They’ve seemingly chosen, en masse, to simply do nothing anymore.

Austin didn't "fire all the cops." What happened was messier.

After 2020, the city council cut about a third of the police budget and paused new cadet classes. At the same time, hundreds of officers retired early or left for better pay elsewhere. By 2023, patrol vacancies were over 30%. With fewer officers, APD stopped handling whole categories of calls -- traffic enforcement, minor crashes, and low-level 911 calls -- because they just didn't have the staff.

Then politics made it worse. Austin leaders (Blue) pushed for more oversight and accountability. The governor (Red) fought back with bills to hide misconduct records and block transparency. The Travis County DA started prosecuting misconduct more aggressively, straining relations even further. The result: a demoralized force, hollowed-out staffing, and a city caught between "fund them less" and "hold them accountable more," while basic policing collapsed.

So no, they weren't fired. But yes, many stopped doing the job -- leaving Austin residents stuck in the middle of a state–city standoff. And honestly, it feels like that was Governor Abbott's goal all along: "If you didn't vote for me, don't expect police to lift a finger for you." These days, even for traffic accidents, assaults, or vandalism, 911 just tells you to file a report online.

Kinda funny how the HN crowd can both decry and advocate for automated mass surveillance at the same time.

Kinda more dystopian the ads have better tracking of us than law enforcement.

It sounds like you have a problem with the police, ok? Step outside please.

Obviously it’s not 100% meaningless, but the kind of people losing their licenses here correlate with the kinds of people who will take these risks.

Thus for many it’s a symbolic gesture until the next time something happens which is little different than simply doing nothing until the next incident like say 3 strike laws.

s/some/plenty/

In Ireland, jail time is rare for such offences sadly. In cases where jail time is sentenced, overcrowding in prisons often results in early release.

We need a consistently reliable public transit system before we tell people they can't drive for one reason or another.

I'm in Chicagoland too, and they're doing basically what they've always done: issue tickets --- automatically, now, as well as manually. What difference are you seeing?

The woman is going to claim it’s a service animal. There’s no real rules about service animals—-and even where there are rules, like with learning disabilities, doctors and other professionals act like whores and sell their signatures to anyone with money. It’s widespread bad parenting for generations now. How can a store fight that?

If you wait until it's so bad you have no choice, you usually lack the ability to enforce the rules.

When I'm in the position that I have to enforce rules, I usually provide an alternative and explain to people that they're not the problem. I spell out that problems arise when you have a dozen people breaking said rule, or when the people who come after them decide to push the limits even further. As long as they see the rules enforced consistently and equally, I rarely encounter any pushback. But until my employer got all of the staff to consistently enforce the rules, things were getting pretty nasty (threats towards staff, people doing stuff that would endager lives, etc.).

Normally in the US if you don't pay a fine they just contact your employer and tell them to take the fine from your paycheck.

>To be fair even people who have been driving many years do this by grinding up the clutch.

What would be the alternative? There's no other way to inch uphill than to grind the clutch. It's fine as long as the engine stays below ~2000 rpm.

I don't personally care whether bikes (or scooters) ride on the road or the sidewalk, but my one ask is that:

If they ride on the sidewalk, they should behave like pedestrians. That is, do not blast into the crosswalk at 20mph (impossible for drivers to safely check for in most environments), do not randomly enter the road from the sidewalk, pass pedestrians at a respectful speed and distance, etc.

If they ride on the road, they should behave similarly to motorists. That is, actually obey stop signs (rolling stop, or even treating it like a yield is okay), and actually obey traffic lights.

I'll even tolerate transitioning from one to the other at appropriate traffic stops. Just please don't get upset if I almost run you over for abruptly taking right of way you never legally had.

Where I live, there are definitely places where I end up cycling on the sidewalk, because it would be nigh-suicidal to actually take my bike on the road.

But I don't go barreling past pedestrians, and make sure I give them the right of way.

I have noticed a huge uptick in agressive behaviour from motorists over the past couple of years. By huge uptick, I mean behaviour that I used to see once every couple of weeks I am new facing multiple times daily. Quite bluntly, the politicians in my area are enabling life endangering behaviour towards cyclists by blaming cyclists for traffic congestion that have nothing to do with cyclists (e.g. road construction projects for motorists, or waterworks or building construction that have nothing to do with cyclists).

While I am sticking to the roads, I don't blame other cyclists for seeking refuge on the sidewalks.

Has your city made an effort to make it safe and attractive to ride on every street?

Or is that a de-facto ban on cycling.

That's the "Idaho stop". You're moving at speeds slow enough to be easily able to check for traffic without stopping, plus losing inertia as a cyclist is much more annoying (and arguably even dangerous) than for a car.

In many places cyclists are not required to stop for stop signs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

> And I wish cyclists would re-learn that pedestrians have more rights of being on sidewalks.

That's not universal, but I do wish they would just learn those laws for their state.

In my state, they have equal rights, and that is that no one has the right of way. If you run into someone, it's your fault full stop. If you couldn't stop in time, then you were travelling too fast for the situation. If someone is blocking the sidewalk, they're a dick, but you can't do anything about it without getting arrested except to find another way around.

Also, if you're on a bike and about to pass a pedestrian, you must give an audible (to the ped) signal so as to warn of your approach. Even then, if you hit them, it's because you were going to fast to stop safely in case they wandered into your path.

I love the laws in my state regarding shared cycling/pedestrian ways, and sidewalks in particular. Very reasonable and fair.

Which state are you in? There are a lot of US states (like, more than 10) where cyclists specifically are permitted to go through red lights in some circumstances.

> It would also be great if they had license plates

Lol, like hell it would. The supposed "danger" is not worth more legislation and overreach.

At some intersections the sensor loops literally never activate for bikes (especially carbon bikes with very little metal). If you don't run the red light then you'll be stuck there until a car happens to come along and trip the sensor for you.

There is no US state where the traffic laws for cars and cyclists are identical. Where are you located that they are?

> I'd bet accidents are more often than not mostly their fault.

That's actually not true. Most surveys I've seen show that drivers are at fault ~80% of the time.

> Cyclists contribute to congestion

How many cyclists can fit in a space of one car? Or, would you rather that every cyclist was in a car instead? Would that increase or decrease congestion?

> occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits

So roads get funded in full by motorists and cyclists can't possibly also own motorized vehicles and they don't pay tax that definitely doesn't contribute to the roads that they surely wear down at a rate that's not on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands lower than cars. Oh and 16 lane highways are built because of all the damn cyclists clogging up the roads.

> Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists.

A cyclist on the road is only a danger to himself. A motorist can mow down a school trip on a pedestrian crossing on a whim.

The latter two points just repeat the above. Yes, driving a 2 ton machine at 80 mph is going to have be a little more restricted than a 20 kg bicycle at 20 mph.

I do pay taxes, just like a motorist might. Where do you live that you think your car or your gas is taxed in a way that contributes to road upkeep? In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades, roadways are maintained out of the common coffers (incl. large federal incentives which come straight out of your income tax payments).

Motorists __DO NOT COVER__ the costs of roads. Your existence as a motorist is entirely subsidized. The cost of driving is borne by government and society. Road infrastructure, maintenance, and space for cars is actually insanely expensive.

"Safely" is a subjective term. Plenty of motorists are injured in MVAs on 2 mile drives to get groceries too. What cyclists should pursue is an accident rate equivalent to cars, per hour in traffic.

Nailed it.

Mostly the selfishness part. The whole idea of being courteous with other people on the road just doesn’t exist.

Sadly, this also extends to bicyclists. Entitled instead of courteous.

cars can easily be programmed to detect bad driving.

They installed one of those near my friends house. There's a couple mechanic shops in the vicinity used it for diagnosis while driving exactly the posted speed limit. It lasted about a month until the people who complained it into existence complained it out of existence.

Interesting. I hadn’t considered it but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if that happens per car or per ride. Do aggression settings adjust to apparent passenger comfort?