Four or Five Questions

Prof. Ian Walker, head of psychology at Swansea University and trustee of Wheels for Wellbeing, posted this on BlueSky today:

Four questions for people who say their driving is essential:

1. why is it essential to drive THAT car?
2. do you drive it as little as possible?
3. why is it essential to drive it that fast?
4. why do you need priority over people who aren't driving?

Then three hours later he added:

PS If you're thinking I've said that nobody should ever drive anywhere ever then you're misreading this

Sally Watson added five hours later:

5. Have you chosen to live somewhere that makes it difficult to get around without a car when you had other housing possibilities?

Many of the responses to Walker were in the vein of "not all men"... i.e., "I'm one of the good ones" — my driving is essential [usually because they're disabled] and I don't speed and I give priority to people who aren't driving.

Why do they feel the need to answer? Everyone should know after all these years of social media that if that is what describes you in any circumstance like this (such as the effects of sexism or racism), you don't have to answer. The person who posted know it's "not all," and the other people reading don't know you so they don't care that you're a good person.

All Walker is doing is posing questions to get people to think about their behavior, and instead these people reflexively defend. Why are they reading posts from a person like him if they don't want to think about the things he writes about?

People are so weird. Something, as they say, is wrong on the internet.