In my country you can submit a photo of this to the local police with a statement swearing it’s a true photo, then your name and tax ID number. Then in 6-9 months the vehicle owner will receive a citation and fee in the mail.
It’s fun because you have a serial offender who thinks they are getting away with it like this, but in 6-9 months they will get the first few and correct their behavior but continue to receive the citations. Then they will finally look at the dates of the offense on the citation and realize they have thousands of euros in fees still coming for months of shitty behavior.
Oh, man. We want immediate justice so often, but I almost think the delay is the best part of that.
Still means 6 months of cyclist frustration though…
That’s the dream. Where do you live?
Well, would be better if you could submit it anonymously.
we need an (optional) open source app for that where you just open the app and take a picture (with license plate visible) and click “submit”. It submits the time, location, and photo. If it takes more than 30 seconds to report this, they failed.
People here have developed an app that makes it that easy to submit (the app essentially composes the email for you). However, without your full name and tax ID number nothing will happen from the police. As has been pointed out, the system is open to abuse if it became anonymous.
I see no abuse that can’t extremely easily be managed. The NSA has been able to use image recognition for dicks since they wiretapped all of Yahoo Video like 20 years ago.
Police are inherently lazy, and incompetent. They should be the ones on the street citing these vehicles in the first place. But instead they rely on citizens to do their job for them. Even then they spend 6-9 months to take action. Good luck training them on American NSA penis detection software!
Police dont design it. Its done by the software, which is written by software engineers.
We dont need the NSA. Nude detections is like a Python module now.
They would need to verify each seemingly correct photo to legitimacy be illegal. I assume if it’s not you may be fined. (It might be after a certain number of failures or something to not punish mistakes.) If it’s anonymous there is no method available to punish abuse, so the system can easily be clogged.
Actually, I spent an inordinate amount of time building exactly this in my head for most of the day following these photos. There are two major obstacles that I can think of:
- Abuse. You will very likely get random dick pics and other terrible stuff sent to such a system. I suppose you could fight this by requiring registration with some id or something, but that’s its own can of worms.
- I don’t know how common it is to have GPS enabled by default on people’s cameras. On top of that, even though I have it enabled on my phone, 1 of the 3 photos taken that day had grossly inaccurate GPS attached to it, so now I’d be looking at building some sort of friendly UI to allow people to fix the GPS from their photos.
The server-side stuff is easy (at least for someone with my background) but the front-end is sufficiently complicated that I couldn’t do a good job on my own.
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dick pics are inevitable and trivial to filter out.
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The system should absolutely have graceful fallback. If GPS is off, just prompt the user for the location
Even if GPS is innacurate and 20% of reports have to be trashed, just by making it easier to submit you’ll have far more reports in general that its still better to have an easy system that sometimes doesn’t work than a hard system that very few people use and always works.
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We have a suckhead that parks his delivery van on the middle of a cross over (we call it a zebra pad) everytime to deliver goods to our local flower shop. So I tell him he is unlawfully parked, he says I shouldn’t worry, it is just for a minute. I tell him it takes only a second for a pedestrian to get hurt. He didn’t care the slightest bit.
In Germany, parents cannot be held liable if their child under 12 (or 14?) damages illegally parked cars with their bike… Just a random fact of the day, nothing to do with your comment.
Call the cops on him. Every. Single. Time.
Next time I will photograph his license plate along with the zebra crossing. I’ve seen him doing it twice before. So the third time I talked to him.
I tell him it takes only a second for a pedestrian to get hurt. He didn’t care the slightest bit.
while this clown is surely an asshole but let’s not forget that his behavior and attitude is likely the very direct result of his economic and employment conditions.
who benefits from this most? the merchant then the buyer…
Delivery trucks, full stop, around here. Though some stop on the street instead, which I prefer, but car drivers usually don’t.
In the end, I find it hard to be angry at overworked, underpaid people, who have to work around infrastructure that clearly hasn’t been planned with their job in mind.
At least UPS is switching to large bike-like vehicles around here. Hope that trend continues.
Thank you for being the only one in this comment section that isn’t a spoiled piece of shit punching down
Don’t they have traffic wardens in Cambridge? They’d be fined and possibly towed as well here
You’d think, but there are three levels of responsibility: the city council, the county council, and the local police. Calling any one of them to complain and demand enforcement results in them redirecting you to one of the others.
Basically, unless you’re blocking car traffic, no one with power cares.
Just gotta wait for that cyclist that turns into the road because a car was blocking him. Then it’ll be all “oh no how could this ever happen?”
…and gets sucked under a lorry
But why weren’t they wearing their helmet/high-vis/body armour???
Honestly they should’ve worn their metal exoskeleton with four wheels
The police very, very rarely do anything about this kind of thing here. It’s not just Amazon; even everyday random people just stop in the middle of the street to pick people up or drop people off.
The worst offender is Uber Eats, which regularly completely blocks up roads near restaurants.
Plus the wardens have to watch the vehicle for 10 minutes before issuing a ticket. The driver would have completed the delivery and gone within that 10 minutes.
Why would you permit someone to park illegally for 10 minutes?!?
Uk law. Unless its a red line, you can stop there.
So paint red lines along the bike lanes?
That is an excellent idea.
That can be both incompetent and arseholes. The 2 aren’t mutually exclusive.
Uber Eats does this all day every day.
affluent people deserve their delivery, fuck u
As a person who does this job I have to say I have zero sympathy for the entitlement expressed in this thread and find no fault in any parking job these people use to save themselves the extra 50 steps x 200 places a day they have to deliver to. If you don’t feel safe going around then you can fucking wait the literal minute it takes for them to walk back and forth.
You feel entitled to them literally wearing their bodies down to dust for your convenience because you think of them as lesser human beings to yourself and you need to do self crit immediately.
Maybe you guys should unionise so you don’t have such shit working conditions.
Maybe you should shut the fuck up if you’re not willing to proletarianize yourself and salt the workplace yourself.
Sound like you have enough salt for the both of us. I don’t know who shit in your cornflakes, but you’re really obnoxious.
You’re a genuinely disgusting person and that fact is only deepened with the inclusion of this snide passive aggression. Oh wow no shit you’re not willing to put your own body, comfort, and time on the line to “just unionize Amazon lol” but you’ll use it as a backhanded excuse for why my needs are less important than your wants. Champagne liberal status: scratched.
I work hard within my own union, that I’ve been a proud member of for 25 years. The passive aggressive snide comment was because you aren’t worth engaging with in good faith. Amazon hurts you and you are taking it out on everyone else rather than blaming the real problem.
My first response to this was expletive-laden, but I think I might get through to you if I reign it in, so I’m trying to be polite here. Just understand that I am seething with rage while I type this.
Hey there friend. You need to learn to park or stop driving. Seriously, you’re endangering lives for your convenience. You get the whole damned road while everyone else is allocated the slightest fraction to safeguard ourselves from drunks, assholes, and morons pushing two tonnes of steel and glass at 60mph while they stare at their phones and you think it’s ok to push kids on bikes into that channel of death because you can’t be bothered to look for a legit parking spot? I get that your employer is pressuring you for better times, but you’re literally breaking the law and that law exists for a reason.
Every one of the 4 of the drivers I saw that day were parking on the cycle lane when they had multiple more reasonable options available to them:
- The driveways of those receiving the packages
- Around the corner in a safer area where parking spaces are allocated by the city for just this situation
- Blocking the road. I understand that this seems crazy to someone who spends so much time on the road, but blocking a car lane is an inconvenience. Blocking a cycle lane gets people killed.
What you’re doing is lazy, selfish, and dangerous. Those cycle lanes are barely safe as they are without constantly being blocked by selfish people who think that they double as a parking space. You already have nearly the entirety of the city for your vehicle. Leave these alone.
but I think I might get through to you if I reign it in
Condescending piece of shit. Fuck you.
The premise alone that you’re not the one who needs to be gotten through to but I am. Spoiled fucking brat. And the fucking nerve to think you can not just talk down to me, but act like you even have the fucking knowledge to speak on this situation from the perspective of an outsider. Childlike entitlement and narcissism. And fucking stupid in the worst, laziest way. Incurious and presumptive.
Just understand that I am seething with rage while I type this.
Then walk away. Message me again when you’re in a place where you can admit you’re wrong. I’m not going to waste my time or energy on you until you’re ready to accept the premise that I’m a human being that deserves equal consideration to you.
And since conceding that puts you at odds with your spoiled entitlement to my physical well being, I expect you to shut the fuck up and not reply at all.
This is what I get for trying to be civil. You’re a terrible person and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Acting like you’re doing a favor by being seething and condescending instead of openly hostile isn’t being civil, you spoiled fucking child. Just demonstrating your complete lack of self awareness.
You’re guilty of everything you’re accusing me of. For your convenience you want to sacrifice my safety. You’re entitled and selfish. You genuinely think you’re more important than other people. You think I’m a bad person because I don’t want to be treated that way. Grow the fuck up.
I told you to walk away until you calmed down and could accept the possibility that you’re wrong. You couldn’t do that. Do you think I’m being unfair when I call you a spoiled narcissistic child in this context? If you do you’re exactly as stupid as you’ve demonstrated so far.
Stop projecting
You should read Marx, you know, educate yourself. Those delivery drivers are agents of the bourgeoisie, and class traitors don’t deserve respect.
Entitled treat hogs want their shit in 24 hours and they want all the consequences to fall on the people ‘lower’ than them. Fuck them.
they want all the consequences to fall on the people ‘lower’ than them. Fuck them.
Nobody here has used the word “lower”, you’ve conjured that word up. Do you think perhaps you might be projecting?
Don’t be stupid. The obvious implication of setting your own convenience above someone else’s health and safety is that you think you’re above them. Fuck off with this concern trolling you smarmy twerp.
The obvious implication of setting your own convenience above someone else’s health and safety is that you think you’re above them.
Setting their own convenience above everyone else’s health and safety is what these Amazon drivers have done.
The problem, my dear, is Amazon.
The problem is suburbs and single family homes. They want all of the convenience and infrastructure of living in a city they just want it spread out to the point they never have to interact with anyone else. Give me a centralized community center where people go to get their deliveries and it solves everybody’s problem.
That’s also a problem. Most of the people on Fuck Cars also acknowledge that suburbanism is not sustainable, and want denser communities.
I wish they’d just use the postal service. In Canada they’ve set up nice secure package boxes and leave a key in your normal (also secured) mailbox. And if it takes a few days to arrive, so be it.
They should change extra for packages too large or urgent for Canada Post and use that money to hire professionals that understand not everything revolves around their delivery schedule and that random cyclists that happen to be passing through the area have nothing to do with their orders.
What an amazingly spoiled child you are. Framing your entitlement as a law of nature that mustn’t just be kowtowed to but needs to be ‘understood’
And your framing of ‘professionalism’ as just being willing to accept more wear and tear on their bodies for no other reason than to ‘understand’ the world revolves around YOU. Because you’re too fucking important and privileged to be delayed a few seconds or god forbid turn your precious neck to look over your shoulder. Champagne liberals. Me me me.
Ok lol now I realize you’re just trolling and probably aren’t even a delivery driver. Almost had me going for a sec there gg.
This is OK
This is ridiculous
This is OK
This is not OK.
The only problem in either of these is the guy jumped up on the curb
The second picture has the bike lane separate from the road and the bus blocks all visibility to pass it.
I peek around the side of one of these things into traffic at least 100 times a day. Fuck off.
A car lane is dedicated to the through traffic of cars. Similarly a bike lane is dedicated to the through traffic of bikes. If it is truly such a nothing burger to wait one minute, surely you would have no problem stopping on the car lane either and telling drivers to wait. And yet I have never seen a delivery driver attempt this - probably because it is considered socially acceptable for drivers to honk at shout at anyone blocking their way. Not so for cyclists, even though they are the more vulnerable road users.
Perhaps you could also stop at a bus stop and tell the bus driver to wait a minute. Or you could stop in a stranger’s driveway while they are attempting to leave. Or hey, stop on a train track. Let me know how that goes for you. It’s only a minute, right?
When they put the bike lane in the middle of the street and the car lanes on the sides, I’ll do that
BTW I know the people in here are white because they want to play dress up cop
I have to deal with similar issues in my neighbourhood; any service vehicle will have to block the bike lane because that houses driveway is already full of vehicle.
Service vehicle never “have” to block the bike lane. They could simply block the general purpose lane instead.
In other words, they are making a deliberate choice to fuck cyclists’ safety in order to prioritize convenience for car drivers.
Either way it’s block lane A or block lane A and B
Right, but that’s the point: cyclists’ safety should be a superior concern to drivers’ convenience. They aren’t equivalent, and the status-quo habit is to pick the one that causes more harm!
The cyclist is also just inconvenienced, they could just get off the bike and go around and then just continue on with their day. Unlike the car, what’s their stock until the guy comes back and moves the van. The biker is less inconvenienced than the car is.
Do you actually not understand how the cyclist is endangered in this scenario? Do you actually need that explained?
Dude, the cyclist is not endangered in this scenario. Let me explain since you have trouble because I guess you’re 5. Guy on bike sees truck in way, guy gets off bike, guy walks bike with other people who are also also walking on sidewalk, once guy gets past truck, guy gets back on bike, back in bike lane, back doing bike stuff, bike guy does this as many times that are needed, bike guy never has to come in any danger from big scary 2 ton metal things he don’t understand wizzing by.
When bike guy - or child, or elderly person, or wheelchair-bound person, the people who are also also walking on the sidewalk - goes around the van, how do they get around the van? Where do they go?
You were very careful to lay out every single detail for a small child like me, but you left out that one specific detail. Why was that? Was it somehow detrimental to your point?
Why can’t the cars just pass then? Why do cyclists have to give away a lane that is made for them just so cars wouldn’t have to wait 10 seconds to pass the van?
Do you really think that anyone riding a bike in the bike lane would come off a bike iust to avoid a stationary obstacle? Most would pass them on the road (which is what makes the van parking in the bike lane dangerous).
I think you’re attributing malice to laziness.
I cant think of a single courier or delivery driver that would actively think “let me take an extra 20 seconds to reverse into this driveway just to fuck with bikes”. They just want to get it done and get to the next
I think the word “deliberate” might be a little strong, because it’s not one person’s choice alone. It probably is laziness, but the way the road is made makes the lazy choice the one that screws over everyone else to prioritise cars. They could leave the van in the middle of the road, but drivers would get angry, so they make a subconscious choice.
Cars are large, cumbersome, dangerous objects with horns on them, and the road’s design centers them. If you park in the middle of the road, cars are so space-inefficient that you cause a traffic jam and people get upset and honk, but nobody’s in much more danger. If you block a pathway for pedestrians and cyclists, they can get around, but it’s much more dangerous, especially for children and the disabled, but most of the time the delivery driver isn’t forced to deal with that fact. Those people are much less visible.
So the result is that the mode of transport which causes the most problems for the people around it is also prioritised above all others. Decisions were made at the city planning level that put cycle paths together with cars. There are much better ways of doing things, for instance separate paths, with bollards so cars can’t just leave the road. You could make delivery vehicles smaller and lighter, with dedicated delivery bays. You could narrow roads and slow them down to disincentivise inner-city traffic, and encourage the use of bypasses, and subtly teach drivers to expect frequent stops in town.
it would be far easier to simply stop in the lane they are already in. No, they go out of their way to park in the bike lane.
yes they should stop dead in the middle of the road instead of pulling to the side
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Well…yes, in most areas that inconveniences 3 people vs 300. Bicyclists, despite their entire personality being geared around it, are not by default better or more valuable than people driving cars.
What cyclists are more of, compared to people driving cars, is vulnerable, which means they’re more important to protect – by not blocking bike lanes and forcing them to mix with car traffic, for example!
But that’s an irrelevant point if you live, as most Americans do, in an area where nobody is biking to begin with.
Do you not see cyclists because they don’t exist or you don’t see them because they use different roads than you?
Just because most don’t doesn’t mean that no one does.
Again when did say it did? Good God bicycles-are-my-identity people are fucking annoying.
However to answer your question, the main st in Cambridge has 1000 cars for every bike. There are times of day that isn’t true, but for the most part it’s accurate. There’s also 1000 pedestrians for every bike, and amazon and other drivers and bikes block them too. Bikes are probably the bigger danger due to being ridden on the sidewalk at road speeds through dense pedestrians.
If cycling wasn’t so dangerous and given lower priority there would be many more cyclists and fewer cars. We see this wherever town planners make this change.
Less car traffic in general is better for everyone, even the drivers. It doesn’t matter if you think that cyclists are annoying or holier than thou. It doesn’t matter what kind of people they are at all. They could all be assholes, that doesn’t change the fact that cars are bad actually.
Cool story. Not really relevant to anything I said but cool nonetheless.
I can see how you’d think that if you didn’t read it or pay attention to any of the pertinent details.
Blocked and reported
Cool story. Not really relevant to anything I said but cool nonetheless.
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But are people driving cars better and more valuable than cyclists?
Have you ever been to China? Holland?
Nowhere did I say that, I do wish people would stop making irrelevant comments.
I know. I asked you a question - I didn’t make a statement.
But are people driving cars better and more valuable than cyclists?
Your claim is that this is a genuine question about my beliefs and not a rhetorical question aka statement?
Even though that claim is disingenuous on its face, the very clear answer is No.
I’m not claiming anything but thanks for answering the (first) question.
Curious how it never occurs to them to block the driving lane, or you know, park around the corner.
Not the first time, not the last. Amazon delivery drivers are terrible in every area. Urban or rural they will find a way to block traffic, especially when there is a nearby way to not do so.
I suspect it’s a selection effect. Amazon is a pain in the arse to work for. Decent drivers are in demand. This makes it easy for good drivers to jump ship to other companies. This leaves the inexperienced or just stupid drivers left to deal with the BS.
If you’ve not driven a van before, they are intimidating to maneuver, at first. It’s takes time and skill to spin them on a dime, and slot them in, with awareness of how much space you are leaving. Novice drivers simply lack that skill.
I’ve seen them deliberately park at a tee intersection to block all three legs rather than any one of them. That’s less incompetence and more not giving a shit about other people. Otoh this is in California so that’s kinda just how people act.
Being an incompetent and being an arsehole are not mutually exclusive things.
Amazon drivers aren’t Amazon employees, and aren’t paid well enough or treated well enough to care. Don’t be angry at the drivers, be angry at Amazon.
Seconding this. Some of these comments are an unpleasant reminder of why the stereotype of cyclists as upper class and entitled exists.
Some blame also lies on the local government for not adding bollards or other structures to separate the bike lane from traffic. Seeing all these issues and deciding someone with shit pay and zero job security is worth getting mad at just doesn’t make sense. Go take that energy somewhere it can do something.
Fuck that. This isn’t some poor customer service shit. This is being an inconsiderate asshole on public property. Yes they are treated poorly but that’s not an excuse for every behavior.
I have enough anger for both.
By your logic the right answer is to be mad at every prime customer.
I am.
I suppose keying them is a criminal offence?
Just photograph the van from both angles and send the photos to the local traffic authorities.
These vans know every time the driver sneezes so Amazon can dock their pay for unsafe driving. These things have a million cameras inside and out.
So basically, wear a mask.
Well, given that parking in a bike lane carries a hefty fine, and that the cops don’t seem to care, it’s unlikely that they’d be around to notice or choose to do anything about scratched paint or a broken headlight.
I’m just thinking from perspective of type of offence. In Canada you can park in the middle of the road and that’s a non-criminal offence. You’re getting a fine if someone is bothered to write you up. Purposefully keying a vehicle on the other hand is vandalism, which is a criminal offence. If you get caught, you’d get a record and potentially worse than a fine. It’s a different level of punishment.
The vans are surveillance vans, you do this and amazon is definitely recording you
That having been said, I think relieving the vans of all of their tire air would not be considered permanent damage.
That’s a good point actually. Amazon is much more likely to care about a van that can’t deliver than some scratched paint.
“Oh nooo, my bike handle accidentally smashed into the van while I was avoiding the obstacle in the bike lane.”
“And I forgot to tape the outer most part or my handle bar, so it is just the bare metal”
