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>I worked around heavy machinery and I know that's not true. I'm talking dramatically large forklifts for picking up massive shipping containers. It is the job

by soperj 5y ago

>I worked around heavy machinery and I know that's not true. I'm talking dramatically large forklifts for picking up massive shipping containers. It is the job of both the operator and the person on the ground to coordinate their activity. You've actually worked somewhere that it wasn't the forklift operators fault? Was it the military? Because this sounds way out of step from my experiences. > there are rules and procedure for everyone's safety No drivers are injured in pedestrian collisions. >This blame-the-driver rhetoric is just odd. It really isn't if you've spent most of your life as a pedestrian, walking or biking. If I'm an idiot, I'm likely to die, if the car driver is an idiot, I'm likely to die. Who do you think is more likely to be the idiot in that situation?

kodah 5y ago
> Was it the military? Yes. The system seemed to work pretty well from my experience. Safety, in general, is everyones responsibility -- from the individual to the systems at play. If you've ever been to a civilian gun range and heard, "everyone is a safety officer", that's where that comes from. > It really isn't if you've spent most of your life as a pedestrian, walking or biking. If I'm an idiot, I'm likely to die, if the car driver is an idiot, I'm likely to die. Who do you think is more likely to be the idiot in that situation? I used to ride a motorcycle, can I use this logic for accidents as well? Anything bigger than I am is likely to kill me. The logic seems heavily flawed, and the binary representation of fault or no fault doesn't match with the reality that it could very well be that the city is not adequately equipping the pedestrians and drivers with viable signals to communicate with. It's also worth noting I live in the Bay area and bike across a good portion of it, including highways, and I do not share your view.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
What he is describing is SOP in every rail yard, pit mine, construction site, ship yard, inter-modal facility, airport, etc, etc, etc and has been since not long after the advent of these kinds of workplaces. In addition to staying in your "zone" (men use man doors vehicles use vehicle doors, service trucks use service roads haul trucks use haul roads, etc, etc) your obligation in these settings is to stay out of the way of everything bigger than you and behave predictably so that everything smaller may stay out of your way. The smallest most nimble and greatest visibility traffic (usually a pedestrian) is expected to not get crushed underfoot of everything else. The biggest "slowest to take evasive action" traffic with the worst visibility has the greatest obligation to behave predictably and stay within the bounds of where, when and how it should be operating. And of course if there's someone in charge of directing traffic everyone listens to them. Pedestrian yields to forklift yields to semi truck yields to crane yields to haul truck yields to ship (granted I can't think of a workplace where a haul truck would encounter a ship but you get my point). I could say this is "OSHA 101" if I wanted to rake in the cheap virtue points but most of this stuff was formalized a century before OSHA in the rail yards of the 1800s. >Who do you think is more likely to be the idiot in that situation? Whoever is least able to empathize with what the other is trying to do and predict the other's actions correctly. The car driver probably has been a pedestrian from time to time so....
- notacoward 5y ago
  > The car driver probably has been a pedestrian from time to time so.... That seems to be the key here. It's easy for people to say "always the driver's fault" when they never drive themselves, instead paying Other People to do all the driving - FAANG shuttles, various delivery trucks, Uber if necessary - that sustains their lifestyle. In reality, safety in a shared space is a shared responsibility.

by soperj 5y ago

kodah 5y ago

> Was it the military? Yes. The system seemed to work pretty well from my experience. Safety, in general, is everyones responsibility -- from the individual to the systems at play. If you've ever been to a civilian gun range and heard, "everyone is a safety officer", that's where that comes from. > It really isn't if you've spent most of your life as a pedestrian, walking or biking. If I'm an idiot, I'm likely to die, if the car driver is an idiot, I'm likely to die. Who do you think is more likely to be the idiot in that situation? I used to ride a motorcycle, can I use this logic for accidents as well? Anything bigger than I am is likely to kill me. The logic seems heavily flawed, and the binary representation of fault or no fault doesn't match with the reality that it could very well be that the city is not adequately equipping the pedestrians and drivers with viable signals to communicate with. It's also worth noting I live in the Bay area and bike across a good portion of it, including highways, and I do not share your view.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

What he is describing is SOP in every rail yard, pit mine, construction site, ship yard, inter-modal facility, airport, etc, etc, etc and has been since not long after the advent of these kinds of workplaces. In addition to staying in your "zone" (men use man doors vehicles use vehicle doors, service trucks use service roads haul trucks use haul roads, etc, etc) your obligation in these settings is to stay out of the way of everything bigger than you and behave predictably so that everything smaller may stay out of your way. The smallest most nimble and greatest visibility traffic (usually a pedestrian) is expected to not get crushed underfoot of everything else. The biggest "slowest to take evasive action" traffic with the worst visibility has the greatest obligation to behave predictably and stay within the bounds of where, when and how it should be operating. And of course if there's someone in charge of directing traffic everyone listens to them. Pedestrian yields to forklift yields to semi truck yields to crane yields to haul truck yields to ship (granted I can't think of a workplace where a haul truck would encounter a ship but you get my point). I could say this is "OSHA 101" if I wanted to rake in the cheap virtue points but most of this stuff was formalized a century before OSHA in the rail yards of the 1800s. >Who do you think is more likely to be the idiot in that situation? Whoever is least able to empathize with what the other is trying to do and predict the other's actions correctly. The car driver probably has been a pedestrian from time to time so....

notacoward 5y ago
> The car driver probably has been a pedestrian from time to time so.... That seems to be the key here. It's easy for people to say "always the driver's fault" when they never drive themselves, instead paying Other People to do all the driving - FAANG shuttles, various delivery trucks, Uber if necessary - that sustains their lifestyle. In reality, safety in a shared space is a shared responsibility.