5 ms·

Don’t be obtuse. A person collapses into the street and is struck by oncoming traffic - no one is to blame. It is an accident.

by JackFr 5y ago

dfxm12 5y ago
Who's being obtuse? It looks like neither you nor the parent comment assign blame to the woman that the driver struck. From here, it looks like you are in agreement. The parent comment didn't even say one way or another if the driver who struck the woman should get any blame...
ecshafer 5y ago
If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Who I can think to blame here: * The auto manufacturer for not having sensors to detect this. * The city for making car dependent areas * The city for making roads that have cars drive so fast by pedestrians, that the pedestrian can die if hit * The driver for not driving more reasonably * The city for not having a barrier between the sidewalk and the road, China has these in a lot of areas, a curb with a hedge between the side walks and roads, or a fence. The pedestrian who collapses is the last to blame in my view.
- ballenf 5y ago
  > If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Even 5 mph is too fast if the collapse is shielded from view until the last instant. In other words your statement boils down to "driver can stop unless they can't".
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    If the collapse is shielded from view until the last instant, but still possible, there's an engineer somewhere who designed a road irresponsibly.
    - kortex 5y ago
      Exactly this. The human-factors-engineering take is that these should be mutually exclusive: - a driver should be able to brake if a person falls suddenly (streets) - a person is isolated from/ is incapable of falling suddenly into oncoming traffic (roads) It's the same reason highways are fenced off, extended to streets and roads. A big part of the problem is America's reliance on stroads: too fast to be hospitable for non-drivers, insufficiently isolated to protect non-drivers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad
  - dml2135 5y ago
    It is extremely unlikely that someone will be killed by a 5 mph collision, and it is certainly less likely than a 30 mph collision.
    - nzmsv 5y ago
      Cars are heavy things and can kill you even if they move at 5mph: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/22/anton-yelchin-death-officially-ruled-as-accident https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/22/anton-yelchin-d...
- Spivak 5y ago
  Yeah, this isn't an act of god that no one could have possibly foreseen. This is system designed by humans that we have 100% control over.
  - chiefofgxbxl 5y ago
    This is the key point of the research and the tool I built, and clearly I still have some work to do on making this clear on my site: The objective is not to shift blame from one party to the other, even if its shifting from VRUs to drivers. The important thing is that we emphasize that all car crashes have a cause and known solutions! Nearly all news articles miss this point, and tend to place blame (even inadvertently) on the parties involved rather than discuss how to prevent future incidents from happening.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      FWIW, one way in which you lost me early on was framing it as VRU vs driver. I don't see it in such simple terms. There are road users. It is not always the pedestrian that is killed. Sometimes it is another driver. And pedestrians can absolutely be the cause of a wreck where the driver dies. Not to mention, someone can be a VRU now, and a driver in a few minutes, then a VRU again. There are lots of good reasons to make roads safer, lots of methods for doing so, and none of them require making drivers the villains.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  > If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Or they collapse mere seconds before the car strikes them making the __accident__ unavoidable.
  - lelandbatey 5y ago
    The duration between when the pedestrian collapses and when the driver runs over the pedestrian is not as relevant as you seem to be implying. If someone is standing in a crosswalk in broad daylight and falls over, even if the pedestrian collapses 0.1 seconds before someone runs them over that doesn't leave the driver blameless. Why, in broad daylight, in the middle of a crosswalk, was a driver 0.1 seconds away from running over a pedestrian? That sounds like poor road design, poor driving, or another factor. The same logic applies even as we worsen the conditions: if it was dark, where was the lighting? If the pedestrian "suddenly appeared" from behind an obstacle, why is there an obstacle that close to a road and why can a pedestrian get so close that they can "appear" from behind that obstacle? Roads should be designed so that pedestrians cannot accidentally end up 0.1 seconds (or pick your duration) from being crushed by a driver. And drivers, state-licensed machine operators, should face an incredibly high bar of scrutiny when it comes to damaging pedestrians. Yes this probably means very different road designs than the ones we have now, that is one of the end goals of this kind of effort.
    - dgfitz 5y ago
      I can say with confidence that this effort will not result in roads being re-designed, ripped up, re-poured, and money paid for the effort.
      - lolpython 5y ago
        What in the world are you talking about? Many US cities have already created traffic calming programs due to advocacy like this. https://lmgtfy.app/?q=traffic+calming+site%3A.gov https://lmgtfy.app/?q=traffic+calming+site%3A.gov
zip1234 5y ago
Perhaps if she is struck then the drivers were going too fast? Maybe the speed limit should be lowered. Perhaps the street could be designed in a safer way to make this less likely to happen. Calling everything an accident is ignoring the actual causes.
lamontcg 5y ago
If I see a cyclist one of the things I do is slow down and give them space specifically because bicyclists do occasionally fall. A good chunk of my awareness is also assigned to evaluating how they're riding in order to anticipate any kind of problem. The fact that most motorists don't believe there's any kind of responsibility for everyone to behave similarly is a problem.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Changing your behavior gives the cyclists and the road users around you (other cars, pedestrians looking for a spot to cross, etc, etc) the impression that you're a skittish or novice driver and are uncomfortable with the situation. This puts them on alert that you might do something unexpected (you are presumably a novice after all). This takes attention away from all the other things that demand their attention and reduces overall situational awareness. The best favor you can do all other traffic is to be as predictable and unremarkable in your actions as possible so that they may reliably plan their actions around yours.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    > you are presumably a novice after all I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention. Trying to drive like a robot all the time is something that actual novice drivers think makes them better drivers.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. My point is you look like a novice in the eyes of the other drivers because the only information they have is that you're having a harder time than everyone else passing the cyclist(s). >You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention. I agree
      - 5y ago
FabHK 5y ago
> no one is to blame. It is an accident That is not the mindset with which aviation arrived at its amazing safety record.
_dain_ 5y ago
Imagine this were a workplace: some kind of suspended catwalk where accidentally falling off it is fatal. It would be an OSHA violation not to have guard rails to prevent this from occurring. Likewise, if this is a road where cars are moving too quickly to stop in time to avoid fatally hitting someone who falls onto the road, there ought to be a barrier between the pavement and the road except at designated crossing points.

Don’t be obtuse. A person collapses into the street and is struck by oncoming traffic - no one is to blame. It is an accident.

by JackFr 5y ago

Don’t be obtuse. A person collapses into the street and is struck by oncoming traffic - no one is to blame. It is an accident.

dfxm12 5y ago

Who's being obtuse? It looks like neither you nor the parent comment assign blame to the woman that the driver struck. From here, it looks like you are in agreement. The parent comment didn't even say one way or another if the driver who struck the woman should get any blame...

ecshafer 5y ago

If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Who I can think to blame here: * The auto manufacturer for not having sensors to detect this. * The city for making car dependent areas * The city for making roads that have cars drive so fast by pedestrians, that the pedestrian can die if hit * The driver for not driving more reasonably * The city for not having a barrier between the sidewalk and the road, China has these in a lot of areas, a curb with a hedge between the side walks and roads, or a fence. The pedestrian who collapses is the last to blame in my view.

ballenf 5y ago
> If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Even 5 mph is too fast if the collapse is shielded from view until the last instant. In other words your statement boils down to "driver can stop unless they can't".
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  If the collapse is shielded from view until the last instant, but still possible, there's an engineer somewhere who designed a road irresponsibly.
  - kortex 5y ago
    Exactly this. The human-factors-engineering take is that these should be mutually exclusive: - a driver should be able to brake if a person falls suddenly (streets) - a person is isolated from/ is incapable of falling suddenly into oncoming traffic (roads) It's the same reason highways are fenced off, extended to streets and roads. A big part of the problem is America's reliance on stroads: too fast to be hospitable for non-drivers, insufficiently isolated to protect non-drivers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad
- dml2135 5y ago
  It is extremely unlikely that someone will be killed by a 5 mph collision, and it is certainly less likely than a 30 mph collision.
  - nzmsv 5y ago
    Cars are heavy things and can kill you even if they move at 5mph: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/22/anton-yelchin-death-officially-ruled-as-accident https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/22/anton-yelchin-d...
Spivak 5y ago
Yeah, this isn't an act of god that no one could have possibly foreseen. This is system designed by humans that we have 100% control over.
- chiefofgxbxl 5y ago
  This is the key point of the research and the tool I built, and clearly I still have some work to do on making this clear on my site: The objective is not to shift blame from one party to the other, even if its shifting from VRUs to drivers. The important thing is that we emphasize that all car crashes have a cause and known solutions! Nearly all news articles miss this point, and tend to place blame (even inadvertently) on the parties involved rather than discuss how to prevent future incidents from happening.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    FWIW, one way in which you lost me early on was framing it as VRU vs driver. I don't see it in such simple terms. There are road users. It is not always the pedestrian that is killed. Sometimes it is another driver. And pedestrians can absolutely be the cause of a wreck where the driver dies. Not to mention, someone can be a VRU now, and a driver in a few minutes, then a VRU again. There are lots of good reasons to make roads safer, lots of methods for doing so, and none of them require making drivers the villains.
dgfitz 5y ago
> If someone collapses into the street, the driver should be able to stop in time, unless they are going to fast. Or they collapse mere seconds before the car strikes them making the __accident__ unavoidable.
- lelandbatey 5y ago
  The duration between when the pedestrian collapses and when the driver runs over the pedestrian is not as relevant as you seem to be implying. If someone is standing in a crosswalk in broad daylight and falls over, even if the pedestrian collapses 0.1 seconds before someone runs them over that doesn't leave the driver blameless. Why, in broad daylight, in the middle of a crosswalk, was a driver 0.1 seconds away from running over a pedestrian? That sounds like poor road design, poor driving, or another factor. The same logic applies even as we worsen the conditions: if it was dark, where was the lighting? If the pedestrian "suddenly appeared" from behind an obstacle, why is there an obstacle that close to a road and why can a pedestrian get so close that they can "appear" from behind that obstacle? Roads should be designed so that pedestrians cannot accidentally end up 0.1 seconds (or pick your duration) from being crushed by a driver. And drivers, state-licensed machine operators, should face an incredibly high bar of scrutiny when it comes to damaging pedestrians. Yes this probably means very different road designs than the ones we have now, that is one of the end goals of this kind of effort.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    I can say with confidence that this effort will not result in roads being re-designed, ripped up, re-poured, and money paid for the effort.
    - lolpython 5y ago
      What in the world are you talking about? Many US cities have already created traffic calming programs due to advocacy like this. https://lmgtfy.app/?q=traffic+calming+site%3A.gov https://lmgtfy.app/?q=traffic+calming+site%3A.gov

zip1234 5y ago

Perhaps if she is struck then the drivers were going too fast? Maybe the speed limit should be lowered. Perhaps the street could be designed in a safer way to make this less likely to happen. Calling everything an accident is ignoring the actual causes.

lamontcg 5y ago

If I see a cyclist one of the things I do is slow down and give them space specifically because bicyclists do occasionally fall. A good chunk of my awareness is also assigned to evaluating how they're riding in order to anticipate any kind of problem. The fact that most motorists don't believe there's any kind of responsibility for everyone to behave similarly is a problem.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Changing your behavior gives the cyclists and the road users around you (other cars, pedestrians looking for a spot to cross, etc, etc) the impression that you're a skittish or novice driver and are uncomfortable with the situation. This puts them on alert that you might do something unexpected (you are presumably a novice after all). This takes attention away from all the other things that demand their attention and reduces overall situational awareness. The best favor you can do all other traffic is to be as predictable and unremarkable in your actions as possible so that they may reliably plan their actions around yours.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  > you are presumably a novice after all I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention. Trying to drive like a robot all the time is something that actual novice drivers think makes them better drivers.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. My point is you look like a novice in the eyes of the other drivers because the only information they have is that you're having a harder time than everyone else passing the cyclist(s). >You can absolutely react to hazards without appearing skittish, which also alerts other traffic to the hazard if they're paying close attention. I agree
    - 5y ago

FabHK 5y ago

> no one is to blame. It is an accident That is not the mindset with which aviation arrived at its amazing safety record.

_dain_ 5y ago

Imagine this were a workplace: some kind of suspended catwalk where accidentally falling off it is fatal. It would be an OSHA violation not to have guard rails to prevent this from occurring. Likewise, if this is a road where cars are moving too quickly to stop in time to avoid fatally hitting someone who falls onto the road, there ought to be a barrier between the pavement and the road except at designated crossing points.