Comment by teekert

I once rented a small Kia (cheapest car I could get), drove from Houston to New Orleans and back. Apart from my eye balls popping at the sight of all the weapons on people and in shops, seeing some of the most obese people ever in my life (even in commercials it's ok to be obese), the 3x portions of all the food, and the variety of [drive-through-x for x in [ATM, pharmacy, funeral, etc]], I was in constant fear of someone not noticing my tiny Kia and driving over me.

I was stopped by police while taking a walk and shouted at and treated like a criminal when walking in to a Wendy's drive through (even though only the drive through was open at that hour!) But, other than that, the people were incredibly kind! The culture shock though... It is very hard to imagine if you've never been there. I think as someone from western Europe I have more in common with people from Thailand.

Cars are really a must-have in the US, biking is just a hobby. It's more the other way around here. Everybody is a "cyclist" (not even a word we use here) some of the time. It means "carists" have respect and understanding of how it is on a bike, and drive carefully around people on bikes (in general, there are always exceptions). Our infrastructure and law demands it (ie, a car-owner is always financially responsible in an accident with a pedestrian or person on a bike here, insurance for this is mandatory).

Here people in massive US sized cars are really seen as anti-social, in general I'd say. Hope it stays that way. For now I think some of those cars can't even fit into city-center parking garages here (ie [0], btw if you look around there you see separated bike lanes, crossings where pedestrians always have priority (ignoring that is instant fine), very narrow lanes for cars. Go forward in time and you see they added "statues" that look like they are about to cross the street to make drivers aware of this.)

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/tVaeHa4SNAz3iQ4x9