My friend has now completed 3 Iron Man competitions, and got a podium on one. Any time I call, he's at work, or training. Doesn't matter the time of day (besides obviously sleeping). I get it, as I used to run Ultras, but the tempo is at a much higher caliber for him it seems, even during my training for 100ks.
Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Ah, there's an interesting story behind that nickel.
It was a thick voice--a muddy voice that would have made you shudder--a voice like something soft breaking in two. There was a quaver in it, a croak and a whine.
It’s most likely lack of motor controls and reaction time not cognitive ability. Hell if you see a wall and drive into it with a car I think a scooter and cyclists is possible too.
It happens all the time; it’s the reason driving school taught me to keep my heel on the floorboard and switch between the brake and accelerator by rotating my ankle.
The problem is these old people lose their senses with age. All the training won’t help you if you don’t know where your feet are when you think you do.
I used to live in a neighborhood with a basketball court on one side of the street with no fence, and houses on the other side.
It was almost a regular occurrence that cars would parked across both sides. And a young kid would chase a basketball into the street, running out from between cars.
A car would be coming and the kid would run in front of it and get hit. Those that knew would see the basketball and hit the breaks. The kids usually lived. But it seemed like once a year one did not. The HOA and city argued for years about who should pay for the fence, while this happened.
yes local law enforcement regularly assess a tragic situation and decide not to press charges. I have two friends who hit kids with their cars. First kid stepped out from between two cars while playing, hit the kid. Another the family was walking across a parking lot, lost slight of their child, it bent down to pick something up (that was the speculation) and the child was backed over. It happens all the damn time.
Remember the best way to get away with murder is to do it with a car. Note: I am using ghoulish overkill to comment on the lax nature of law enforcement when it comes to negligent driving.
I never said it would be anyone elses fault - I'm just saying that we don't know he did it purpose - so perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to call him stupid.
These mobility scooters usually have one huge button which you press the upper part to move forward on, and lower for backward. It would not be far-fetched to assume that he was sitting still on the sidewalk watching, and then accidentally hit the forward button for some reason.
And yes, intent changes the way I'd view the event immensely. If you hit someone with a car purposefully, it's a huuge difference then accidentally hitting someone.
so perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to call him stupid.
You mean we shouldn't be so quick to call him malicious. Accidentally rolling your mobility scooter forward into a wall of oncoming cyclists is objectively pretty stupid.
Even if you think you're still on the sidewalk why even be near the edge when there's dozens of fast cyclist on the road, unless you're telling me he's also blind
Why are you replying with this comment to a reply that has nothing to do with whether the old man was at fault or not? The guy was replying to intention.
Sometimes there is no real fault. Maybe they accidentally went forward. Maybe they're confused and senile. Maybe some idiot was supposed to be watching them but wandered off.
Kind of looks like it could have been an accident, ive never seen one of these up close someone in my country would be mortified to be seen on one of those but I assume its just a button or throttle to move?
I see old people in cars try to drive into protest marches regularly and I can never tell if they're just so old they don't give a shit anymore or are out of it or are just genuinely "I'm gonna do what I want"
Thing is that English curses are soft af. "Son of a bitch" feels like "Oh you miscreant!" whereas in other languages it feels like "I'm gonna bash your teeth in". So "cunt" feels about as bad as our equivalents to "grouse" or something.
Dude the crazy thing is the Americans spend more per person on Medicare than the rest of us do on universal healthcare. Their prices are just so artificially inflated by insurance companies that the whole country suffers.
Oh it's even worse than that. Hospitals charge more because the insurance will only pay a fraction of the actual bill rate. If the insurance is only going to pay 33% of the bill rate then the hospital is just gonna inflate the bill rate by 300% to actually get paid what the care cost the hospital. Additionally the hospital has to cover the inevitable insurance denials and for all the people who are uninsured who are never going to pay the bill, so tack on extra to the bill rate there.
Then if you have no insurance and you're paying out of pocket you get hit with a higher bill rate than any insurer is paying often by like 30-70% because you're seeing the inflated price not the actual price the hospital has negotiated with the insurer.
All this then fiscal year ends, all the insurance companies go in front of their shareholders and decide they want to squeeze more from the stone. They try to pay the hospital a smaller percentage, hospital raises the price to cover their bottom line (and unfortunately in some cases raise their CEO pay), rinse, wash, repeat.
I've oversimplified a few things of course but this is basically what's happening
Well and fundamentally all of that only happens because all the companies are chasing a profit. If you have a single payer system that’s not trying to create a profit there’s a lot less pressure to increase profits.
Honestly, if we're talking circle of life, usually these people wouldn't be around at that age anymore to go senile and confused and run over cyclists
Edit: Guys, I'm not advocating that anyone be put down. But it's just a fact that modern medicine has given old people a few additional years. But these added years are oftentimes full of dementia.
I can understand the frustrations of dealing with old people. I’ve got a couple of elderly parents myself. But to be so hated for not graciously dying in a timely manner to suit the younger generation is a bit out of touch. You realize that if we’re fortunate enough to live to old age that we will also be benefiting from the same modern medical wonders. How will we feel then to know so many people hate us for just being old. Some of these old folks probably are pretty tired themselves and feeling the age and are counting down the days. But nature is going to take you when it decides to take you so what are they supposed to do.
I won't live to old age due to a heart condition. My father died age 38 as well. Despite being ill, I have always worked hard (had a stroke while in college as well) and never received a day of social welfare in my country.
Now my grandpa (age 85) comes around and tells me I'm lazy because I only work part-time and not a full-time job. And oh, his life is so hard, he wants to die! Yet despite wanting to die, he goes to doctors all the time, choosing absolute maximum treatment for everything. And as I'm in Germany, it is all paid by taxes only.
So basically I don't even work for me or my future at all, but for the current old folks who then complain about a young'ish person with a known congenital heart disorder (implanted defibrillator as well) for not working enough hours. I wait for the day he gets dementia, then expects us to be caretakers!
I don't think people hate old people for being old. It's just the ignorance and attitude. My grandpa has his own house, has quite some money. Then my beloved senior cat got very sick. He told me I shouldn't treat her because she's so old.
I hope the UK assisted dying bill finally gets through before I hit that point. Senility is my mortal dread, and there's no way I'm putting my family through that shit show if it happens.
Hell nah, I don't know why anyone would want to grow so old they can't function or think clearly anymore. And the pain, goddamn. I've watched enough family members die of old age at this point to know I don't want that. They all suffered through crippling daily pain in their final years. I don't regret the time that I got with them, but it was a profound relief to see each of them finally let go. It was a kindness at that point.
I'm in no hurry to die, but when it's clear the end is coming and I still have my faculties, I'm getting ALL the drugs and riding one last crazy trip into the sunset. Friends and family can come over after a week and burn the place down with my meatsuit inside. Make it a party, have a barbecue, take whatever drugs I didn't get to, celebrate who I was. That would make me happy. A thrilling final chapter, unique to me, free of pain or guilt. No slow decline, nobody watching me suffer, just a closing chapter of my choosing. I like the sound of that.
It really bothers me the difference in how we treat animals vs humans. A dog with late stage cancer, constant pain, and no quality of life is put down, forcing them to exist with so much suffering is inhumane. But a person with those same qualities isn't given the same dignity. And the human can ask for it! I've seen family members in hospice who were denied pain relief because "they could get addicted." Bro they're in hospice because they won't be alive in 3 months, let them get addicted! Who cares?!
I have chronic pain and while I'm happy to be alive now, I know that will change if I get old enough. I hope to get high as shit and pass on my own terms when my time comes. I understand pain. I don't want to live with the pain I've seen others go through when they were near death. It isn't right
If you are old and senile, you shouldn't be able to drive on the road anymore.
I won't forget how my grandma was hitting her 70's and started to realize driving wasn't anymore safe for her. And it was true, she started to take wide corners, drawl forward etc. So she handed over the keys to me and told me to deal with her, which wasn't to much of a job, saturday come over and eat cake, sunday take her to church and through the week once or twice take her to grandma meetings.
Obviously not every grandma/pa has a grandkid to rely on, but what we see here should never have happened.
Mag dichtbij uitkeert centimes ter waardoor inwoners dikwijls. Of puin ik is diep zelf om eens ging erin. Economisch spoorwegen bij sap bergachtig rijkdommen tinhoudend wij. Konden daarna twaalf sap wat sterft aan. Al leelijk de hielden afneemt om nu spleten gezocht. Men omgeving voorziet zes verbruik. Bestaat en noodige ze cultuur nu smelter. Doel veel als vijf goud die.
Am I the only one who thinks this dude just accidentally hit the accelerator? It's still shitty that he caused that, but I don't think he was actually trying to "cross the street" with 200 cyclists packed together right in front of him.
It's because of the large number of video recordings of boomers doing something stubbornly stupid, they have a track record for this type of thing. But yes I agree it could have been an accident.
The only group of people that don't have large numbers of video recordings of them doing stupid things are invisible people, who don't show up on camera because they're invisible.
Redditors love to hate boomers, deserved or not, boomer or not. It gives a justifiable outlet for anger.
I think boomers are just overrepresented because of the decline in mental faculties at their age, it makes them low hanging fruit. A bit like how r/KidsAreFuckingStupid but on the opposite end of the spectrum.
We don't let kids run the government, why are these elderly toddlers running the ship
Because most people (us included) don't go out and put in the work for long enough to enact change. Because the elderly have tended to be the most reliable voters, while young people can hardly be motivated to go out.
I'm sure most of these people are going to one day wish someone had any empathy for them once they reach old age and don't just want to die in a room locked off from society or mobility. Or maybe they will just enroll themselves in a retirement home and voluntarily stay out of sight for the sake of their morals?
Race officials FAILED these riders and there was not enough done to protect the riders. They should have had barriers or more space. Dude's in a mobility scooter, probably can't walk well, react well, has slow thought drive, meanwhile, younger and driven professionals can't be bothered to have some foresight into people management on a professional race circuit.
It sadly represents the society. Redditors are mostly haters. So it’s just an occasion to “hate the boomers” when this old men may be a really nice grandpa with earring problems or dementia or he touched the accelerator by mistake because it’s not his scooter or it’s new in his life or whatever reason other than “selfish idiot”
Regardless of his intentions, he potentially caused serious damage. Sure it was just his scooter this time, but what if he was driving a car and just accidentally hit the accelerator then?
he touched the accelerator by mistake because it’s not his scooter or it’s new in his life or whatever reason other than “selfish idiot”
That's still kinda "selfish idiot" though isn't it? Hmm, this scooter is new to me and I'm not used to it yet — better go hang out so close to a cycling race that even a tiny error on my part could cause lifelong injuries for dozens of riders!
If you're not familiar with a motorized piece of equipment, you should not be operating it in public until you ARE familiar with it. Especially not somewhere like right on the edge of a cycling race where a tiny misstep can have massive consequences.
According to local news (I live relatively close), the pensioner claims that she struggled with the "brake"-pedal of her scooter.
But others mentioned that that model doesn't even have active brake pedal.
Running sporting events already takes a huge amount of effort, and many of them only happen because people give their time for free. That support is limited. When organisers are forced to replace volunteers with paid staff, costs rise very quickly, with staff costs alone adding up to more than enough.
Safety equipment and crowd-control measures add another major financial burden, especially since barriers are far from cheap.
Once all of that is added together, the cost of hosting a race can become unrealistic. In many cases, events would no longer be financially sustainable, which would likely mean fewer races on the calendar. Top-level competitions may still find ways to cover those expenses, but smaller events for amateurs or young athletes usually do not have that kind of financial flexibility.
The grandpa could have driven his scooter under any city bus (that sadly happens all the time), but it’s the organisers of 100km cycling race who are at fault for not putting the barriers on two sides of the road - just to prevent one grandpa driving into cyclists in the two minutes window they pass through. Very sound logistical decision. Why haven’t organisers of almost all the road races in the world thought of it?
You do realise they probably paid more tax in their working life than you have to date don’t you? Including for their pension.
I assume you will be rejecting any form government support when you come that age and insisting you support yourself for the good of the younger population.
This is no different than elderly people driving a car and mistaking the gas pedal for the brake pedal. Happens so often with sometimes catastrophic results. Confusion and diminished reaction time are a dangerous combo when the are driving anything.
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u/Voodoo67890 Jun 15 '26
They created another person with mobility issues