7 ms·

Cars already do have to wait a little longer for pedestrians to cross - at traffic lights, stop signs, intersections and crosswalks. Roads are literally built

by Sodman 6y ago

Cars already do have to wait a little longer for pedestrians to cross - at traffic lights, stop signs, intersections and crosswalks. Roads are literally built for cars to drive on. Having people on them makes driving far more dangerous, as well as meaning it takes longer to get places, not to mention taking a hit on fuel efficiency. Should I be able to walk in front of a bus load of people and delay their commute? If we're allowing pedestrians unlimited full access to roads with full right of way all the time, then roads basically become sidewalks which cars are also allowed to inch along at walking speed. So what happens to busses now? Are we ok saying busloads of people now have to move at 3mph across a few miles? Again, I am for converting some downtown roads into pedestrian-only areas, but until we do that, we should treat these roads as roads. If pedestrians should have right of way everywhere all the time, should a pedestrian be able to walk across a railroad crossing while the barriers are down and a train is approaching? Is the train expected to stop? Of course not, that would be ridiculous, but it's the same argument.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Roads are literally built for cars to drive on. No, at least outside of the US roads were there before the car even existed. They were walked on before anything else. Then cars hijacked them, and now people have so long forgotten in the US that they've started writing laws to strengthen their land-grab as if it was always this way. > Should I be able to walk in front of a bus load of people and delay their commute? No I don't think you should be able to unreasonably obstruct the highway. You can't do that no matter what vehicle or no vehicle you're in. But crossing is completely reasonable in my mind.
- fastball 6y ago
  That's a fair point. Here's the new idea then: pedestrians have right of way on any road that was originally built with pedestrians in mind and has not since been updated with cars in mind.
- Sodman 6y ago
  > No, at least outside of the US roads were there before the car even existed I mean yes, obviously the concept of a road does literally predate cars. But no roads that modern cars drive on today were built 200 years ago for cattle and wagons to use. Modern city planners built (or re-built) these roads specifically with vehicle traffic in mind (and in some cases maybe bikes). If they didn't want them to support vehicle traffic, they would have built them using different materials and designs. > No I don't think you should be able to unreasonably obstruct the highway. You can't do that no matter what vehicle or no vehicle you're in. But crossing is completely reasonable in my mind. This reads like you're saying you think it's completely reasonable to cross the highway even if it obstructs traffic? I could be misinterpreting the connection between your first and last sentences here... Either way, at the end of the day I think it comes down to the fact that we disagree on what constitutes "unreasonable obstruction". I believe a single pedestrian wanting to slow down dozens of cars so they can cross the street 30 seconds quicker is unreasonable. Even if we're talking about all pedestrians, the aggregate time saved by pedestrians crossing slightly earlier is far outweighed by the time lost by everyone in a car who's now traveling at 5mph instead of 40mph. I believe the current system we have of batching pedestrians crossing using traffic lights is far more efficient overall. The "should there be roads here in the first place" argument is a totally different one however.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > This reads like you're saying you think it's completely reasonable to cross the highway even if it obstructs traffic? Yeah I do - as a pedestrian. I think you should get across as quickly as you can and shouldn't get in people's way unnecessarily... but yeah morally I think you should have that right as a human being on foot. Letting cars have priority lets people with wealth and opportunity have priority.
    - Sodman 6y ago
      > Letting cars have priority lets people with wealth and opportunity have priority. I would actually argue the opposite. As the saying goes, "Location, Location, Location." Many of the wealthiest people / most expensive homes are either walking distance to or in the middle of big hubs. The next most expensive places are walking distance to public transport to take them to big hubs. You can get a much cheaper place if you go to somewhere that's an hour's drive outside the city with no public transport (or the only public transport available is by bus), and that's what many people do to cut down on costs. You've also mentioned that cars probably shouldn't be able to go even as fast as 40kmph when pedestrians could cross... Should we be making all of our highways 30kmph now if we're saying pedestrians should be able to cross them at-will?
- ummonk 6y ago
  I'm picturing somebody jumping in front of a fast moving horse wagon and expecting not to get run over now. I guarantee you everyone would have found that expectation equally ridiculous.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    But 'jaywalking' is crossing anywhere where there isn't a crossing, even when the road is empty. That's a stupid rule. I'm not saying people should expect physics to not apply to them, but they should be allowed to cross anywhere they want and cars should defer. Cars used to have to have a person walking on foot in front of them to warn people with a flag.
    - ummonk 6y ago
      If the road is empty how can there be cars that need to defer to them?
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        Roads aren’t always empty. I’m not sure what kind of question this is? But even they are empty, jaywalking is still a crime. Why?
        ghaff 6y ago
        Because it improves safety. By way of context as to the vigorous enforcement of this law, NYC gave out 300 jaywalking tickets last year. That is not a lot. In fact that's only about 2x the number of pedestrian deaths in NYC last year. And this is a city where everyone pedestrian or driver will take every inch they can. Any driver who hesitates is going to find an entire group waiting for a light taking the opportunity to just start crossing.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > Because it improves safety. Does it? How do you know that? New York (jaywalking laws in effect) has slightly worse road safety than for example London (no jaywalking laws.)

by Sodman 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Roads are literally built for cars to drive on. No, at least outside of the US roads were there before the car even existed. They were walked on before anything else. Then cars hijacked them, and now people have so long forgotten in the US that they've started writing laws to strengthen their land-grab as if it was always this way. > Should I be able to walk in front of a bus load of people and delay their commute? No I don't think you should be able to unreasonably obstruct the highway. You can't do that no matter what vehicle or no vehicle you're in. But crossing is completely reasonable in my mind.

fastball 6y ago
That's a fair point. Here's the new idea then: pedestrians have right of way on any road that was originally built with pedestrians in mind and has not since been updated with cars in mind.
Sodman 6y ago
> No, at least outside of the US roads were there before the car even existed I mean yes, obviously the concept of a road does literally predate cars. But no roads that modern cars drive on today were built 200 years ago for cattle and wagons to use. Modern city planners built (or re-built) these roads specifically with vehicle traffic in mind (and in some cases maybe bikes). If they didn't want them to support vehicle traffic, they would have built them using different materials and designs. > No I don't think you should be able to unreasonably obstruct the highway. You can't do that no matter what vehicle or no vehicle you're in. But crossing is completely reasonable in my mind. This reads like you're saying you think it's completely reasonable to cross the highway even if it obstructs traffic? I could be misinterpreting the connection between your first and last sentences here... Either way, at the end of the day I think it comes down to the fact that we disagree on what constitutes "unreasonable obstruction". I believe a single pedestrian wanting to slow down dozens of cars so they can cross the street 30 seconds quicker is unreasonable. Even if we're talking about all pedestrians, the aggregate time saved by pedestrians crossing slightly earlier is far outweighed by the time lost by everyone in a car who's now traveling at 5mph instead of 40mph. I believe the current system we have of batching pedestrians crossing using traffic lights is far more efficient overall. The "should there be roads here in the first place" argument is a totally different one however.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > This reads like you're saying you think it's completely reasonable to cross the highway even if it obstructs traffic? Yeah I do - as a pedestrian. I think you should get across as quickly as you can and shouldn't get in people's way unnecessarily... but yeah morally I think you should have that right as a human being on foot. Letting cars have priority lets people with wealth and opportunity have priority.
  - Sodman 6y ago
    > Letting cars have priority lets people with wealth and opportunity have priority. I would actually argue the opposite. As the saying goes, "Location, Location, Location." Many of the wealthiest people / most expensive homes are either walking distance to or in the middle of big hubs. The next most expensive places are walking distance to public transport to take them to big hubs. You can get a much cheaper place if you go to somewhere that's an hour's drive outside the city with no public transport (or the only public transport available is by bus), and that's what many people do to cut down on costs. You've also mentioned that cars probably shouldn't be able to go even as fast as 40kmph when pedestrians could cross... Should we be making all of our highways 30kmph now if we're saying pedestrians should be able to cross them at-will?
ummonk 6y ago
I'm picturing somebody jumping in front of a fast moving horse wagon and expecting not to get run over now. I guarantee you everyone would have found that expectation equally ridiculous.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  But 'jaywalking' is crossing anywhere where there isn't a crossing, even when the road is empty. That's a stupid rule. I'm not saying people should expect physics to not apply to them, but they should be allowed to cross anywhere they want and cars should defer. Cars used to have to have a person walking on foot in front of them to warn people with a flag.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    If the road is empty how can there be cars that need to defer to them?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Roads aren’t always empty. I’m not sure what kind of question this is? But even they are empty, jaywalking is still a crime. Why?
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Because it improves safety. By way of context as to the vigorous enforcement of this law, NYC gave out 300 jaywalking tickets last year. That is not a lot. In fact that's only about 2x the number of pedestrian deaths in NYC last year. And this is a city where everyone pedestrian or driver will take every inch they can. Any driver who hesitates is going to find an entire group waiting for a light taking the opportunity to just start crossing.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        > Because it improves safety. Does it? How do you know that? New York (jaywalking laws in effect) has slightly worse road safety than for example London (no jaywalking laws.)