I do not doubt for one second that driving is more dangerous than public transit.
But…
-
I have never had a psychotic man with a sword enter my car and tell all the passengers “shut the fuck up! You’re a bunch of breeders!”
-
I’ve never had a homeless drugged out woman stare at me while masturbating then try to kiss me in a car.
-
I’ve never had to change seats because of crack smoke in my car.
-
I’ve never had to avoid someone’s feces in my car.
-
I’ve never had a psychotic dude stare at me and mutter “fuck you” to me in my car, for no fucking reason.
Yet all these things happened to me in public transit.
Not that I’m against public transit, but safety can mean a lot of things and it’s not just a collision statistic. I’ve dealt with a lot of weird shit and women deal with all this and getting hit on a lot more.
Ive even seen children get threatened on a train by a psychotic homeless dude. Bad shit happens.
The article makes it extremely clear that they’re not just looking at collisions. It specifically mentions there are orders of magnitude fewer crimes on public transit than in private vehicle traffic.
Now imagine being a woman.
They mentioned it being worse for women.
-
Fascinating to me thats the perception in the first place. Here in Canada its at least acknowledged that driving is dangerous, but its seen as more convenient and a status symbol even though in many contexts its a lot less convenient.