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Both the article and the parent poster point out about the behaviour of drivers, but neither really mention pedestrian behaviour. I know bashing on drivers is p

Both the article and the parent poster point out about the behaviour of drivers, but neither really mention pedestrian behaviour. I know bashing on drivers is popular, so this might not go over well. But, as a pedestrian 90% of the time myself, I see a lot more terrible pedestrian behaviour in recent years than I've seen previously. People just not paying attention to traffic lights and walking onto streets. Actually, from what I can tell, very few pedestrians actually pay attention to the car traffic lights. I've watched people countless times walk onto the street while playing with their phones and not even looking up. I've seen people walking in the dark with headphones on crossing streets without paying the slightest bit of attention. Personally, as a pedestrian I understand most people driving are fairly terrible at it and honestly when you're driving, most of the time you see pedestrians for about 20-30 seconds before you've passed them and their gone. When I'm walking around traffic, I always stay concious of this, because I understand that if a ton of metal flying at 60km/h hits me, I'm gonna be seriously hurt or dead and there's not always time for a car to stop if I'm being unsafe as much as they should stop. I really think a lot of people don't understand or appreciate this enough.

jakobegger 7y ago
I agree with the point that pedestrians must watch the road (looking at traffic lights is not enough, you need to check wether cars are actually slowing down). But to me it doesn't seem like people are more distracted than 10 years ago, so I'm not sure how that would increase pedestrian deaths.
nostromo 7y ago
One interesting fact that rarely gets brought up: 1 out of 3 pedestrian deaths involve drunk pedestrians. https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/ind...
bobthepanda 7y ago
It's worth noting that non-US countries have lower fatalities, even with smartphone technology. The major difference is that the consequence of being a bad pedestrian isn't death in most countries due to slower speeds and lower prevalence of SUVs. I often see people arguing that US speed limits being high is fine, because the major killer is speed differential in a crash. The problem is, pedestrians walk at 3mph, so even a speed limit of 40mph on a road with pedestrians leads to a quite high speed differential between a car and a human.
- ajuc 7y ago
  You can walk everywhere and live without a car in most big European cities. You cannot in US. That changes road design, urban planning, law interpretation, driving culture.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    It's a catch 22. Nobody walks, so the social expectation is that the environment must accommodate driving, so the zoning and the laws reflect that, but the resulting environment is hostile to walking, so nobody walks. There was an America before cars where walking was the norm, and then it was mostly systematically destroyed and is gone outside of a few metropolitan areas.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  I traveled extensively across most of Europe and also a bit of US. In the northern half of Europe pedestrians are crossing the streets in a very orderly manner, the entire summer I lived in Vienna I haven't seen a single pedestrian crossing a red light, not even on streets with almost no traffic. In the southern part things are different, but on average in Europe people pay more attention to crossing the streets than in US. That explains the lower fatalities. Also in Europe people text less; I never understood the US preference for texting, in Europe we simply talk (many countries have affordable or unlimited voice plans). When I drive a car (10-20% of the time) I have a headset in my ear, when I ride the motorcycle I have a helmet headset turned on on auto-answer. I don't talk too often while driving, but it is less distracting than texting, I never have to touch the phone while driving (on the bike it is not even possible).
  - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
    A somewhat cynical, hopefully wrong hypothesis: People in the US text more because we're further down the road of optimizing all human activity to maximize its monetary output, and the asynchronous and more impersonal nature of text messages allows us to transfer data to one another with less interruption to our productivity.
  - 7y ago

jakobegger 7y ago

I agree with the point that pedestrians must watch the road (looking at traffic lights is not enough, you need to check wether cars are actually slowing down). But to me it doesn't seem like people are more distracted than 10 years ago, so I'm not sure how that would increase pedestrian deaths.

nostromo 7y ago

One interesting fact that rarely gets brought up: 1 out of 3 pedestrian deaths involve drunk pedestrians. https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/ind...

bobthepanda 7y ago

It's worth noting that non-US countries have lower fatalities, even with smartphone technology. The major difference is that the consequence of being a bad pedestrian isn't death in most countries due to slower speeds and lower prevalence of SUVs. I often see people arguing that US speed limits being high is fine, because the major killer is speed differential in a crash. The problem is, pedestrians walk at 3mph, so even a speed limit of 40mph on a road with pedestrians leads to a quite high speed differential between a car and a human.

ajuc 7y ago
You can walk everywhere and live without a car in most big European cities. You cannot in US. That changes road design, urban planning, law interpretation, driving culture.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  It's a catch 22. Nobody walks, so the social expectation is that the environment must accommodate driving, so the zoning and the laws reflect that, but the resulting environment is hostile to walking, so nobody walks. There was an America before cars where walking was the norm, and then it was mostly systematically destroyed and is gone outside of a few metropolitan areas.
AdrianB1 7y ago
I traveled extensively across most of Europe and also a bit of US. In the northern half of Europe pedestrians are crossing the streets in a very orderly manner, the entire summer I lived in Vienna I haven't seen a single pedestrian crossing a red light, not even on streets with almost no traffic. In the southern part things are different, but on average in Europe people pay more attention to crossing the streets than in US. That explains the lower fatalities. Also in Europe people text less; I never understood the US preference for texting, in Europe we simply talk (many countries have affordable or unlimited voice plans). When I drive a car (10-20% of the time) I have a headset in my ear, when I ride the motorcycle I have a helmet headset turned on on auto-answer. I don't talk too often while driving, but it is less distracting than texting, I never have to touch the phone while driving (on the bike it is not even possible).
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  A somewhat cynical, hopefully wrong hypothesis: People in the US text more because we're further down the road of optimizing all human activity to maximize its monetary output, and the asynchronous and more impersonal nature of text messages allows us to transfer data to one another with less interruption to our productivity.
- 7y ago