4 ms·

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

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.
- zajd 8y ago
  > Every two party accident has at least two parties that could have done something different that would have prevented the accident. Be sure to tell this to the family of someone who died when a drunk driver crossed the lanes and hits them head on
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Oh screw off with your edge case specifically chosen for maximum appeal to emotion, we're talking about preventing pedestrian deaths across the board here. No amount of traffic calming and pedestrian friendly design is going to prevent that sort of accident nor is that type of accident particularly relevant to a discussion of keeping different types of traffic from conflicting with one another. If I get hit crossing the street by someone taking a right on red when I don't have a walk signal it's on both of us and of course we'll both allege it's the other's fault and we'll both be right. If the same accident happened in a workplace between a forklift and a pedestrian we'd both face consequences for not paying attention. The rules of the road are specifically built with redundancy that puts the responsibility to pay attention on both parties so that when one party doesn't an accident is still avoided. I should see the car and not step off the sidewalk until I have a walk signal or the car should see me and not take the right on red. To quote HR departments everywhere "safety is everyone's responsibility."
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      Yes but also screw off the deliberate ignoring of the difference in risk and culpability. Its always the pedestrian that dies; its always the driver with the mechanical advantage to put their vehicle where it needs to be quickly.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        >Yes but also screw off the deliberate ignoring of the difference in risk and culpability. The expectation that big traffic is by default responsible when it crushes small stuff is completely opposite of every other case where different classes of traffic mix (unless the accident is an obvious edge case). If a semi backs into the guy spotting it the question is why the spotter was there. If heavy equipment hits a service truck the question is why the service truck was in a place to get hit. If a tank hits a humvee the humvee driver is the first person to get yelled at. Even drunk recreational boaters are expected to steer clear of ships. I'm not saying the bigger class of traffic should be in the right by default but the smaller class of traffic is almost without exception (i.e. I can't think of any exception) the class of traffic that has better visibility as to what's going on in a given situation and can more easily yield. >Its always the pedestrian that dies Physics doesn't know right and wrong. >its always the driver with the mechanical advantage to put their vehicle where it needs to be quickly. Yes and no. A car can go faster and swerve out of a lane faster. A pedestrian can stop much faster and signal its intentions to others much more obviously (hard to convey body language from within a car and pedestrians can't count on people to use blinkers) Edit: I'm really interested in why this is down-voted. There's nothing that should be controversial in this comment.

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.

zajd 8y ago
> Every two party accident has at least two parties that could have done something different that would have prevented the accident. Be sure to tell this to the family of someone who died when a drunk driver crossed the lanes and hits them head on
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Oh screw off with your edge case specifically chosen for maximum appeal to emotion, we're talking about preventing pedestrian deaths across the board here. No amount of traffic calming and pedestrian friendly design is going to prevent that sort of accident nor is that type of accident particularly relevant to a discussion of keeping different types of traffic from conflicting with one another. If I get hit crossing the street by someone taking a right on red when I don't have a walk signal it's on both of us and of course we'll both allege it's the other's fault and we'll both be right. If the same accident happened in a workplace between a forklift and a pedestrian we'd both face consequences for not paying attention. The rules of the road are specifically built with redundancy that puts the responsibility to pay attention on both parties so that when one party doesn't an accident is still avoided. I should see the car and not step off the sidewalk until I have a walk signal or the car should see me and not take the right on red. To quote HR departments everywhere "safety is everyone's responsibility."
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Yes but also screw off the deliberate ignoring of the difference in risk and culpability. Its always the pedestrian that dies; its always the driver with the mechanical advantage to put their vehicle where it needs to be quickly.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >Yes but also screw off the deliberate ignoring of the difference in risk and culpability. The expectation that big traffic is by default responsible when it crushes small stuff is completely opposite of every other case where different classes of traffic mix (unless the accident is an obvious edge case). If a semi backs into the guy spotting it the question is why the spotter was there. If heavy equipment hits a service truck the question is why the service truck was in a place to get hit. If a tank hits a humvee the humvee driver is the first person to get yelled at. Even drunk recreational boaters are expected to steer clear of ships. I'm not saying the bigger class of traffic should be in the right by default but the smaller class of traffic is almost without exception (i.e. I can't think of any exception) the class of traffic that has better visibility as to what's going on in a given situation and can more easily yield. >Its always the pedestrian that dies Physics doesn't know right and wrong. >its always the driver with the mechanical advantage to put their vehicle where it needs to be quickly. Yes and no. A car can go faster and swerve out of a lane faster. A pedestrian can stop much faster and signal its intentions to others much more obviously (hard to convey body language from within a car and pedestrians can't count on people to use blinkers) Edit: I'm really interested in why this is down-voted. There's nothing that should be controversial in this comment.