[HN Gopher] Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
___________________________________________________________________
Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
Author : freedomben
Score : 191 points
Date : 2023-10-12 17:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| How quickly we forget history. Horses were also lethal. Look at
| the number of people killed by horses, either being thrown from
| them, trampled by them, or run over by carts pulled by horses.
| Streets were not some utopic garden of pedestrian safety prior to
| cars. There were no jaywalking rules because society had evolved
| over thousands of years being rather acceptive of horse-related
| dangers. When the new device came around, no matter its relative
| danger, then new regulations were needed. There were once almost
| zero regs regarding candles, objects that killed thousands almost
| daily by fire. But soon after electricity came along then we
| suddenly needed rules to manage the new "dangerous" thing despite
| its use preventing untold thousands of deaths.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Actually, it wasn't new technology -- the 20th century saw a
| _massive_ shift in expectations around health and safety and it
| reverberated through every part of life, regardless of whether
| new technology was involved.
|
| It had more to do with secular humanism almost fully
| supplanting diverse traditional value systems at the government
| level, and with capitalism's insatiable hunger for living
| bodies that can produce and consume widgets.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Rephrasing the headline for honesty:
|
| "Automakers accept the responsibility for the thing they've
| created and attempt to improve safety outcomes in a patchwork
| regulatory environment dominated by gridlock and disagreement."
| Fricken wrote:
| Quite the opposite. Automakers passed the responsibility on
| to people who don't even drive.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Except for the speeding laws. And the red
| light/intersection/right-of-way laws. And the drunk driving
| laws. Those laws placed plenty of the responsibility on
| drivers.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| But they did not make the cars inherently safer. A red
| light does not stop a driver from driving through a
| pedestrian crossing when people are there.
|
| Speeding laws do little for the bikers in unsegregated
| bike lanes, mere inches away from an inattentive driver.
| wredue wrote:
| Maybe I'm just thinking outside of the box here, but how
| exactly do 3,000 lbs pieces of metal and glass become
| safer for people crossing the street in an addressable
| way by auto makers, when it's the buyers demanding larger
| and larger vehicles?
|
| On segregated bike lanes, I'm afraid to tell you,
| cyclists don't use them anyway, so why on earth should
| anyone focus on putting them in?
| alexanderchr wrote:
| Oh cyclists do use segregated lanes, they just have to be
| done properly. Primarily they need to be safer than
| sharing the road with heavy vehicles, something that most
| bike lines spectacularly fail at.
| maest wrote:
| > cyclists don't use them anyway
|
| This claim is so ridiculous is invalidates everything
| else you might be trying to argue, come on.
| wredue wrote:
| My dash cam filled with video of cyclists riding in a car
| lane beside a protected bike lane, and otherwise ignoring
| signage (stop and yield signs, signs stating road
| exceptions where bikes must use and share the sidewalk
| with pedestrians instead of the road) is definitely not
| ridiculous.
|
| Also hilariously "why do cyclists not use the bike lanes"
| is a top alternative question result when searching bike
| lanes. Clearly this is not some random anecdote. Cyclists
| frequently do not use the bike lanes, and I am absolutely
| not anywhere near the only person to observe this
| frequently.
|
| Never mind that:
|
| -Protected bike lane implementations often congest and
| slow traffic, which increases idling and carbon emissions
| no matter how many people say they'll bike if it was
| safer. They won't get their fat ass off out of bed 40
| minutes earlier. You're kidding yourself.
|
| -in colder climates, they're useless for 50% of the year
| and exceptionally increase carbon footprints
|
| -some cities don't actually observe reduced injuries from
| protected bike lanes (often because cyclists are
| extremely prone to ignoring the rules of the road), and
| cyclists disregard their own safety and get slapped by a
| turning vehicle, for example. We often see the excuse
| that "cars should pay more attention" and they should,
| but also, motorcyclists have built a sentiment that you
| have to "ride like you're invisible", whereas cyclists
| tend to "ride like you're the king of the road". This is
| not just a car problem, but an arrogant community with a
| lack of self preservation problem.
| drunner wrote:
| Same with the oil industry and `reduce, reuse, recycle`
| nonsense. Like I wouldn't need to be concerned with that if
| your product didn't individually wrap every item I can
| purchase in a store.
| talideon wrote:
| Reduce, reuse, recycle isn't nonsense, but good sense.
| What _is_ nonsense is how the fossil fuel industry uses
| it as a shield to avoid taking responsibility for the
| damage they do to the world.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Automakers passed the responsibility on to people who
| don't even drive.
|
| We have roads. They are shared by all users and taxpayers
| for common purposes. The responsibilities are likewise
| shared. The available technology changed. We can't expect
| to force the prior status quo to continue to exist in the
| face of available technological changes.
|
| This article points out that attitudes like your similarly
| existed at the time and contributed to the apparent delay
| in creating a reasonable solution.
| Fricken wrote:
| Going whole hog with an unsustainable technology is not
| reasonable, never was.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Okay.. so what if they skipped gasoline and built
| electric from the start? That's "sustainable" according
| to some modern definition. What should we have done then?
|
| Meanwhile.. take a look at the way life was 120 years
| ago. Are you eager to go back to the rural life of farm
| labor that implied for the majority of Americans?
| Fricken wrote:
| Sounds better than going forward 120 years into the
| future at the rate we're going.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I've noticed that people who don't drive usually don't have
| frame of reference of what cars are capable of, and usually
| don't understand all of the simultaneous requirements that
| must be fulfilled by drivers. So you get pedestrians who
| don't understand what the stopping distance of a car is, or
| pedestrians who don't recognize dangerous situations that
| they create.
|
| In other words, people with driving experience are usually
| safer, more considerate as pedestrians.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > In other words, people with driving experience are
| usually safer, more considerate as pedestrians.
|
| A great example of this is pedestrians in San Francisco.
| I've never seen more entitled oblivious assholes that
| pedestrians there. They seem to have no situational
| awareness and blithely jump out in front of cars. One of
| my favorite stupid pedestrian tricks is them jumping out
| from between parked cars crossing without so much as
| turning their heads to look for cars.
|
| Thankfully I don't have to deal with SF pedestrians very
| often. The city very obviously hates cars but is
| decidedly dependent on them existing. The pedestrians
| there act dumber than a deer in the rut.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Cambridge/Boston is the same.
|
| Another one that baffles me is seeing people ride E-bikes
| and scooters on streets with cars or worse, walk ways and
| trails where other motor vehicles are not allowed.
|
| These are not environmentally friendly alternatives. They
| are Chinesium E-waste with low quality batteries. They
| will be driven for one or two years then put in a closet
| and forgotten about. When they do get used they typically
| cause more greenhouse gasses from regular cars that have
| to yield to them, or stop busy intersections so they can
| cross.
|
| As an avid dirt bike rider it is especially frustrating
| because these are usually the same people (yuppies) who
| would call the police on me if I took my 17 year old
| 200cc dirt bike down the same trails.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| "Another one that baffles me is seeing people ride
| E-bikes and scooters on streets with cars or worse, walk
| ways and trails where other motor vehicles are not
| allowed."
|
| Wait, where is the place e-bikes should be in your
| opinion, then?
|
| At least where I live, the laws are quite clear which
| type of vehicles are allowed where. The laws here
| generally allow a pedal-assisted ebike to ride whereever
| a non-electric bicycle may ride. The pedal-assist is
| important.
|
| So yeah, you probably can't ride your motorbike down a
| pedestrian path -\\_(tsu)_/-
| zelon88 wrote:
| Nowhere but private property or registered OHRV trail.
| Same as a 4 wheeler.
|
| They are bad for the environment. Worse then small
| motorcycles. Most of the time when you see them they are
| crossing 8 lane intersections with the walk signal and
| there are 25 cars idling waiting for them to GTFO the
| way. If that person were riding a conventional motorcycle
| they would be part of traffic and contributing
| financially to support the infrastructure they require.
| Rather they are leeches. Slowing everything down and
| giving untrained motorists unregulated motor vehicles.
|
| They are made to last 2 years tops and will need new
| batteries shipped from China. Chances are the owners will
| outgrow them or get bored. Then they will end up in a
| land fill instead of a junkyard like normal motorcycles
| that get recycled almost completely.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I see plenty of people who are drivers also clearly
| incapable of meeting or understanding all the
| simultaneous requirements that must be fulfilled by
| drivers.
|
| Looking up from their phones being at the top of the
| list.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| I've noticed that people who don't walk or bike usually
| don't have frame of reference of what cars are capable
| of, and usually don't understand all of the simultaneous
| requirements that must be fulfilled by pedestrians and
| cyclists.
|
| So you get drivers who don't understand that they need to
| look both ways even on a one way street, because someone
| might be using the sidewalk, drivers that don't pay
| attention to walk signals at intersections, drivers that
| speed down low traffic streets, or drivers who don't
| recognize dangerous situations that they create.
|
| I own a car, but I bike and walk a lot. The person
| driving the mutli-ton machine should carry the
| responsibility of operating it safely. It _is_ a big
| responsibility, but it is their responsibility to not
| hurt or threaten others.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I understand the reasoning behind wanting this to be some
| kind of David v Goliath story, but this is the real
| world.
|
| Cars don't stop as fast as feet. Everybody is a
| pedestrian sometimes but not everyone is a driver. You
| can say accountability belongs to one or the other but
| one is gonna walk away and one isn't. Personal
| responsibility should take precedent over right of way.
|
| You cannot regulate or control others, but you can
| regulate yourself.
|
| I'm fine with cars having the right of way. They pay for
| the roads with sales tax, excise tax, gas tax,
| registration fees, inspection fees, insurance that pays
| for all kinds of things, and the car itself which is a
| huge investment into the economy. Quite literally it is
| the drivers who pay for the infrastructure used by
| everyone on the road. They earned it.
| tim333 wrote:
| The UK has no jaywalking laws (apart from full motorways) and
| about 1/3 the pedestrian deaths of the US
| (https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/10/exactly-how-far-u-
| s-s...). There are other ways to do things.
| seanr88 wrote:
| No other country has anything to teach the USA. The USA is
| unique and special for a large number of reasons and so
| foreign methods won't work here. If I recall they even drive
| on the other side of the road in the UK, that will never
| catch on here.
| alexfoo wrote:
| You could phase it in slowly like Ireland did.
|
| Cars on a Monday. Lorries and HGVs switch on Wednesday. All
| remaining traffic on the Friday.
|
| Done!
| talideon wrote:
| Citation, please?
| alexfoo wrote:
| https://www.engineersireland.ie/Engineers-
| Journal/Civil/coul...
|
| (Note that it was a follow up to patently satirical
| parent comment, but it does remind me that Sweden made
| the change on 3rd Sep 1967)
| cfstras wrote:
| is this satire? I honestly can't tell.
| talideon wrote:
| It is, and blatently so.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Germany always is doing super well in these rankings. Yet
| 2/3rd of the highways have no speed limit at all. It's of
| course unsurprising: all cars are driving in the same
| direction on the highway so head-on collisions on the
| highways are extremely rare.
|
| Also pedestrian deaths on the highway: the number is so
| minuscule it doesn't even register.
| hkwerf wrote:
| However, crossing the autobahn on foot is actually
| forbidden (SS 18, Absatz 9, StVO), so there is a
| "jaywalking" law in Germany that probably helps reducing
| pedestrian deaths on the highway.
| tim333 wrote:
| Germany does have jaywalking laws though. I'm not sure
| about Holland which has very low pedestrian deaths.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Only for red traffic lights and marked pedesteian
| crossings. Everything else is fair game, as it should be.
| One has to love the fact that in the land of the free one
| cannot cross a street where one wants.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "One has to love the fact that in the land of the free
| one cannot cross a street where one wants."
|
| This is only really true for a very small number of
| places in the US, even smaller when you consider the lack
| of enforcement.
| wil421 wrote:
| The land of the free has 50 states with various laws.
| Luckily mine is freer than most and we have no jaywalking
| laws. However, the pedestrian must yield to traffic but
| is allowed to cross when it's safe. I suppose a city
| could enforce their own traffic law and make it illegal.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> head-on collisions on the highways are extremely rare.
|
| And they aren't as dangerous as many would think. Cars have
| done lots to improve such collisions (airbags, crumple
| zones). A head-on collision between cars is still two
| relatively lightweight objects. Hit a concrete wall,
| overpass support, cliff or tree and you are going up
| against an object that makes a care look like tinfoil. The
| head-on seems bad, but it is more survivable than having
| your car bisected around a tree trunk. Or get pulled under
| a big truck.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Might I point out that driver testing is more stringent in
| most of those countries. This can also partially explain
| lower vehicle fatalities as well, even on higher speed roads
| like the autobahn. Road design and other technical factors
| can help, but at the end of the day, ignorant or stupid
| people will still make stupid choices.
|
| Edit: why disagree? We should be focusing on education and
| testing for the best improvement as it will be beneficial to
| multiple problems.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I immediately thought of this as well (horse sleigh scene in
| Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment comes to mind, I mean,
| neither of us has experience with horse-first transportation, I
| assume).
|
| I just arrived at a different conclusion. To compare the number
| of people killed by automobiles and their infrastructure,
| compared to the numbers for people killed by horses (I can't
| give precise numbers for either, I'll admit that) - that
| comparison seems absurd to me.
|
| In other words, relative to the population in urban areas, I'd
| be very surprised if horses causes as many deaths as
| cars+roads.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| You surely have to compare the rates per horse not per unit
| population.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| depends, I don't think it's even possible to have as many
| horses on earth as there are automobiles :)
| Tade0 wrote:
| Well, the "village idiot" was usually one not because he was
| born this way and his parents cared for him until adulthood,
| but because he got kicked by a horse/cow and survived, albeit
| with brain damage.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| > There were once almost zero regs regarding candles, objects
| that killed thousands almost daily by fire.
|
| "killed thousands almost daily"...source for this?
| Tade0 wrote:
| A modern equivalent of this is the death toll from kerosene
| heaters/lamps, which are considerably safer than candles:
|
| https://www.hindustantimes.com/kolkata/two-west-bengal-
| toddl...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One famous person who was killed by a horse cart was the
| Nobelist Pierre Curie.
|
| In 1906 no less, at the twilight of the long horse cart era.
| sparrish wrote:
| To protect pedestrians... oh, those evil automakers.
| stuaxo wrote:
| In other countries we manage without this.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| And thank goodness someone did. Although, my boss getting
| ticketed for walking across an _empty_ downtown LA street just
| shows it 's still ripe for abuse. And the most ironic part was
| the cop running his car up onto the sidewalk to jump out and
| write the ticket.
| leptons wrote:
| California has a new jaywalking law
|
| https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/californias-new-2023...
|
| _" Starting Jan. 1, the Freedom to Walk Act officially becomes
| law, allowing pedestrians in California to jaywalk without fear
| of a ticket, as long as it's safe."_
|
| Also, most people including police misunderstand how jaywalking
| works, or is intended to work. Nobody should be expected to
| walk a mile out of their way simply because that is where the
| only crosswalk is. Jaywalking is technically only possible
| _near a crosswalk_ , so if the pedestrian was near a crosswalk
| but didn't use it, then that would be jaywalking. If the
| pedestrian is say half a mile from the nearest crosswalk, they
| are free to cross so long as they yield to oncoming traffic and
| don't cross dangerously.
| f4c39012 wrote:
| the perils of "big car"
| jowea wrote:
| > A hundred years ago, if you were a pedestrian, crossing the
| street was simple: You walked across it.
|
| What about horses and carriages?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| You looked both ways, and probably heard them coming even if
| not. You didn't get a ticket for not walking to the block
| corner.
| pengaru wrote:
| PSA:
|
| On January 1, 2023, jaywalking became legal in California with
| the Freedom to Walk Act, reversing what was once one of the
| strictest laws against this practice in the country. Now,
| pedestrians can cross the road at places other than intersections
| and crosswalks without penalty.
| rurban wrote:
| Because of this incident:
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-cops-scrutiny-teens-jay...
| pengaru wrote:
| Here's the letter of the bill as well:
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml.
| ..
| cjensen wrote:
| The Library of Congress has a great film taken from the front of
| a cable car in pre-fire San Francisco [1]. It's absolutely
| terrifying to see how unsafe the streets were. It wasn't just
| cars either: horse-drawn carts dart in and out of traffic just as
| cars did, pedestrians cross at-will in front of all vehicles, and
| at one points kids mess about jumping on the back of vehicles.
|
| It's obvious major regulation was needed, and not just for
| pedestrians. Pretend cars didn't exist on that street for a
| moment and think about the changes needed to make it safe: carts
| needed lanes and rules for changing lanes, cable cars needed
| dedicated lanes, intersections needed a system to allow traffic
| from multiple directions, and pedestrians were being a bit too
| free with their judgement calls.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINgSqEU26A
| paldepind2 wrote:
| Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. It looks a bit
| chaotic but honestly not _that_ unsafe to me as everything is
| going quite slow. It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared
| space" which is a recent concept that is actually claimed to
| make streets safer.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I think it comes down to things like speed. If we accept that
| the road is a place to be able to quickly move a lot of
| vehicles, then that just isn't a safe place for pedestrians.
|
| If we go back to lower speeds then maybe it could be
| manageable in a same way.
|
| But as it is actually used now for 3000 pound vehicles to
| zoom about in, it makes no sense for pedestrians to be
| intersecting and sharing the space at all. Just due to the
| physics of collisions between a person and a vehicle. I don't
| think slow vehicles is a good solution because we do need to
| get places.
|
| I think an actual good (but very expensive) solution is for
| new cities to be designed differently in several ways. One of
| which is for roads to be only for small autonomous vehicles
| and entirely separate from pedestrian paths. To make that
| reasonably practical you need some other core assumptions to
| be changed. And also a totally new development probably.
| alexfoo wrote:
| Luckily some countries don't think about it like this. Many
| European countries put pedestrians first in cities and
| towns.
|
| Cars can go "quickly" between cities and towns but around
| pedestrians they really do need to slow down.
|
| I wouldn't want to live anywhere where the car is king and
| everyone else must cede to its ultimate priority.
|
| People need to give themselves more time to get places,
| rather than thinking they are far more important than the
| greatly decreased safety of others.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Cars are perfectly capable of going slow...
|
| The American mindset is not. I swear that a huge portion
| of people in the US have been propagandized to believe
| that the car is king and that any idea to the contrary is
| heresy punishable by death under the front bumper of a
| Ford F-250 jacked up 3 feet higher.
| yowzadave wrote:
| Bingo--this argument (like many others) is one that
| doesn't require us to speculate or to invent new ways of
| building cities. We just need to look around the world to
| cities that have dealt with this problem successfully,
| and learn from their examples.
| snthd wrote:
| The Dutch do road design/purpose very well, and they didn't
| start with a new development.
|
| https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/sustainable-
| sa...
|
| https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-
| downloads/dv3_en_ko... (pdf)
| Animats wrote:
| > It reminds me a bit of the idea of "shared space" which is
| a recent concept that is actually claimed to make streets
| safer.
|
| It's a 1990s concept from France. It was implemented in the
| 1990s on Theater Way in Redwood City. CA, and did not work
| well. One side of the street has a curb, but the other side
| does not. Vehicle traffic was allowed, and people could get
| out in front of the movie theater. The other side of the
| street, with no barriers, had cafe tables.[1]
|
| This worked badly. The cafe tables kept creeping outward.
| Some auto traffic was too fast. During COVID, the outside
| seating kept growing into the roadway. Plastic bollards were
| erected to discourage non-delivery traffic. Overpowered
| electric bikes zooming through became an problem. Police cars
| were sometimes deployed to block the roadway. Then plastic
| Jersey-type barriers were set up at one end, but not filled
| with water, so they could be moved for deliveries. Currently,
| one end of the street has been torn up for installation of
| some kind of raiseable barrier.
|
| [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.48560402,-122.22909676,5
| .07...
| mlazos wrote:
| Characterizing that as terrifying is a bit hyperbolic. It looks
| like Europe in the present day. If cars were moving slower it
| would be much easier to be a pedestrian safely
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I was strongly reminded of the driving in Italy, except much
| slower (and more horses).
| lkramer wrote:
| As someone who lives and occasionally drives in London that
| feels like my daily life to be honest..
| limitedfrom wrote:
| It's chaotic, but not terrifying or likely that dangerous given
| the speed / injury/deaths are very unlikely at such low
| speeds[1]. Vehicles are moving at near-walking speeds, and even
| with the added weight of carriages/cars, there's a lot of
| reaction time.
|
| [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds
| freedomben wrote:
| More of a meta-comment, but somebody working with AI to
| upscale/enhance images/videos ought to take a crack at making
| that picture quality better. Would be fascinating to generate a
| reasonable audio track as well of what it would have sounded
| like, especially as cars/motors accelerate, people shout
| things, etc. Certainly not an easy task, but would be super
| cool
| piscisaureus wrote:
| https://youtu.be/VO_1AdYRGW8?si=0q_u8ASJKn3YXGdd
| joshuahaglund wrote:
| Looks fine to me. I think the unsafe thing is speed. Top speed
| of a cable car is 9.5mph. No vehicle appears to be going over
| 15mph. There's a cyclist pretty casually keeping pace with the
| cars. https://youtu.be/uINgSqEU26A?t=153
|
| From https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-
| seve...
|
| "Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a
| pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed
| of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90%
| at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches
| 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph,
| 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph."
|
| Slower speeds mean a collision is less likely to occur. We're
| pretty good at moving in crowded conditions without frequent
| collisions at low speeds. See also NYC sidewalks.
|
| Also, it appears the video is slowed down. I played at 1.5
| speed to make my estimates
| jcynix wrote:
| If you cross the street "near" a red traffic light, that costs
| you 5EUR in Germany. If you admit that you did it intentionally,
| the ticket price doubles. Happened to my wife some years ago when
| walking to a bus stop on the other side of the street. How did
| the cop know that it was intentional? She remarked that there was
| no car in sight, neither left nor right, on a straight road in
| town.
|
| Oh, and what's the definition of "near" you may ask? While in
| Germany almost everything is regulated in detail, the definition
| of "near" is up to the cop.
|
| ObJoke: it's midnight somewhere in Europe and no car in sight,
| but some people are waiting for the traffic light to turn green?
| You can bet that these are Germans ;-0
| macleginn wrote:
| As many other aspects of the German ethos, this seems to be
| dying away. I live near Stuttgart, jaywalking is rampant, and
| nobody cares; in two years, I haven't seen a traffic cop
| anywhere except for accident sites.
| watwut wrote:
| It was not near crossing, surely :)
|
| But like, German do not actually respect all the posted
| rules. Nec ver did.
| eimrine wrote:
| "I was not interested to look for any car in sight because I
| would like to save 5EUR for the case of being caught"
| aurea wrote:
| While I "jailwalk" pretty much all the time (in Europe),
| nighttime is when I am the most reluctant to do so. Poor
| visibility and higher chance of meeting a drunk driver.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I am all for a pedestrian focused city, BUT cars will likely
| never fully disappear for emergencies, shipments, and people with
| disabilities.
|
| In this particular situation I feel like while the Automakers had
| ulterior motives it was ultimately a net good. Pretty sure we
| know who will win in in a car vs a human body.
|
| Also as much as I do believe in pedestrian focused cities, that
| isn't the norm in the US and likely will never be and will
| instead of smaller pockets (I mean it just makes sense given how
| large the country is). We should have more car free zones, but
| where we have to share the space it makes sense.
|
| I am not going to sit here on a high horse and say I don't jay
| walk. But I do it knowing the risks.
| stuaxo wrote:
| In other places cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians even
| on non crossings, in practice the penalties for hitting and
| killing them are way lower than killing a person in another
| situation.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Pedestrians should also take responsibility for acting
| dangerously.
|
| To me it's the same if a driver cuts in front of me and then
| slams on their brakes, there was nothing I could have done
| about crashing into them no matter how safely I was driving.
|
| If a person runs in front of a moving vehicle it shouldn't be
| the driver responsible if they basically cut the car off. A
| car can't stop on a dime.
|
| Drivers should be held responsible if they were clearly
| driving in an unsafe manner, but we have the share the space
| somehow.
| JWLong wrote:
| > To me it's the same if a driver cuts in front of me and
| then slams on their brakes, there was nothing I could have
| done about crashing into them no matter how safely I was
| driving.
|
| It shouldn't be. The risk to you is much greater if you hit
| another car, than if you hit a pedestrian.
|
| Addtionally, while you are right that a car can't stop on a
| dime, speeds have a large influence on the size of coin
| needed for a car to come to a complete stop. And I think we
| both know that they are not linear.
|
| Over the decades, posted speed limits in North America have
| only increased.
|
| https://www.brake.org.uk/files/images/Speed/Infographics/_l
| a...
| nerdjon wrote:
| > It shouldn't be. The risk to you is much greater if you
| hit another car, than if you hit a pedestrian.
|
| True but the idea to me is the same for this particular
| situation, it is _something_ running in front of a moving
| vehicle with little to no chance to do anything about it
| as a driver.
|
| You are right for speeds and too many people drive too
| fast in an urban setting, but even a reasonable driving
| at 20-30 mph can still cause damage.
|
| All I am trying to say here is everyone take
| responsibility for their own actions and don't assume
| that just because you are a pedestrian that cars are
| going to get out of your way since they may not
| physically be able too. Same for drivers, don't assume
| you have the right away because you are in a car.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > A car can't stop on a dime.
|
| That sounds like a you problem. Why is it up to the
| pedestrian (who may have never driven a motor vehicle) to
| anticipate the performance characteristics of this large
| metal vehicle in the street ?
|
| The UK already has designated areas with no pedestrians
| ("Motorways" ~= US highways [?]) and it has expended
| considerable resources closing or diverting at-grade
| crossings of railways (which obviously have a more extreme
| version of the "can't stop on a dime" problem). You aren't
| allowed on most airstrips at all, without special
| permission, in a vehicle or otherwise - so that mostly
| leaves cars hitting pedestrians, seems robustly like that's
| actually always the car driver's fault even if (as we see
| for "Jay-walking") they'd prefer to pretend it was not.
| nerdjon wrote:
| > Why is it up to the pedestrian (who may have never
| driven a motor vehicle) to anticipate the performance
| characteristics of this large metal vehicle in the street
| ?
|
| Because we have to share the space?
|
| Replace car with bike, and while the risk to the person
| walking is far less than with a car it's the same idea.
|
| Just pay attention and realize that you can stop on a
| dime (at least if your walking) as a human and something
| on wheels cannot. If you are a teenager and older and you
| don't know that a car can't stop on a dime and you run in
| front of one I don't know what to tell you, you should
| wether or not you have ever driven a car before.
|
| Ignorance is not a defense in my opinion.
|
| Edit: Also I am going to point out that any of our
| opinions on who is at fault, laws, or whatever has zero
| impact if your in the hospital or dead because you did
| something stupid as a pedestrian.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "That sounds like a you problem. Why is it up to the
| pedestrian (who may have never driven a motor vehicle) to
| anticipate the performance characteristics of this large
| metal vehicle in the street ?"
|
| That is a pretty absurd take.
|
| Knowing that a ton of steel moving fast can kill you is a
| necessary knowledge in modern civilization, much like
| knowing that an enraged mammoth can kill you was a
| necessary knowledge in the Stone Age. And normal parents
| teach their children how to be safe(r) in the street
| long, long before they could possibly become drivers
| themselves.
| talideon wrote:
| If you can't "stop in a dime" somewhere you might expect
| pedestrians, either the speed limit is too high or you're
| speeding.
|
| You mention drivers cutting in front and pedestrians
| running out into the street, but not drivers who aren't
| paying due attention or who think that amber lights are
| advisory at best and a signal to speed up at worst. I'm one
| of those saps who actually crosses at pedestrian crossings
| even where there's no obligation for me to do so, and I
| make a habit of counting how many cars run an amber light
| when I come to traffic lights. I've found that you can
| guarantee at least one will, even if the speed limit is low
| enough that they could literally "stop on a dime", and more
| than likely, you'll get up to three doing the same.
|
| And then there's the number of times I've seen people run
| reds, including at a pedestrian crossing where I wouldn't
| be alive if I didn't trust drivers.
|
| So, I'll have more sympathy for drivers when they stop
| running lights, and until then I'll continue to turn my
| head towards oncoming traffic when I cross so the driver
| who might end up killing me has my face seared into their
| brain.
| sillystuff wrote:
| In California it was the same. A pedestrian is the vulnerable
| party in any interaction with a motor vehicle, so it makes
| sense that the pedestrian always has the right of way. But,
| it was still illegal for a pedestrian to "jay walk". So, if
| you, as a driver, hit a pedestrian crossing outside an
| intersection, both you and the pedestrian could both be
| cited. This year, "jay walking" was decriminalized in
| California-- and, it turns out pedestrians still try to avoid
| being maimed/killed by cars even without the threat of fines.
|
| Even with right of way, and decriminalizing "jay walking",
| the pedestrian can still be assigned some portion of fault in
| an accident, which e.g., may prevent the pedestrian from
| successfully suing the driver to pay for medical costs.
| csswizardry wrote:
| As a Brit, 'jaywalking' is so alien to me. I once jaywalked in
| front of a police car who stopped and waved/signalled me across
| the road! Whenever I'm overseas, crossing anywhere when the road
| is clear is second nature to me and I have to remind myself not
| to. Conversely, you can always spot a foreigner in the UK:
| they're the ones waiting for the signal at a deserted crossing at
| 2am.
| leni536 wrote:
| To be fair in the UK pedestrian traffic lights at intersections
| are absolutely horrible, feels like they are never ever green.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| There are not many countries in Europe that have jaywalking
| laws. Only Germany and Poland come to mind.
| input_sh wrote:
| I'd say the most common rule across Europe would be "you can
| cross anywhere as long as you're not within X meters of a
| crosswalk". As in if there is one within your line of sight,
| it's there for a reason and you should use it. If there isn't
| one, cross away.
| xyzelement wrote:
| In the US this is very regional. In NYC, you never weight a
| light. In places like Seattle (just as one example) and lots of
| other places, it's considered very rude to not wait.
| kzrdude wrote:
| I'll defend the waiting people: If I don't know the city or
| country that well, then I'm more careful.
| retrac wrote:
| Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal crime.
| There are jurisdictions in the USA where it's legal. And it's
| legal here in Canada. Even the term stands out -- I'm familiar
| with "jaywalking" but you only use a term for it if it's illegal.
| We just call it "crossing the street", or "impeding the flow of
| traffic", depending how you do it. (It's not exactly a free for
| all: in Ontario there is still a requirement for pedestrians to
| use pedestrian crossings, and to follow stop lights, where those
| are installed.)
|
| There are too many cases where it's perfectly safe and reasonable
| to do that I see any sense in making it illegal. But it is, to be
| fair, very dangerous in some cases. It's hard to judge how fast a
| car is moving, sometimes you simply don't see one coming at you.
| Toronto Police call this a "mid-block crossing", and in the city,
| they account for a significant % of all pedestrian fatalities,
| particularly at night, and in busy traffic.
| flockonus wrote:
| Definitely not true for Canada as a whole, i know of several
| people who got jaywalking tickets in BC. Example:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jaywalkers-c...
| retrac wrote:
| Yes, not obeying pedestrian signalling is one of the
| exceptions. I'd say that's fairly reasonable -- if people
| cross freely against indicators it messes with the flow of
| traffic. I've only seen this actually enforced with examples
| like in the article, outside a busy transit station.
| seanr88 wrote:
| Even the concept that the flow of traffic is more important
| than the pedestrian's flow is indicative of the change in
| attitude. Somehow the car has come to be most important
| while the pedestrian is a nuisance. Both own and pay for
| the road but the pedestrian is a second class citizen
| (obviously some people will moan on about road tax and fuel
| tax, but these taxes don't come close to paying for the
| road infrastructure, I doubt they would even pay the rent
| on the area dedicated to roads in one major city - say
| NYC).
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Even the concept that the flow of traffic is more
| important than the pedestrian's flow"
|
| Is it? It seems like in the example, both parties are
| following a signal. Cars must yield to pedestrians in
| crosswalks. Sure, some places have jaywalking laws when
| not in a crosswalk (in some cases including
| implied/unmarked crosswalks), and most require impeding
| traffic as a component. A few places could move towards
| common sense of adding impeding traffic as a requirement.
| Nothing I've seen says pedestrians are second class. It's
| like saying that one should be allowed to run a red
| light. Everyone can wait their turn.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Look at the amount of road space, infrastructure,
| resources devoted to cars vs. pedestrians. The typical
| way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway for example
| is via a bridge - the pedestrian has to put up with going
| up and down the stairs. Pedestrians typically have to go
| out of their way to cross streets even at level. Traffic
| lights have "beg buttons" for pedestrians to use, god
| forbid they interrupt the flow of first-class car drivers
| for a minute more than necessary.
|
| Pedestrians are totally treated as second-class almost
| everywhere.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "The typical way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway
| for example is via a bridge"
|
| I'm not sure where you're from, but I have seen very few
| of these. Usually the ones I've seen are over a very busy
| road with few to no intersections and a lot of foot
| traffic. These are beneficial to the flow of both car and
| foot traffic instead of using long cycle times.
|
| "beg buttons"
|
| I'm sorry, but that is some _extreme_ spin. What do you
| think happens at traffic signals? Those signals use
| sensors to identify when cars come up to them. These
| sensors don 't work for pedestrians lacking large amounts
| of metal to trip the fields. So yeah, they have a button
| to tell the machine they want to cross. Usually, the
| lights change just as fast if not faster than if a car
| pulls up at a red light.
|
| When in a shared space, everyone must wait their turn. If
| you don't, you end up with people steeping out in front
| if cars and people running red lights. Taking turns is
| part of a functioning society.
| alexfoo wrote:
| Pedestrians are second class in most crossings though (at
| least in the UK).
|
| For traffic lights that are always green except when a
| pedestrian wants to cross we do have the "beg button" but
| the problem is that there is usually a reasonable delay
| before the lights turn red to stop the cars.
|
| Obviously there needs to be some sort of delay between
| sets of red lights otherwise someone could just spend the
| day pressing the button and crossing all day whilst the
| traffic backs up. But the delay is front loaded. There
| doesn't need to be such a long delay before the lights
| turn red if the lights have been green for a long enough
| period prior to that. Poor implementation.
|
| I'm sure there's a study somewhere where they decided to
| go with the pre-delay for some reason, but I've never
| found anything.
| Retric wrote:
| In the event of high foot and road traffic you could have
| A or B go 3D. The fact it's pedestrians suggests they
| have a lower priority.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| > I'm not sure where you're from, but I have seen very
| few of these.
|
| Well I'm not sure where you're from but I have seen tons
| of these pedestrian bridges :) wouldn't it be better to
| inconvenience the car by building an overpass? The car
| has an engine and doesn't get tired.
|
| On beg buttons: I did not invent the terminology. Look it
| up.
| fifticon wrote:
| "well excuse me for lacking sufficient amounts of
| metal:-)"
| randomname11 wrote:
| Not to mention speed limits. Around here almost all
| traffic exceeds the speed limit, yet plenty of drivers
| still complain about pedestrians not adhering to the
| rules.
| justajot wrote:
| The designs of most cities in the U.S. absolutely treat
| pedestrians as second class citizens compared to
| automobile traffic. I'm currently working on a project
| that demonstrates exactly this (among other things) in
| Dallas. It's both sad and amusing how true it is.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| I've seen this enforced on an otherwise empty street late
| at night. Depends on the police officers' mood. This was in
| either Vancouver or Toronto.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| In Boston (and maybe Massachusetts as a whole), jaywalking is a
| crime but the fee is literally $1.
|
| There was a Boston globe article about this, where some
| journalist spent his day intentionally and blatantly jaywalking
| everywhere, including right in front of cops. He didn't get a
| single fine.
| ghaff wrote:
| It does vary. I'm not saying that in cities like Boston and
| New York, literally no one would ever get a ticket, but
| people pretty much will take whatever they can get away with
| for the most part. Historically, West Coast cities were
| considered to have at least a modicum of enforcement but I
| expect that's very scattered these days.
|
| So, yeah, there's technically a crime of jaywalking but in
| practice it's mostly limited to whatever you feel you can get
| away with absent being run over.
| soperj wrote:
| > including right in front of cops
|
| Was the journalist white?
| nix0n wrote:
| I found the article [0], which has the title "What does a guy
| have to do to get a jaywalking ticket in this town?"
|
| [0] https://www3.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2017/05/24/what-
| does-...
| scubbo wrote:
| > Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal
| crime.
|
| When I first moved from the UK to the USA, I assumed that
| "jaywalking" was a made-up thing that you warned tourists
| about, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear. How could
| crossing the road be _inherently_ illegal, even if done in a
| safe manner!?
| avalys wrote:
| There are tons of traffic laws that make things technically
| illegal even if they're perfectly safe ("no U-turn"), for the
| purpose of keeping traffic flow orderly and efficient. Not
| sure why this should be any different or why pedestrians
| should not be expected to follow traffic laws, or why the law
| should allow pedestrians to step into traffic whenever and
| wherever they want.
| rrradical wrote:
| U-turns are not perfectly safe. Last week I saw a U-turner
| almost a hit a biker as they backed up after not being able
| to complete the turn in one pass. Can they be done safely?
| Sure. But that's not the same as perfectly safe.
| interestica wrote:
| > as they backed up
|
| That's no longer a U-turn
| pixl97 wrote:
| When you start looking at the average size of an American
| 4 wheeled land yacht you'll understand why U-turns are
| illegal.
| wilsynet wrote:
| Cars also hit bikes when cars are backing up, making
| turns, driving above the speed limit, driving below the
| speed limit, when the driver opens the door. Really, many
| varied circumstances that have nothing to do with making
| a U-turn.
|
| Perhaps the phrase "perfectly safe" is wrong. Maybe
| "otherwise intrinsically safe" would be more accurate.
| Having said all that, I do wonder if we have U-turn
| accident statistics.
| ljm wrote:
| Roads in the US aren't as safe to cross - you wouldn't take a
| shortcut across a dual-carriageway in the UK and that's just
| 2 lanes in each direction.
|
| Walking is just an afterthought really, until you get into
| certain areas like South Beach in Miami.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| If I was in London or another large city and could see a
| multi lane road was clear then I wouldn't think twice about
| crossing it.
|
| It's also not illegal to cross a dual carriage way in the
| UK on foot afaik. Motorways are but not at A road.
| culopatin wrote:
| I got a ticket in Prague for crossing "wrong", so it's not a
| US only issue.
| vletal wrote:
| I've only seen people getting ticket for crossing in Prague
| if they * disregarded any safety measure
| (arrogant crossing red light while cars are present)
| * were crossing red light in front of a Police station
|
| Prague has such a shortage of officers they stripped the
| education requirement and basically anyone who passes
| psychological evaluation can become one. It is a rare sight
| to see one in flesh.
| trothamel wrote:
| Note that like most laws, Jaywalking laws tend to make more sense
| when you read them. Here's the law in New York:
|
| https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2015/vat/title-7/artic...
| 1152. Crossing at other than crosswalks. (a) Every
| pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than
| within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk
| at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all
| vehicles upon the roadway. (b) Any pedestrian
| crossing a roadway at a point where a pedestrian tunnel or
| overhead pedestrian crossing has been provided shall yield the
| right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway. (c) No
| pedestrian shall cross a roadway intersection diagonally unless
| authorized by official traffic-control devices; and, when
| authorized to cross diagonally, pedestrians shall cross
| only in accordance with the official traffic-control
| devices pertaining to such crossing movements.
|
| So what's criminalized isn't crossing the road - it's crossing
| without checking. Which seems like a good idea to me. Looking on
| the other side of the spectrum, Wyoming's law is:
| (a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than
| within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an
| intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon
| the roadway. (b) Any pedestrian crossing a roadway at
| a point where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead pedestrian crossing
| has been provided shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles
| upon the roadway. (c) Between adjacent intersections
| at which traffic-control signals are in operation pedestrians
| shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk.
| (d) No pedestrian shall cross a roadway intersection diagonally
| unless authorized by official traffic-control devices. When
| authorized to cross diagonally, pedestrians shall cross only in
| accordance with the official traffic-control devices pertaining
| to the crossing movements.
|
| Which is similar, except for (c), which only matters when you're
| close to a crosswalk - and almost certainly, on a busy road.
| mikrl wrote:
| Canada specific, but...
|
| Diagonal crossing is a thing in Quebec City at certain
| intersections which stop the traffic flow in every direction.
|
| Otherwise I only ever do it when I cannot see any cars which is
| fairly common at night in rural areas.
| whafro wrote:
| My family calls that sort of intersection "the doublecross"
| cafard wrote:
| Fifty or sixty years ago in Denver it was called the "Barnes
| Dance" after the traffic commissioner who instituted it. My
| recollection is that only downtown intersections had the
| necessary signals, but then it has been years since I have
| been back.
| dixie_land wrote:
| The intersection to Pike Place Market is an all way crossing
| (to your point we're pretty cloae to Canada :) ):
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/wG1Eq4E1StVjCSj18?g_st=ic
| rangestransform wrote:
| They're typically called scramble crosswalks. The most famous
| one is Shibuya scramble, but they also have them in LA.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The Wyoming law seems to implicitly assume that a)
| intersections are spaced close to each other and b) each
| intersection with traffic lights also has pedestrian crossings.
|
| I assume b) is simply enforced by some regulation, but a)
| sounds like it could lead to lots of unintended problems. What
| if there's miles between two adjacent intersections? A person
| standing in the middle would have to know if by chance both the
| intersection to their left and right have a traffic light, and
| then walk to the closest one if that's the case (or find a
| marked crosswalk).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Jaywalking shouldn't ever be a criminal offense. (Intentionally
| obstructing traffic is a separate issue.)
|
| Ticket pedestrians for creating an unsafe environment. It's
| what we do to drivers when they do the analogous thing.
| pjscott wrote:
| To clarify: under the laws linked above, jaywalking is
| categorized not as a crime or misdemeanor but as a _traffic
| infraction_ , just like breaking the speed limit or failing
| to signal a turn.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| It's important to note that while many states have the fairly
| common sense exceptions you mention, they also allow
| municipalities to implement and enforce more aggressive
| policies that don't have such exceptions. For instance, even
| somewhere like New York City where jaywalking is wildly common
| doesn't have the "shall yield right-of-way" language:
| (c) Restrictions on crossings. (1) No
| pedestrian shall enter or cross a roadway at any point where
| signs, fences, barriers, or other devices are erected to
| prohibit or restrict such crossing or entry. (2)
| No pedestrian shall cross any roadway at an intersection except
| within a cross- walk. (3) No pedestrian shall
| cross a roadway except at a crosswalk on any block in which
| traffic control signals are in operation at both intersections
| bordering the block.
|
| https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC...
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Jaywalking laws, independent of how they are implemented only
| make sense if you start from a prior that the roads are
| specifically for vehicular use snd it's pedestrians that are
| making exceptional use of them.
|
| The article is pointing out that belief was a specific policy
| choice driven at least in part by automakers.
| digital-cygnet wrote:
| I think you've misunderstood the law you've quoted. It's not
| about "crossing without checking", it's about the pedestrian
| "yield[ing] the right of way to all vehicles". It's hard to
| imagine from a modern perspective, but until laws like this
| were passed roads were not, as today, universally perceived as
| places for cars to drive.
|
| In cities in much of the developing world the pre-jaywalking
| regime remains: road users with cars, carts, bikes, trucks, or
| on foot instead are in a delicate and complex (and often
| dangerous) dance of theory-of-mind and courtesy (or a game of
| chicken, depending).
|
| The "right-of-way" dominated way of thinking about roads is
| hard to argue with when you look at most roadways in the
| developed world (cars zooming around on multiple lanes with few
| pedestrians in sight). But the idea that every pedestrian must
| yield right of way to every car is much more questionable in
| dense cities like NYC, on small, residential streets, where one
| car trying to go from point A to point C is effectively given
| total preference over all the people trying to live their lives
| (and cross the street) in B.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| My issue, as a driver, is that more and more pedestrians walk
| wherever and whenever they want with complete disregard for their
| environment. I've had to hit the brakes pretty hard on several
| occasions when I had "right of way" (right turn light, for
| example) and a pedestrian stepped off the curb with their face
| buried in their phone.
|
| I see the fines for jaywalking as a function to encourage safety
| rather than criminalizing sensible behaviour (ie crossing a
| completely empty street probably won't yield a fine but crossing
| a busy street while holding your arm out to stop traffic will,
| and should).
| Vinnl wrote:
| Then again, the only reason that that's particularly dangerous
| is because of the car. Such behaviour in front of a bike, for
| example, would ve annoying but not really dangerous.
| mcbutterbunz wrote:
| It would be more dangerous for the cyclist.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| bike brakes are usually pretty terrible though
| joshuahaglund wrote:
| Maybe yours but not most people I know who use their bike
| frequently. Maintaining a bike is cheaper and easier than
| maintaining a car.
| conor- wrote:
| My issue, as a pedestrian, is that more and more drivers are
| driving with complete disregard for their environment. I've had
| to jump or run out of the way on several occasions when I had
| "right of way" (crosswalks or stop signs, for example) and
| drivers accelerate right through with their face buried in
| their phone.
|
| This problem also exists when cycling on shared bike gutters
| where oblivious drivers veer out of their lane into the bike
| lane, roll through stop signs, or are just generally unaware
| that they're sharing the road with people not surrounded by 1
| ton of steel.
|
| A pedestrian stepping into the street isn't going to kill other
| people with their negligence - the burden of caution should not
| be placed onto them.
| joeman1000 wrote:
| The difference is that you're cocooned in a tonne of steel,
| hurtling along at speeds which kill pedestrians. The onus is on
| both parties to be vigilant, but it's more on you as a driver.
| As soon as you get over this entitled view, like the road is
| your own little go-kart track, it's so much easier to drive
| safely. I used to hold the same view until I started walking
| regularly and could understand how much the game is tipped
| towards cars. Their environment is unescapable and every time
| you interact with a road as a ped. there's a huge chance you
| might die. There's nearly no chance you'll die by hitting a
| pedestrian as you drive. Just drive slower and pay more
| attention. It's just not that bloody hard at all.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > As soon as you get over this entitled view, like the road
| is your own little go-kart track
|
| This view was not espoused by the OP. You've made it up for
| some reason.
| bitwize wrote:
| That's the thing. If it weren't for the prioritization of auto
| traffic, crossing the street at arbitrary places and times
| would still be "sensible behavior".
|
| Everything you think you know about cities and the role of
| pedestrians is wrong -- a distortion introduced by auto
| companies to diminish walking and public transport and
| encourage automobile purchases. We are currently radically
| rethinking our cities and imagining a greatly diminished role
| for cars in them.
| candybar wrote:
| If you find yourself having to hit the brakes hard frequently
| because a pedestrian stepped off the curb while being
| distracted, you probably also need to pay more attention while
| driving.
|
| My general experience is that in practice, in most areas, most
| drivers don't yield enough and most pedestrians yield too much
| because the pedestrian has a lot more to lose. It's also
| important to remember that driving is a privilege specifically
| granted by the state, walking is not.
| Timshel wrote:
| Not from the us but I would not expect a car to have priority
| at a right turn.
| jcpst wrote:
| Where I live in the US, people simply do not stop at pedestrian
| crosswalks. It doesn't matter that there's a large fluorescent
| sign, and bold white stripes on the road, and a person waiting to
| cross. I've even had a police officer drive straight through
| while I was waiting to cross.
|
| But it seems like they're respected if you install large flashing
| lights that the pedestrian can activate.
| alexfoo wrote:
| In the UK the law is sufficiently vague.
|
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/2400/part/I/crosshe...
|
| " Precedence of pedestrians over vehicles at Zebra crossings
| 25.--(1) Every pedestrian, if he is on the carriageway within
| the limits of a Zebra crossing, which is not for the time being
| controlled by a constable in uniform or traffic warden, before
| any part of a vehicle has entered those limits, shall have
| precedence within those limits over that vehicle and the driver
| of the vehicle shall accord such precedence to any such
| pedestrian. "
|
| The point is that simply waiting to cross you are not "on the
| carriageway" and therefore the driver of the vehicle is not
| required to stop (by some reading of the law).
|
| Common custom is that you do stop for people waiting to cross
| but sometimes you really do have to stick a foot into the road
| to make people stop for you and allow you to cross.
| switch007 wrote:
| Right
|
| But the Highway Code says drivers MUST stop if the pedestrian
| is /on/ the crossing:
|
| > you MUST give way when a pedestrian has moved onto a
| crossing
|
| This should be sufficient to make drivers understand that you
| give way to pedestrians at zebra crossings
| willsmith72 wrote:
| I like to act like I'm about to start crossing and only stop at
| the last possible moment in these cases. That way at least 50%
| they or somone else in the car freaks out.
|
| I hope it teaches them. Even if you can't see anyone, if
| there's a pedestrian crossing, especially in an urban area,
| just slow down in case.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > But it seems like they're respected if you install large
| flashing lights that the pedestrian can activate.
|
| I live near one of these and not even the strobing yellow
| lights are always enough to get drivers to yield. I've never
| once been able to cross when cars are present without fairly
| recklessly walking in front of them.
|
| Maybe I'll have to try the brick method:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEI8ppiMzZM
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _The Invention of 'Jaywalking'_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33825009 - Dec 2022 (4
| comments)
|
| _California greenlights jaywalking. It's a step in the right
| direction_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33769009 - Nov
| 2022 (107 comments)
|
| _Jaywalking is decriminalized in California under new law_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33077573 - Oct 2022 (6
| comments)
|
| _What does a guy have to do to get a jaywalking ticket in this
| town? (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135602 -
| Nov 2021 (6 comments)
|
| _Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry
| made it a crime_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25497772
| - Dec 2020 (438 comments)
|
| _"Jaywalking" Shouldn 't Even Be a Thing_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22050973 - Jan 2020 (3
| comments)
|
| _Jaywalking: How the car industry outlawed crossing the road_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18187751 - Oct 2018 (2
| comments)
|
| _How Automakers Invented the Crime of "Jaywalking"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16158918 - Jan 2018 (424
| comments)
|
| _The Invention of Jaywalking_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14246003 - May 2017 (1
| comment)
|
| _California 's Broken Jaywalking Law_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384972 - April 2015 (65
| comments)
|
| _How automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8893738 - Jan 2015 (189
| comments)
|
| _The Invention of Jaywalking_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3888104 - April 2012 (81
| comments)
| orangepurple wrote:
| A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom
| often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For
| example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly
| could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing
| any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological
| support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they
| appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away
| from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he
| didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile
| could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the
| introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such
| a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When
| automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate
| their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated
| areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace one's
| movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various
| traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license
| requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance,
| maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase
| price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer
| optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the
| arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the
| majority of people no longer live within walking distance of
| their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational
| opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for
| transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in
| which case they have even less control over their own movement
| than when driving a car. Even the walker's freedom is now greatly
| restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for
| traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In
| the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to
| walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have
| just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new
| item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual
| can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN
| optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in
| such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use
| it.)
|
| While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our
| sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY
| ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing,
| rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue
| against any of these things, or against any other of the
| innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It
| would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the
| telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no
| disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all
| these technical advances taken together have created a world in
| which the average man's fate is no longer in his own hands or in
| the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of
| politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous
| technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power
| to influence. [21] The same process will continue in the future.
| Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people will resist the
| introduction of a genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary
| disease. It does no apparent harm and prevents much suffering.
| Yet a large number of genetic improvements taken together will
| make the human being into an engineered product rather than a
| free creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on
| your religious beliefs).
|
| Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is
| that, within the context of a given society, technological
| progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed.
| Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually
| become dependent on it, so that they can never again do without
| it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation.
| Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item
| of technology, but, even more, the system as a whole becomes
| dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system today
| if computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can
| move in only one direction, toward greater technologization.
| Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back, but
| technology can never take a step back--short of the overthrow of
| the whole technological system.
| chung8123 wrote:
| This is like saying automakers destroyed the trolly system. It
| was the people that did this by popular opinion. Most people in
| the US use cars, like the convenience of cars, and will vote in a
| car centric manner. Blaming automakers is just absolving the
| people of blame.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-12 21:00 UTC)