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I live in a suburb and the biggest problem I see isn't drivers, it is pedestrians. They do not use cross walks. If there is not a cross walk directly outside th

I live in a suburb and the biggest problem I see isn't drivers, it is pedestrians. They do not use cross walks. If there is not a cross walk directly outside the shop they are leaving, they just cross the road whenever they feel like it. Pedestrians also just stand and talk in the middle of street. It blows my mind. I have lived around the US and this is a distinctly NY thing. And they also have the weird habit of doing their run...in the middle of the road. Even if there is an empty sidewalk with no crossings, people will just do their run in the road like they're a car. Drivers are also to blame but there would be even fewer if pedestrians were held to some standards of road safety. Police don't even need to give tickets, just scare pedestrians into using common courtesy.

ecshafer 8y ago
Why should drivers get the right of way and implicit use of all of the road? Why not people? Cars should be second class citizens to people on the roads, unless they are specifically highways.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- fedups 8y ago
  Drivers are people, my friend
bdhess 8y ago
Running on a sidewalk is terribly unpleasant, and has its own dangers. Sidewalks tend to be uneven, among other tripping hazards. And there is limited reaction time to anticipate motorists who speed out of driveways, bowling past the sidewalk but braking before they enter the street.
jacobush 8y ago
Maybe that is why it's "legal" to murder someone by car in New York.
francisofascii 8y ago
Your sentiments sum up what is wrong in much of the U.S. I am not blaming you. This is the culture you grew up in. But this type of thinking is dead wrong. Cars are what cause the danger. Pedestrians in the US have lost much of there safe access to the streets. Runners use the road because the sidewalks generally suck. If a driver doesn't have time to slow down and stop for a pedestrian, they are going too fast. It's that simple.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  It's people who aren't paying attention to WTF they're doing that cause the danger, not cars or bikes or pedestrians. The rules of the road (including the rules for cyclists and pedestrians) include tons of redundancy so one party not doing what it should almost never causes accidents. Take for example a pedestrian and a car turning right arrive at an intersection. The pedestrian has a walk signal and the car wants to make a right on red. Both those actions are triggered by the same condition, no cross traffic. In a naive simulation they'd hit each other. In the real world they see each other and one yields to the other in a manner that depends on the situation. I walk through a "highly walkable" city to/from work every day. As someone who used to have to drive a delivery vehicle I try not to be an idiot pedestrian, when I cross on a don't cross signal I time it with the lights, I don't cross when someone might want to race through the intersection just before the light change, etc. The behavior I see from other pedestrians and often cyclists is just moronic (and drivers too but there's so much traffic they rarely have opportunity to do stupid things). I don't expect people to wait for the ok to cross every single time but people should at least make sure their actions don't directly conflict with other traffic (like the difference between a car taking a right on red and straight up running a red). Presumably many of these same people who don't pay more than minimal attention to what they're doing when they're on foot or two wheels will continue to not pay attention to what they're doing when they're driving a car (hopefully they at least take their headphones out). Making a city walkable is just a politically correct way of saying they're gonna make it harder for idiots to meet at high speed. > If a driver doesn't have time to slow down and stop for a pedestrian, they are going too fast. It's that simple. Take your circular logic and shove it up a bodily orifice where it doesn't easily or comfortably fit. If I wanted to get hit by a truck at walking speed all I have to do it time my commute to coincide with when the sun will be on the horizon and cross a particular street when all the lights are red but just before all the right turn arrows turn green. After about a week or two doing that I'd probably get hit. Every two party accident has at least two parties that could have done something different that would have prevented the accident. Accidents are fairly diverse in their circumstances. Just assigning blame to one party by default is an exercise in bad policy.
Piskvorrr 8y ago
After a century of "cars are the actual first-class citizens, everybody else is merely tolerated," this attitude doesn't suprise me: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
dionidium 8y ago
> If there is not a cross walk directly outside the shop they are leaving, they just cross the road whenever they feel like it. I don't want to be too glib, but when your gut reaction is to blame human beings for using their human legs to move around in space (instead of the cars that prevent them from doing this), then it might be time to consider whether the culture has been perverted beyond a reasonable standard.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"Drivers are also to blame but there would be even fewer if pedestrians were held to some standards of road safety." So a car that weighs 3 tons, is made of metal and moves at 25 - 35 miles and hour and human who weight less than 200 pounds and travels at 3 MPH should be held to the same standard of safety? How many fatalities do you have in your suburb where drivers are killed by walkers?
JoeAltmaier 8y ago
While this may all be true, we're talking about people being killed. Courtesy isn't what its about. Until ordinary people begin to 'walk defensively', drivers are going to have to be careful.
odonnellryan 8y ago
I wonder how you feel about bicycles!
WhompingWindows 8y ago
I think there is problematic behavior on all sides. However, the problematic behavior of a driver results in a death due to the ton of steel they're driving at 30 mph. While pedestrians do bear responsibility for their own lives, they aren't going to kill a driver if they make a mistake. Pedestrians should be prioritized above cars, and bicycles above cars as well, if we want safe communities and a cleaner atmosphere. This does mean drivers will have to wait and move more slowly, but frankly driving is already too cheap. That's why everyone drives everywhere. We have to do more to discourage driving and encourage safer, non-polluting transport. If not, increased vehicle miles travelled, like uber/lyft and future self driving taxis, will only worsen the already car-clogged infrastructure.
- snarfybarfy 8y ago
  Good points. There also quite a few drivers that consider speed limit + 10 to be the minimum speed guaranteed by the constitution, and not the maxiumum speed when conditions are perfect.
danielsju6 8y ago
Let's turn this around: you're expecting your neighbors to give up their public space, safety, and environment because you're not willing to accept the inconveniences of more socially-aware means of transportation. I for one would love to live in your area. I'm tired of it taking five minutes to grab a coffee from the coffee shop across the street from me because I have to walk several hundred feet to the nearest pedestrian crossing and wait for an entire light cycle to be able to safely cross a four lane street that is entirely out of scale for the business district I live in. Just so people don't have to use their legs or god forbid public transit to get around. It's about time pedestrians reclaim what they've lost to auto-monoculture.

ecshafer 8y ago

Why should drivers get the right of way and implicit use of all of the road? Why not people? Cars should be second class citizens to people on the roads, unless they are specifically highways.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fedups 8y ago
Drivers are people, my friend

bdhess 8y ago

Running on a sidewalk is terribly unpleasant, and has its own dangers. Sidewalks tend to be uneven, among other tripping hazards. And there is limited reaction time to anticipate motorists who speed out of driveways, bowling past the sidewalk but braking before they enter the street.

jacobush 8y ago

Maybe that is why it's "legal" to murder someone by car in New York.

francisofascii 8y ago

Your sentiments sum up what is wrong in much of the U.S. I am not blaming you. This is the culture you grew up in. But this type of thinking is dead wrong. Cars are what cause the danger. Pedestrians in the US have lost much of there safe access to the streets. Runners use the road because the sidewalks generally suck. If a driver doesn't have time to slow down and stop for a pedestrian, they are going too fast. It's that simple.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It's people who aren't paying attention to WTF they're doing that cause the danger, not cars or bikes or pedestrians. The rules of the road (including the rules for cyclists and pedestrians) include tons of redundancy so one party not doing what it should almost never causes accidents. Take for example a pedestrian and a car turning right arrive at an intersection. The pedestrian has a walk signal and the car wants to make a right on red. Both those actions are triggered by the same condition, no cross traffic. In a naive simulation they'd hit each other. In the real world they see each other and one yields to the other in a manner that depends on the situation. I walk through a "highly walkable" city to/from work every day. As someone who used to have to drive a delivery vehicle I try not to be an idiot pedestrian, when I cross on a don't cross signal I time it with the lights, I don't cross when someone might want to race through the intersection just before the light change, etc. The behavior I see from other pedestrians and often cyclists is just moronic (and drivers too but there's so much traffic they rarely have opportunity to do stupid things). I don't expect people to wait for the ok to cross every single time but people should at least make sure their actions don't directly conflict with other traffic (like the difference between a car taking a right on red and straight up running a red). Presumably many of these same people who don't pay more than minimal attention to what they're doing when they're on foot or two wheels will continue to not pay attention to what they're doing when they're driving a car (hopefully they at least take their headphones out). Making a city walkable is just a politically correct way of saying they're gonna make it harder for idiots to meet at high speed. > If a driver doesn't have time to slow down and stop for a pedestrian, they are going too fast. It's that simple. Take your circular logic and shove it up a bodily orifice where it doesn't easily or comfortably fit. If I wanted to get hit by a truck at walking speed all I have to do it time my commute to coincide with when the sun will be on the horizon and cross a particular street when all the lights are red but just before all the right turn arrows turn green. After about a week or two doing that I'd probably get hit. Every two party accident has at least two parties that could have done something different that would have prevented the accident. Accidents are fairly diverse in their circumstances. Just assigning blame to one party by default is an exercise in bad policy.

Piskvorrr 8y ago

After a century of "cars are the actual first-class citizens, everybody else is merely tolerated," this attitude doesn't suprise me: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history

dionidium 8y ago

> If there is not a cross walk directly outside the shop they are leaving, they just cross the road whenever they feel like it. I don't want to be too glib, but when your gut reaction is to blame human beings for using their human legs to move around in space (instead of the cars that prevent them from doing this), then it might be time to consider whether the culture has been perverted beyond a reasonable standard.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"Drivers are also to blame but there would be even fewer if pedestrians were held to some standards of road safety." So a car that weighs 3 tons, is made of metal and moves at 25 - 35 miles and hour and human who weight less than 200 pounds and travels at 3 MPH should be held to the same standard of safety? How many fatalities do you have in your suburb where drivers are killed by walkers?

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

While this may all be true, we're talking about people being killed. Courtesy isn't what its about. Until ordinary people begin to 'walk defensively', drivers are going to have to be careful.

odonnellryan 8y ago

I wonder how you feel about bicycles!

WhompingWindows 8y ago

I think there is problematic behavior on all sides. However, the problematic behavior of a driver results in a death due to the ton of steel they're driving at 30 mph. While pedestrians do bear responsibility for their own lives, they aren't going to kill a driver if they make a mistake. Pedestrians should be prioritized above cars, and bicycles above cars as well, if we want safe communities and a cleaner atmosphere. This does mean drivers will have to wait and move more slowly, but frankly driving is already too cheap. That's why everyone drives everywhere. We have to do more to discourage driving and encourage safer, non-polluting transport. If not, increased vehicle miles travelled, like uber/lyft and future self driving taxis, will only worsen the already car-clogged infrastructure.

snarfybarfy 8y ago
Good points. There also quite a few drivers that consider speed limit + 10 to be the minimum speed guaranteed by the constitution, and not the maxiumum speed when conditions are perfect.

danielsju6 8y ago

Let's turn this around: you're expecting your neighbors to give up their public space, safety, and environment because you're not willing to accept the inconveniences of more socially-aware means of transportation. I for one would love to live in your area. I'm tired of it taking five minutes to grab a coffee from the coffee shop across the street from me because I have to walk several hundred feet to the nearest pedestrian crossing and wait for an entire light cycle to be able to safely cross a four lane street that is entirely out of scale for the business district I live in. Just so people don't have to use their legs or god forbid public transit to get around. It's about time pedestrians reclaim what they've lost to auto-monoculture.