Personally, I allow the adblock allowed ads. Not many sites use them.

Sites I frequent that give me the 'Please disable your adblocker' I tend to respond with(and yes, I've used their forum/webmaster address to do this) 'Then use adblocker approved ads'.

After about the 3rd time the ad sites tried to serve me malware it became more about protecting my computer than anything else. The fact that many sites are unusable to the point that I wonder if their web-admin is even testing the sites without an ad blocker doesn't help.

Interesting how governments sometimes differ. USA, supposedly land of the free, would quickly have the Department of Transportation having a word with the owners of said billboards, as you describe them.

Things like lit scrolling marquees are fine - most gas stations show their prices using a digital billboard today, and rolling time/temperature/ad is common,

But there are rules in place about potentially 'distracting' displays.

By the way, I just did the survey and it worked fine for me. Latest version of firefox.

Cowering in the corner isn't necessarily a bad strategy, but it's not optimal. Defending yourself with an effective weapon generally has the best options. The 'passive aggressive' strategy of passive non-compliance that police were recommending for a while is actually the worst.

Though I'll admit that I have a good deal of belief in the theory of 'all that evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing', thus believe that even if it's non-optimal for the first person, the prevention of a criminal from attacking successive targets makes everybody safer in the long run.

Personally, I want as many guns in 'good' hands as possible, while denying them to the 'bad' people. However, denying 'bad' people weapons is a never-ending battle. Witness England, where they're even trying to crack down on knives, sturdy umbrellas, and the sort. All that does is enable the physically fit thug.

I may have to change my sig. It's been years since I visited it.

The survey is more an SocraticExercise than anything else, the results aren't actually tabulated.

Well, I was just correcting what I saw as mistakes in the AC's posting. There's a reason why I said 'kind of sucks.' It's my expression for 'well, that didn't work out, but there's really nothing that can be done to recover from it'.

As for benefiting the drivers - not really. You have to remember that they're also losing fairs to the cheaper and more lushly equipped Uber drivers who, not having to pay for the medallion or follow the cumbersome NYC taxi rules, can afford to run a nicer vehicle than the cabbies.

Note on following NYC taxi rules - Uber is, to my knowledge, operating perfectly legally in NYC. NYC has several categories of 'hired vehicle'. There's two categories of taxi and several for non-taxi private car. Uber is NOT operating as a taxi service per NYC rules, but as a 'black car' service. It's drivers hold a chauffeur license, do not respond to street hails(IE putting out a hand and yelling as opposed to the app), have certain destination and pickup restrictions, etc... Matter of fact, Uber would likely fire any drivers found responding to street hails in NYC.

That being said, I have the feeling(not confirmed) that due to Uber's rating system and having superior pay, that cabbies that can do customer service better are being lured away by Uber. I remember reading somewhere that Uber effectively fires any driver whose rating drops below a 4.4 out of 5 stars.

So a guy who's friendly and shows up with a Tesla model S* will retain his position in Uber while the grouch with an old smelly Crown Vic might as well stick to the cab side.

You're assuming that 'proper public transport' would be efficient. That's not a guarantee, seeing as how these micro-buses can fulfill numerous transport needs in flexible fashions.

Of course, perhaps you have a different picture in mind than a typical system operating large buses on fixed routes and schedules.

I'll also note that I know it's not about the USA, but the USA is most of my experience, which is why I said so.

That's the thing. It's not a proper 'bubble'. It's 'artificial property'. You literally hold 'nothing' real by owning a Taxi Medallion. One stroke of a pen by the government - whether by the regulatory body, legislature, or court, and your property is gone. *poof*. Worthless.

Which is why I mentioned that taxi companies are extremely protective of them.

Everything?
1. A smaller bus has better gas mileage.
2. A smaller bus can reach more areas
3. Unregulated driver is probably paid less(being paid more isn't a guarantee of improved quality)
4. A smaller bus is still efficient even with smaller loads.

We have a real problem in the USA that due to low ridership, many bus systems INCREASE the pollution on the roads, rather than decreasing it. Unless you have somewhere around 12-20 riders on a bus, it's not actually more efficient/less polluting than private autos.

The moment you create a medallion system where, by law or regulation, only a limited number of licenses are created you're deliberately creating artificial scarcity. Basic economics translates to that driving up prices.

The Taxi industry is a classic case of 'regulatory capture', where the regulations become less about protecting the consumer than favoring the existing players through a system of waivers and them just being able to adopt to the regulations gradually, while a new player has to go through a phone book of regulations, making trivial but still business killing violations extremely likely simply due to complexity.

NYC Taxi rules went far beyond basic safety.

Some areas are this way.

However, consider that the book value of NYC's medallions is well over ten billion dollars. You propose taking that artificial property away from them, or even significantly decreasing it's value, and you'll see hell.

The Taxi companies are very careful to court the local politicians to prevent that very occurrence.

That's the original argument behind places like NYC putting medallion systems in place. The idea is that by restricting the number of taxis, you get the following benefits:
1. People use taxis less, because there's just not enough supply. It means that they walk a little further, take the bus, or ride the subway.
2. Because there's not so much competition, Taxi drivers are guaranteed to make decent money and are able to afford all the regulation - things like car safety, age, equipment, etc...

That being said, I do believe that the system has degenerated too far into a protectionist system, where the idea is to protect the current players in the cab business, not customers.

Which is no longer the cheap transportation they can afford...

First, most cab drivers in NYC don't own a medallion. The cab company they're working for owns it and essentially rents it out to it's drivers. They also rent out the cab itself, but the cab is actually cheaper(rent wise) than the medallion. There's a limited number of 'owner-operator' medallions where one of the requirements is that the owner drive the cab for X hours/day on average, and they tend to be cheaper than the unrestricted ones.

Second, medallions, especially owner-operator ones, have generally appreciated in value sufficient that they're more often treated as part of the owner's retirement plan/investment than 'hope to break even'.

That's crashing right now, which kind of sucks for those that invested under the assumptions of the 'old system'.

No, they really aren't. Well, even a completely sign-less intersection should have people 'assume' yield signs, but you should never just blow through an intersection.

As for signalling, well, last night I had a bit of an issue with people in cars not signalling, so it's definitely not restricted to bicycle riders.

Sure, it could cause injury. But a car causes death at the same speeds, having orders of magnitude more mass. Personally, I just go for real-world statistics. The number of pedestrians injured in bicycle accidents are insignificant compared to the number and magnitude of car strikes.

Actually, you're simply assuming that, I suggest you stop with that assumption. Also, talk about blowing it out of proportion. I'd be insane to assume that. Yes - vehicle laws are made, for the most part, to try to keep everybody safe. What you're ignoring is that the law can always be adjusted to increase safety, efficiency, or whatever. So I'm free to talk about a hypothetical law that allows bicyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign.

Also, 'almost ran over' isn't 'run over'. I'm starting to wonder if you have an excessively wide definition of 'almost' given how often you use it.

No, I question the effectiveness of a law that nobody obeys. Whether following it or not would be safer is irrelevant when it's not obeyed by default. That's where you have to go back and assess what the law was trying to do, consider human nature, and try something different.

Other than that, it seems you're determined to read everything I write in the stupidest way possible. When I talk about cops 'enforce not being stupid', that roughly meant 'hand out tickets for particularly stupid/dangerous acts(that are also illegal for good reason)'. That means handing out tickets for violating the stop sign, but concentrating on those that violate the stop sign in a dangerous manner. By doing so you avoid pissing off the community too much.

So I suggest going back, rolling back your conclusions that lead to anger and such, reread my posts in a reasonable light, then come back.

Such as this. I proposed a change to the law, not that existing law shouldn't apply. For that matter, I even explained why the change would be irrelevant to the idiots, because they'd still be violating even my proposed changed law. It's all a balancing act anyways. Hell, maybe the law change combined with a media campaign advertising it would catch a the attentions of a few of them and get them to change their behavior.

Actually, the problem as you describe is that bicyclists are treating the signs as though they don't exist. They're not treating them as yield signs, they're ignoring them. Changing the law to allow riders to treat stop signs as yield signs would STILL have the described behavior be a violation.

*sigh* That's still nothing compared to being, you know, dead. I'm not much of a physical threat to you.

Also, I was taught when I was growing up that the laws of physics trump the laws of man - IE it's not a good idea to engage in behavior where I'm likely to be run over by a non-careful driver, even if I'd be technically in the correct(and them liable) by the law. I'd rather not be run over, thank you very much. ;)

... How? Of course, I don't live in an area with significant numbers of them. I avoid them just like I avoid cars. I'm continuously scanning for things to avoid, pedestrians are easy. Well, unless the crowd is too thick, but again, at that point I'm either riding elsewhere or walking.

On the generic tact, I'd think we'd see a lot more injury reports if cyclists were indeed a significant danger to pedestrians.

Well, you'll actually need to prove that the law is effective then, I guess. Because as you've mentioned, it's being completely non-followed right now. Having the cops enforce being not stupid for a bit might be more effective than trying to keep pushing 'stop means stop! Because bicyclists are ignoring stop signs and risking me run over them!'. I've already told you I'm not going into the intersection if I'm at risk of you running me over. I know quite a few riders that way. I'm sorry that you only remember the idiots, but I can't do anything about them.