A huge problem in making punishments fit the crimes, so to speak, is the disgracefully inadequate public transportation system. If many-to-most drivers had an alternative of a decent system, them more severe punishments could be imposed sooner.
Tangentially related are road systems -- ever growing volumes and poor design surely factoring into road rage and other failures behind the wheel. (I suppose I should add inappropriate phone use there.)
Maybe the personal vehicle ownership thing's gotten out of hand over the years and decades...

As someone who lives along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, I think the constant reckless driving by the privileged young men who suspiciously own BMWs & Benzes needs to be punished by vehicle impound and imprisonment of the person whose name is on the title (their fathers). These a**holes are a menace themselves and others.

This is so relevant here in Philly where a drunk driver plowed through plastic bollards that aren't actual bike lane infrastructure and murdered a Pediatrician biking home. Also love this article and its reminder that traffic stops are ill deterrents to the rich/white and punitive to the poor/black. Concrete and traffic calming are the only way.

This is so sad, yet true. The problem is the US is all about the driving culture, so any backlash or push against the culture is going to be faced with a fierce opposition.

I ride my son to school from central Brooklyn to lower Manhattan daily and have only been doing so since early September. I've had two incidents where people in cars were overly aggressive against us for being in the road when preparing to make a turn. One incident involved a woman brake checking me - mind you I have my 7 year old son on the back of my bike. You would think that might cool their jets, but it's NYC and nearly every car is a single person driving themselves to work or whatever and they drive like they have to have been there 10 minutes ago. It's insane and there is little enforcement.

I love this idea of consequences as part of the built environment, and I wish the people who were making some of these new bike lane decisions were engaging in consequential thinking. We'd all be safer. Here in Vermont we had a new law take effect July 1 that a vehicle must give 4' or more when passing a cyclist or pedestrian. Sounds like a great idea. Except that many roads are just two lanes, and the "bike lane" is a narrow shoulder. Where I live, the main road hardly has any passing zones because of the rolling hills and curves. The limit is 50 mph and many people routinely go 55+. Slowing down behind a bike and waiting for a really clear line of sight could take more than a mile. So giving that much space passing is simultaneously necessary and terrifying. I find lately I just hope no one is coming as I pull around.

I've also found it makes me much angrier as a driver. I don't want to brush too close to a bike: the consequences are very bad. I definitely don't want to have a head-on collision with oncoming traffic b/c I went wide around a bike, or someone coming towards me has done that. Those consequences are horrific. I'm angry that legislators think passing a law like this is the solution, when the actual solution with the best outcome is changing our built environment. A local non-profit is hoping to install a multi-use path separate but alongside our busy local road, using the state right of way. Somehow the estimated timeline for doing so is longer than it took NASA to get us to the moon.

During the early COVID days we weren't allowed inside our daycare building, all drop-offs happened at the door. We used to be allowed to stash strollers inside the building. Now we instead walked our empty strollers back home.

I remarked to a bicycle-enthusiast friend how weird it felt to push an empty stroller home. His reply, "Look around at all these drivers moving around in their empty cars. Do you think they feel weird about it?"

We should make them feel weird about it.