4 ms·

Years ago a lived with someone one who loved to watch videos of people getting hit by cars. I watched a bunch of these by proxy. The thing that still sticks in

Years ago a lived with someone one who loved to watch videos of people getting hit by cars. I watched a bunch of these by proxy. The thing that still sticks in my mind is that almost none of them were jaywalking. It was almost always a car running a red light. The people that got hit put too much faith in the lights.

stanski 5y ago
So true. Most times when I'm making a right turn and have to wait for a pedestrian to cross, I notice that they never look up. Somehow if you have the right of way, cars are magically supposed to obey that. Better to be in one piece than be right.
AJ007 5y ago
In consistently dangerous intersections it can actually be much safer not to cross at the crosswalk. You are basically in a situation where it is perceived as safe because you expect the cars to stop; however, if they don't stop, you are immediately in trouble with no exit.
- laurent92 5y ago
  Same effect: As a bike it is dangerous to go at the green light. If there is a gap, going at the red light makes that you can ensure all dangers are addressed; At the green light you are in the middle of the traffic, cars are turning right without seeing you, or go straight but squeeze their right, or you end up between two lanes.
- sizzle 5y ago
  I can’t wait till all cars use positively reinforced computer vision to slam the brakes when anticipating human impact, coupled with intelligent inferences from gps intersection coordinate, senses the red light or stop sign, lack of flow of traffic from surrounding vehicles in your direction and movement in opposite direction. That is until we get L4(?) autonomous cars. People should not be getting hit by cars in 2021, why is this not solved yet?! C’mon car manufacturers, use your billions in revenue to solve these ‘human driver error resulting in death’ class of problems instead of distracting drivers even more by removing usable tactile buttons for affordance-less touchscreens and shaving off a few cents in production costs.
reportingsjr 5y ago
It's amazing the narrative that is spun around cars and the deaths they cause. Take a closer look at the "accident" reports you see in newspapers. It's disgusting how many times reports of people and children getting hit on sidewalks, sitting on benches, etc is spun as their fault for not getting out of the way of the person driving the car!! There's been a bit of a grassroots push to get journalists to stop calling them accidents and start calling them crashes, so drivers aren't automatically pardoned in reader's minds.
- SamBam 5y ago
  While we're at it, let's see if we can fix "officer-related shooting" too. The most recent one I saw: "A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old." Both the "trooper-related" and the "ended in" passive voice to avoid saying "a trooper shot and killed a child."
  - natmaka 5y ago
    "Children getting hit on sidewalks, sitting on benches" don't threaten anyone, and nobody calls any car driver upon them. The car driver is clearly the culprit, source of the danger. At least in some cases (more often than not, as far as I know) a police officer is called by someone who noticed a dangerous/chaotic situation, and the officer isn't the cause of it. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/peyton-ham-maryland-trooper-shooting/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/peyton-ham-maryland-tr...
    - selestify 5y ago
      The police officer is still very much the one who shot and killed the teen. The use of the passive voice is biased.
    - SamBam 5y ago
      Thank you for linking to the article showing that they improved the headline (possibly as a result of people pointing it out) to the significantly-better "A state trooper shot and killed.." Are you suggesting that they shouldn't have changed it, because the kid was at fault? "A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old" could mean anything. It could mean that someone shot at a trooper, missed, and hit the kid. It could mean that a trooper shot at a dog in self-defense, and a kid was accidentally killed by the ricocheted bullet. It could even mean that someone shot at a trooper and the kid died of a heart attack from the noise. "A state trooper shot and killed.." describes what happened. It's factual. It doesn't assign fault. If you think it creates too much of a gut-reaction that a trooper killing a 16-year-old is a problem, well, maybe that's a good thing because it suggests we should have more options to prevent that from happening. And if you think it's a good thing that the trooper shot him, well, the headline satisfies that as well.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
No they put faith in their fellow humans. Which we all do when we're participating in traffic.

stanski 5y ago

So true. Most times when I'm making a right turn and have to wait for a pedestrian to cross, I notice that they never look up. Somehow if you have the right of way, cars are magically supposed to obey that. Better to be in one piece than be right.

AJ007 5y ago

In consistently dangerous intersections it can actually be much safer not to cross at the crosswalk. You are basically in a situation where it is perceived as safe because you expect the cars to stop; however, if they don't stop, you are immediately in trouble with no exit.

laurent92 5y ago
Same effect: As a bike it is dangerous to go at the green light. If there is a gap, going at the red light makes that you can ensure all dangers are addressed; At the green light you are in the middle of the traffic, cars are turning right without seeing you, or go straight but squeeze their right, or you end up between two lanes.
sizzle 5y ago
I can’t wait till all cars use positively reinforced computer vision to slam the brakes when anticipating human impact, coupled with intelligent inferences from gps intersection coordinate, senses the red light or stop sign, lack of flow of traffic from surrounding vehicles in your direction and movement in opposite direction. That is until we get L4(?) autonomous cars. People should not be getting hit by cars in 2021, why is this not solved yet?! C’mon car manufacturers, use your billions in revenue to solve these ‘human driver error resulting in death’ class of problems instead of distracting drivers even more by removing usable tactile buttons for affordance-less touchscreens and shaving off a few cents in production costs.

reportingsjr 5y ago

It's amazing the narrative that is spun around cars and the deaths they cause. Take a closer look at the "accident" reports you see in newspapers. It's disgusting how many times reports of people and children getting hit on sidewalks, sitting on benches, etc is spun as their fault for not getting out of the way of the person driving the car!! There's been a bit of a grassroots push to get journalists to stop calling them accidents and start calling them crashes, so drivers aren't automatically pardoned in reader's minds.

SamBam 5y ago
While we're at it, let's see if we can fix "officer-related shooting" too. The most recent one I saw: "A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old." Both the "trooper-related" and the "ended in" passive voice to avoid saying "a trooper shot and killed a child."
- natmaka 5y ago
  "Children getting hit on sidewalks, sitting on benches" don't threaten anyone, and nobody calls any car driver upon them. The car driver is clearly the culprit, source of the danger. At least in some cases (more often than not, as far as I know) a police officer is called by someone who noticed a dangerous/chaotic situation, and the officer isn't the cause of it. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/peyton-ham-maryland-trooper-shooting/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/14/us/peyton-ham-maryland-tr...
  - selestify 5y ago
    The police officer is still very much the one who shot and killed the teen. The use of the passive voice is biased.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    Thank you for linking to the article showing that they improved the headline (possibly as a result of people pointing it out) to the significantly-better "A state trooper shot and killed.." Are you suggesting that they shouldn't have changed it, because the kid was at fault? "A trooper-involved fatal shooting in Leonardtown that ended in the death of a 16-year-old" could mean anything. It could mean that someone shot at a trooper, missed, and hit the kid. It could mean that a trooper shot at a dog in self-defense, and a kid was accidentally killed by the ricocheted bullet. It could even mean that someone shot at a trooper and the kid died of a heart attack from the noise. "A state trooper shot and killed.." describes what happened. It's factual. It doesn't assign fault. If you think it creates too much of a gut-reaction that a trooper killing a 16-year-old is a problem, well, maybe that's a good thing because it suggests we should have more options to prevent that from happening. And if you think it's a good thing that the trooper shot him, well, the headline satisfies that as well.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

No they put faith in their fellow humans. Which we all do when we're participating in traffic.