the law does not provide citizens with protection, many resort to hiring private security guards, whom they see as the only deterrent to such behaviour,” says Atif.

So what are the solutions? One way to avoid road rage is to stop driving altogether. Another, to somehow ensure that fewer people drive.

Naeem Sadiq contends that road rage can be reduced vastly if the government places more emphasis on public transport. “Karachi is the only city of its size in the entire world that has no reliable mass transit system,” says Ghazi Salahuddin. Sadiq adds, “There is less road rage in countries that have a good quality, state-run system of public transport.” According to him, it makes sense to have fewer vehicles on the road, especially since Pakistan is forced to import fuel as it does not have enough of its own.

One solution, suggests Sadiq, is to have a bus circuit as the sole means of transport in traffic hubs, such as I.I. Chundrigar Road or Zamzama. Commuters could park their cars in designated spaces outside these areas and be transported to their respective destinations by a shuttle service, he says. According to Inspector Idris Bhatti, the Sindh Traffic Police plans on introducing a scheme whereby intercity bus terminals – for coaches such as the Blue Line and Karachi Coach – will be moved outside the city and be accessed via a shuttle service.

Sadiq says that whereas in developed countries traffic caters primarily to the rush hours, or weekend travel, in Pakistan there is a third category of traffic – what he refers to as “slavery traffic.” This involves commuting to accomplish tasks and chores that in other countries can be done over the phone, or via the Internet, such as paying motor vehicle tax, pensions collection and similar work that involves driving to government departments. “Collectively, all this adds up to many trips made by many people,” says Sadiq, describing this as “self-created madness.” If the system can enable citizens to carry out these tasks from home, 20 per cent of the traffic will be reduced straight away. “If lanes are clearly demarcated on roads and lane discipline enforced, an orderly environment can be created,” adds Sadiq.

Responding to the complaint that larger vehicles, particularly SUVs, tend to bully and generally step over smaller ones, DIG Traffic, Minhas argues, “I drive a small car, but I don’t get bullied, because I always drive defensively. It is those who drive small vehicles aggressively that get bullied.” Salahuddin meanwhile maintains, “Just the way not all citizens are equal in our society – so too on the road, not all vehicles are equal.”

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Car and insurance question..?

"Car and insurance question..?

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I know it depends on a lot of things, but whenever I mention me getting my license, they have the same excuse over and over... So what's an idealistic amount for a young teen w/ 3.0+gpa and a sports car be? In california.""

Insurance for a 2010 Ford Fiesta Edge?

Hi, Im saving up to buy my first car and as it may be used for some fairly long commuting i was wondering what the insurance would cost, i will be shortly taking a driving test and so this would be useful information, as to help me save up the funds in order to buy the car and insure it, the car costs on average 8.995, but there have been cheaper models that are 08,09 etc so what would be a reasonable price for a new shape fiesta edge or style. Thanks 10- points today for the best answer....""

""Automobile incident question. Who pays, the business or insurance?""

Im just curious, if a branch of a tree hit my car and cracked it moderately, and i was parked at the parking lot of a gym, does the damages get payed by my insurance or from the gym? If my gym tells me that the insurance pays for it, should i demand the gym to pay?...since my insurance cost might increase because of this incident.""

Insurance on a Honda Civic EG?

Im planning to get an old Honda Civic EG 1994 model. and I'm just wondering approximately how expensive the insurance, rego and all that other stuff will be. OR even if i am able to drive the car. The car will be registered under my name. The car has a custom carbon fibre bonnet and a carbon fiber spoiler, sports mufflers, it is slightly lowered and has black alloy rims. And i think it may also have a custom body kit. So will i get insured? and how expensive will the annual cost be to keep the car?""

Will my insurance?

well my insurance pay for i iud.

Do insurance companies insure a boat for its value or insure it for what you paid for it?

Which is the best website to find cheaper car insurance?

I havent found a quote on-line before, and am not keen on supplying all me personal informtion. Is this standard procedure when requestin a quote? Please recommend the best website to find the best deal. Thanks!""

What is an affordable life insurance for a cigarette smoker?

How does insurance either supplied by an employer or by the government drive UP the price of health care?

Do I need Car Insurance to get a Georgia Drivers License?

I'm 19 years old and Ive been ready for my driving test for a while now. I just need to know if I can take the driving test in Georgia with my mom's car. WITHOUT being on her insurance. And YES her car is insured. I just want to take my test, get my license, and worry about insurance and a car later.""

Car insurance for new car....?

Hi all, I'm about to get my first new car but I'm not sure about the insurance. Do I have to buy the insurance first and then go the the dealer and finance the car? Or do I when I get the car from the dealer will they give me like a 1 day policy so then I can buy insurance? And no, I don't want to get insurance thru the dealer just the financing. P.S. If it is of any help, it is a Mazda3 that may cost me $18,000 as off 1/28/07. Thanks.""

Insurance change after marriage?

i am american and i got married in canada. my husband does not have insurance and i am covered under my mothers insurance. since i got married in canada will they see here in the us that i am married or will they know and i wont be covered anymore? i have not changed my last name to my husbands. if i still keep using my mothers insurance could i get into trouble if they found out i was married?

Can I cancel my scooter insurance? Will I still have to pay?

So I dont really use my Vespa any more, I'm paying 380 a year and about 30 pound a months in instalments, if I cancel my insurance will I have to continue to pay the instalments?""

What happens when you pay your car insurance late?

i have to wait til my next paycheck to pay my car insurance but the due date for the bill is march 16 and i dont get paid til the 21st. what happens? i have commerce insurance if that helps.

What should i look for in Health Insurance? ?

i am 19, ill be 20 on 10/29. live on my own.(so i kinda have a budget) this year i went to see a doctor 3 times so far... (when i had health insurance) i dont get sick often but when i do get sick, i get really sick... i dont just get a cough... i get it all. ear infections. fevers, ect. i usually end up in the emergency room about once a year. so what should i look for in health insurance? thanks!!""

Do I need Liability insurance?

I live in So california, and just brought lots In Texas,Arkansas and Utah.The lots are vacant land. Im being told that laibility insurance might be wise. is there someone out there who knows for sure.""

""Why can car insurance base on statistics, but other things can't.?""

Is it women who gossip more at work or men? Is it women who bring their personal life to work more or is it men? Is it women who will have to take a huge break at work because pregnancy or men? Why are women paid lower? Is it men that get in more wrecks then women? Is it men that have the need for speed always in their head while driving? Is it men that buy flashier cars? Why do men pay more for car insurance? So basically we have one type of company that can be sexist on statistics, but what about statistics everywhere else? Also, does the rule not look at soccer mom statistics? I've seen way more women talking on their phone then men. Six parking lot wrecks at my work this year all caused by women in my office (none by men). I drive a 5 speed so talking on the phone isn't something I even like to try. The reason for my complaint is my sister is 17. She has one dui and two speeding tickets. I am 21 I have a clean slate other than a warning for my headlight being out and nothing else. My insurance is $1320 a year her insurance is $720. We drive the same car and have had the same courses. It makes me feel like it makes sense I should be paid more because I pay more because something I can't control.""

Car insurance and speeding points?

Hey, when I was 18 I got 3 points for speeding. It is coming up to 5 years since I got them and when doing insurance quotes it always says 'any speeding convictions within 5 years' I was just wondering, dees that mean once it has been 5 years, that I won't have to declare them anymore? and will they completely disappear from my driving record/license? Also, please no replies saying 'grow up, dont speed etc. I know, which is why I grew up and haven't for 5 years. Thanks.""

How many of you are paying around $200 for car insurance..?

if so what kind of car do you have..? i am trying to get a car pay it in cash and just pay for the car insurance..

""I am a 19 year old male, what is the cheapest car insurance?""

I am a 19 year old male, what is the cheapest car insurance?""

Can my parents add me to their car insurance?

My parents have Allstate car insurance. I have my own car registered in my name. I live with them. Can they add me to their car insurance?

How can I get cheap insurance for my 18 y.o. son? I got him a 2004 Accord and now we have 2 cars and 2 drivers?

He doesn't live with me - he lives at his moms' who has her own car. How can I make it so he is occasional so I don't have to pay $4000 a year in insurance? Can I just insure the cars and keep them under my name while letting him drive it while he lives at his moms? Will they accept that he doesn't live with me so should be occasional if both cars are in my name? Any ideas how I can do this?

Car and insurance question..?

If I had lost my car insurance with my car can someone who is insured still drive my vehicle or does the car itself still have to be insured?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/car-insurance-question-leasing-brand-new-help-sokolowski-kareen"

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becauseiamnotanelephant · 7 years ago

Text

Day 70: Bucharest, Romania

Arriving somewhere at night is always hard - without context, without knowing the language, and without knowing where you’re going, things can seem a little scary. The ride on the bus from the airport was a little tricky from the start but I found my way, figured out how to buy a ticket, and which bus to take. It was a thousand degrees on the bus and even with the language barrier, I figured out that I wasn’t the only one sweating and the the guy next to me encouraged me to open a window. Traffic here is crazy. It’s the evening rush so it must be at it’s worse, but the bus ride took forever. At least they announce the stops so I was able to find my way. The walk to my apartment was pretty quick, and already I noticed that the lack of American chain stores in Italy and Greece is not the case here. McDonalds, KFC, and Starbucks are quite popular. At least I haven’t seen any 7 Elevens, which really bother me in foreign countries. At my apartment, I met my host, Racula, and she took me to the 8th floor corner apartment and through a door, down a hall, through another door, onto an open balcony, through another door, and into the apartment. The bedroom is through yet another locked door within the apartment, which is weird, but not as weird as having the tub in the room with me without a shower curtain. Its quirky, for sure. I went to a nearby place for dinner and had some typical Romanian cabbage stuffed rolls and grilled veggies for dinner and then hit the sack. Today I did some exploring. Its quite chilly here and I have to wear my winter coat for the first time on the trip. I did a lot of walking around and saw a lot of things, so here is a summary: - lots of women here dye their hair blond. I doubt anyone is a real blond here so I sort if get the desire, but it’s pretty funny. - of all the people I’ve interacted with, only two have not spoken English. And those who speak the language speak it almost perfectly, without hesitation and with a great vocabulary. - I can’t really get a grasp on the language. I can mostly read it, and between English and Italian, can figure out many words. But some are completely out of left field and I have no idea where to even start. And while it’s a romance language, it sounds very slavic when spoken, so even more confusing. - traffic is insane here. Three lane signalized traffic circles with no lane markings, and three or four lanes of traffic in each direction. Pedestrians have to wait a long time to cross and have to walk outside the traffic circles to the crosswalks, but as much honking as there between the drivers, they are super respectful of the pedestrian space. And one big difference compared to Italy and Greece is the number of larger, American-sized cars. Still many smaller european models, but more suvs than I’ve been seeing on my trip. - lots of bike lanes too, and quite a few cyclists especially near the parks. - and there are quite a few parks, some quite large. Even along the main arterials, there are nice tree-lined paths for pedestrians and cyclists. - there are a lot of ugly, grimy communist era buildings, and quite a lot of graffiti. It’s reminiscent of Budapest, and I like that part of these countries. Add to that the electric cables that are tied up on the utility poles like in Thailand and hanging off of buildings (so much that you have to duck sometimes when walking on the sidewalk), and you’ve got yourself a lot of interesting things to look at. Plus, a lot of these run down buildings still operate with active businesses, which is hard to believe, but people are just using the available space and making it work. - in contrast, there are many incredibly beautiful buildings that have given this city the name “Paris of the east”. There are so many I wish I could go into but just have to enjoy from the street. The arc de triomphe at one of the main traffic circles helps make it seem like you’re somewhere else. - I visited the main synagogue and had a great guide. First, I had to get through security, where they made a copy of my passport, and had to put my bag in a locker. The guards were nice but intimidating, and I tried to befriend the one who’s last name was Laurenticiu. He was moderately amused. The synagogue was beautiful, and apparently its still used with a large orthodox community that holds two services a day, has a hebrew school, and a yiddish theater. They even held services every day during WWII. The guide spoke Romanian, English at a thousand words a minute, and then when some Italians came in, perfectly in Italian, too. He’s very passionate about everything and even talks to the government it Israel about how concerned he is that children in Israel aren’t taught about why their country exists. He said antisemitism isn’t really an issue here, and he focused mostly on Muslim migrants in his response, saying that if any immigrants do even one suspicious thing here, they are deported immediately. - which isn’t directly related, but part of why this place feels safe. I think that people know if they do anything, they will be in deep shit. The police presence is pretty obvious, many stores have security guards, and there are other regular eyes on the street - bus ticket booths, street sweeping crews, etc. While there are dark alleys I don’t walk to walk down, I have felt very comfortable here. - except that the guy at the synagogue said Bucharest is overdue for an earthquake; the last was in 1977 and was a 7.2 magnitude. That’s a little unnerving considering where I’m sleeping at night. - I also saw another synagogue that is now a Holocaust museum. Romanian Jews definitely didn’t fair too well, but it’s reassuring how much better things are here compared to what I’ve seen in Italy and Greece. - the old town here is less exciting than the others I’ve seen on the trip, and after reading that it was created as a gathering place rather than growing organically, it sort of makes sense. Mostly it’s crummy tourist restaurants and clubs, although there are some really nice buildings hidden in there. - I decided to leave the heart of the Old Town and area near the parliament and explore further north, where I found some cute commercial strips and beautiful houses, which made me think of those little neighborhood nooks near Kew Gardens. I found a great cafe-bookstore where you pay $2 an hour for tea, coffee, snacks, wifi, and a seat. Why can’t we have nice things like this in NY? - there are also tons of pastry shops with all the baked goods on display in storefront windows, and then a small opening, like at the post office or the bank, where people line up outside to get food. Super cute but hard to point at things when they are far from the teller. - its very clean here - almost no litter and with little garbage cans on each corner, its easy for people to throw their trash away. - almost no one is walking around wearing headphones. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but it was interesting to notice. - there are definitely some poor people here - more homeless than in other citied I’ve visited on this trip and definitely some slums/makeshift housing. Not sure if it’s all the Roma gypsies, or a mixture, and not sure what they do in the winter. - there is an extensive public transit network but I prefer to walk around and take it all in. But seems like the subway is well used, as are the trams/streetcars and buses. That said, there are many taxis also floating around.

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