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In Austin Texas we have an absurdly well marked crosswalk on the way to the elementary school, to a close approximation nobody has ever stopped to let us cross.

In Austin Texas we have an absurdly well marked crosswalk on the way to the elementary school, to a close approximation nobody has ever stopped to let us cross. Our daughter was nearly killed once, so far. It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, so they drive without regard for pedestrians and active hostility towards cyclists and park in the way of sidewalks, making walking or riding bikes to school seem so scary and unpleasant that few kids do it anymore, leading to more fat Americans who would never imagine walking. It is really depressing.

_dain_ 5y ago
Can you link to this crosswalk on Streetview? I have a mental image of the kind of crossing you're describing and I want to see if it matches with the reality.
Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
When I lived in LA, it was downright dangerous to try and cross a road as a pedestrian. I once ended up on some guy's hood who decided that red lights just didn't apply to him. No major harm done thankfully, but if he'd have been going any faster I wouldn't be here today.
wffurr 5y ago
Like WALL-E except the hover chairs weigh 3000lb and can go 80 mph.
unicornfinder 5y ago
To be fair I think the problem isn't just the people but how the roads and infrastructure is designed in the US. It's very anti-pedestrian.
- thex10 5y ago
  To reconcile this with the parent comment... yes. Crosswalk markings, however bold and bright, alone are insufficient to make an intersection safe for pedestrians.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    That is cultural. In Germany, crosswalks are very much adhered to.
- sillyquiet 5y ago
  Since pedestrian deaths are 'surging', its gotta be down to something that's changed, not a factor that's been constant all along, right?
  - gbtw 5y ago
    Transport cost are too high forcing people to use alternatives like walking.
    - donkeyd 5y ago
      Why do you need to look for such far fetched explanations when you can clearly see massive amounts of people texting while driving? I drive quite a lot (for European standards) and I've seen the amount of people holding phones increase massively. I can recognize it from a mile away by the way people are driving.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        And for that matter, people texting while they're walking across the street with earphones in. I honestly don't even feel comfortable wearing earphones when I'm walking in the woods much less on a city street.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    One thing mentioned in the article that rings very true is that vehicles are getting bigger. It’s not unusual to see trucks where the front grill is too high to see a child, or even some adults. We have the statistics to know that these vehicles are disproportionately likely to kill pedestrians, but vehicles sell based on the safety of people inside the vehicle, not people outside of it. It’s a vicious circle, too. If everyone else has an SUV, you also want an SUV so you’re not crushed by one in a crash.
    - sillyquiet 5y ago
      Maybe. Again, there have been ginormous trucks and SUVs around the rounds since the 90s, why would we see a sudden spike and not a gradual increase since then?
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  No, it's people. Everyone is so fucking angry now. The only (convenient) road out of my neighborhood is through two school zones. People will PASS me in a school zone. Not the normal pass, but the floor it I'm angry pass. It's happened multiple times. They're so fucking selfish they would endanger CHILDREN just to not have to wake their sloppy ass up 10 minutes earlier so they can get to work on time.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > No, it's people. It really is not just that. The netherlands didn’t fix their traffic by telling people to drive better (in fact they did relatively little of that), but by redesigning the entire driving conditions around the results they wanted. Properly incentivising, and taking advantage of human psychology for other reasons than exploitation, is much more reliable than scolding people. Getting stuck on “it’s people!” will be largely ineffective, because it’s not how people work. Though if your only goal is to have something to moan about, carry on, that’ll certainly keep.
amcoastal 5y ago
Its just where you live. Welcome to large cities. You can move to more hospitable parts of the country where people still have basic respect for people. The politics in the South sure have annoyed me, but dealing with the public (i.e. people who you don't know) in everyday life is miles different compared to living in NY, CA, FL, TX etc.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  The first time I saw opposite direction traffic stop to show respect to a funeral procession (common in the South), I was very confused.
  - cdot2 5y ago
    It has never occurred to me that people might not do that.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      In Massachusetts, cross traffic doesn’t even always stop…
- Kye 5y ago
  It's more you trade sets of respects and disrespects. Small towns are great as long as you conform to a narrow set of socially conservative expectations. The south isn't all bad, but the bad escalates faster than in other places the further you are from a major highway.
  - amcoastal 5y ago
    Definitely agree with this sentiment. My perspective on receiving more respect in the South probably has a lot to do with being a redneck looking white guy.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
cianmm 5y ago
I’m in Ireland and there is a signposted pedestrian crossing that cars routinely ignore in a park near my house. A good technique, I’ve found, is point your phone at them as you prepare to cross. It seems to scare them into stopping. Normalisation of dangerous driving is a global phenomenon where car culture reigns.
- kmlx 5y ago
  elevated pedestrian crossing is the solution here. used across London with great effect. anyway, there are many ways to calm traffic.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    We used to have lovely speedbumps every 50 meters or so in our neighborhood. Can’t drive fast if it’ll make your car fly.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      Such active traffic calming measures can be combined with more passive ones (lane narrowing, visual obstructions) to create a psychological slowdown effect in addition to the physical ones. This works especially well combined with pedestrian and cycle passthroughs and such, including to avoid “drive-through” neighbourhoods without having to make the neighbourhood entirely impassable and a pain in the ass to residents.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        >including to avoid “drive-through” neighbourhoods without having to make the neighbourhood entirely impassable and a pain in the ass to residents. I suspect that Google Maps and the like have worsened the level of driving through residential neighborhoods as they route you through a maze of residential streets to save (in theory) two minutes.
        masklinn 5y ago
usrusr 5y ago
In the age of Peloton and other indoors-only fitness trends, being fat is no requirement at all for hostility towards any means of outdoors transportation that isn't a Very Large Wheelchair.
throwaway894345 5y ago
I forget where this was, but I recall seeing video of police crossing on a crosswalk undercover and whenever a vehicle would fail to yield a cruiser would appear and pull the offender over. I would like to see a lot more of this. In Chicago, people have always blown red lights at speed right in front of parked police cars because they know police won’t do anything (and I’m not even sure if the police are allowed to do anything—allegedly they can’t chase suspects unless they believe they are a threat to society, and I’m not sure that includes “reckless driving”). The article didn’t mention it, but I also wonder if this (like the surge in violent crime) is driven in part by changes in policing following the BLM protests (e.g., police make fewer traffic stops for fear of finding themselves in an incriminating situation).
- _dain_ 5y ago
  >I would like to see a lot more of this. The problem is, it doesn't scale, especially in a city as big and violent as Chicago. It only works so long as police keep their foot on the gas (so to speak); they minute they let up on traffic enforcement (because of competing priorities) things will get worse again. If one person speeds, that person is an idiot. But if everyone speeds, the road engineer is an idiot. A systemic problem like this is a result of poor road design, not individual deviant drivers. Police should not be burdened with the responsibility of ensuring safety in a system that is unsafe by design. The roads need to be redesigned so that drivers naturally feel unsafe at high speed.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Traffic circles / roundabouts would go a long way.
    - dboreham 5y ago
      Plenty of roundabouts here in Montana.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    As it stands, Chicago has police cars all over the place (in every neighborhood I’ve lived in anyway) often just sitting there parked and by my estimation there’s close to zero traffic enforcement, so we certainly seem to have a lot of capacity for maintaining this sort of enforcement and I suspect it would be like introducing a few wolves into a national park—it doesn’t take much enforcement to drive significant, broad changes. > A systemic problem like this is a result of poor road design, not individual deviant drivers. In many cases, I agree that there is a systemic problem at play, but these cases tend to be highways (i.e., no pedestrians) and the issue is politicians setting speed limits which traffic engineers understand to be unsafely low for the road’s design (the safest speed being that which 85% of drivers would naturally drive if unencumbered). And it hardly matters how engineers design the road because politicians will always respond to a vocal minority who argue that the limits should be lower. However with respect to streets (i.e., places where pedestrians belong) rather than highways, the issue is only systemic with respect to enforcement—many other parts of the country (or even the same places with different enforcement) have similar streets but drivers are better behaved. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t room for improvement everywhere, but only that the issue isn’t “Chicago has stupid street engineers”.
efitz 5y ago
How exactly did you get to “the cause of reckless driving is fat people who don’t walk everywhere?” Show your work. In most places in America walking is not a practical mode of transportation because of distance; it’s miles from your house to the grocery store, for instance. If you live in a city this might not be obvious to you but half the country lives in the burbs or rural areas. Separately, it would be nice if we had more sidewalks, but they are financially unsustainable in low density areas. Separately, the US does have an obesity problem, and exercise would help, but the biggest issue by far is dietary sugar/carbohydrates.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  No. Distances are high because of low density. Sidewalks are financially unsustainable because of low density. People are obese also because they don't walk because of low density. Low density is caused by car culture pushed by car manufacturers and oil companies.
  - collegeburner 5y ago
    Because I don't want to live in some 3x3 postage stamp with close neighbors and people peering in and no yard, let alone an apartment sharing walls between people. Screw high density, I've lived in it and it sucks. Oh and I am extremely fit, obesity is bad choices not "car culture".
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      You should visit other countries.
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  > Separately, it would be nice if we had more sidewalks, but they are financially unsustainable in low density areas. What makes sidewalks expensive to maintain, relative to roads? > the biggest issue by far is dietary sugar/carbohydrates This is not clear. See this highly fascinating series on the obesity epidemic: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-part-i-mysteries/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p.... Other suspects are HFCS and seed oils.
maxerickson 5y ago
I'm pretty sure lots of car-first/car-only people are not fat.
burlesona 5y ago
Moved to Austin during the pandemic, and my experience has been the same. It feels very dangerous to walk or bike anywhere, even in residential areas, because of the aggressive drivers. Even when I’m driving, the pervasive road rage here is much worse than anywhere else I’ve lived (including 3 other major cities). It’s been a real disappointment.
- op00to 5y ago
aww_dang 5y ago
I'm all for cycling, but as a former bike messenger this take feels a bit extreme. The obesity crisis is real and people should get out and be more active. No matter how many concessions are made, most people are just unable to get over the lack of inertia and start cycling. Even if we allow for a hypothetical safety utopia, comments here will cite sweating as a deal breaker. I understand and empathize with beginners who are not acclimatized to cycling on a busy road. However it doesn't change the fact that you have to start somewhere and build your comfort levels. Pragmatically, this is the more important self-fulfilling dynamic. If you don't start building your skills and instead blame drivers... There are hostile drivers out there. After decades of riding (sometimes wildly irresponsibly) I can only count on one hand motorists who were actively trying to run me over. In those cases the sentiment was mutual and we had already exchanged words or otherwise escalated. Would have been easy to avoid. Contrast this to the cultural/class rhetoric against pickup-truck drivers. As a self-appointed expert in the domain, this doesn't ring true for me. It fits better with the theme of Internet hyperbole and media alarmism.
- bdauvergne 5y ago
  What exactly is the problem with sweating ? The rest of the world sweats without thinking about it.
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    Whatever problems may exist can be easily resolved by showering and changing clothes. They can be further minimized by dressing appropriately.
  - analog31 5y ago
    Somehow it's perceived as a norm that you can't arrive at work, a restaurant, or the store, with any amount of sweat on you. There's a bit more to it than this, of course. Most American cities have more extreme climate, longer commutes, and more hills, than in the northern European cities that are held up as the gold standard of cycling culture, but people ride bikes in southern Europe too. In turn, this makes it "necessary" to wear special cycling garb, change, and shower when you arrive at work. Vanishingly few workplaces provide a convenient place to shower and change. But I ride my bike to work year-round in a city that gets (for instance) about 10 degrees hotter than Amsterdam, and I manage it.
pinephoneguy 5y ago
Someone in Indiana honked at me for using a crosswalk yesterday thinking I was supposed to yield to them for some reason. I think people from rural areas and suburbs just aren’t used to driving in smaller streets.
- sethammons 5y ago
  I and colleagues used to have to cross a moderately busy street in Orange County, CA. A marked crossing section a block from the train station. I was routinely honked at and vehicles would swerve around. I started carrying a strobe flashlight and would glance it towards fast moving cars. This usually slowed them down but pissed them off more. Not blinding them mind you, just a flash. Sooooo put out that they will have to slow for up to 20 seconds.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    Can you show me this crosswalk on Streetview? I'm trying to get an idea of the kinds of environments people are talking about in this thread (I'm non-American).
    - sethammons 5y ago
      Here is the exact intersection. It looks safer than it is (or was, I've since moved far away). https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7878268,-117.8588114,3a,75y,72.64h,88.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUVDQOb0I-hmAlddL6IX-lg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7878268,-117.8588114,3a,75y,...
      - _dain_ 5y ago
        That doesn't look safe at all. Five lanes! And you have to cross them all in one go, with no signaling!!! My goodness. Such a thing would never be constructed here (UK)*. There would be, at minimum, a protected pedestrian island in the middle, so that in crossing you only need to look in one direction at a time. Almost always a set of pedestrian-controlled traffic lights too. In the Netherlands they might even go a step further and put in a continuous sidewalk (i.e. the surface the pedestrians walk on remains at the same level as the sidewalk, so that cars have to rise onto it like a speedbump). Here is an example comparable to yours: a 4-lane major road intersecting perpendicularly with a 2-lane minor road. Pedestrians have controlled crossings across the major part, and protected islands so they never have to cross more than two lanes in one go: https://goo.gl/maps/MYbcyPgQZD1PMAL69 https://goo.gl/maps/MYbcyPgQZD1PMAL69 This design is standard everywhere. And it isn't even optimal (it doesn't accommodate cyclists very well). *If you searched high and low across the country you might find a counterexample or two, but the fact remains that this kind of junction is thoroughly alien to the British built environment.
salawat 5y ago
...Hate to break it to you, but that's just Austin. Don't know what it is; but Travis County brings out some of the worst driving habits in people.
aurizon 5y ago
In Toronto there are paid people with fluorescent traffic warden clothes and signage who attend all crosswalks and traffic light for the student travel periods, AM, Noon, PM. Other times they have walk buttons that start flashing lights and an overhead banner (flasher lighted)
- palijer 5y ago
  And that still doesn't seem to stop reckless driving from killing pedestrians. The only thing that will slow drivers down is when they feel unsafe themselves, or have a risk to their vehicle. Adding signs or automatic fines doesn't do anything. You need narrower streets utilizing actual traffic calling techniques. It's such a sad sight to see signs with a "traffic calming zone" sign, but absolutely zero traffic calming done. It'll be a wide open street, we'll paved, no trees right against the road or bollards in the middle or speed bumps. Watching this video feels like an alternative reality that never happened and it seems great. https://youtu.be/bAxRYrpbnuA https://youtu.be/bAxRYrpbnuA
  - aurizon 5y ago
    Yes, good video. Canada and the USA has this demonic granting of speed rights to drivers. They could put in automatic speed traps on all street, with a fine by mail of a small amount, say $10 = a nuisance, but as they pile up the constant nag by mail, with a forced full payment to renew the plate will have a coercive enduring affect. It is important to keep it small - with a caveat. You are allowed to go yo court. If you challenge in court = higher tier of fines + time wasted burden. After a few months most will comply. Now manned speed traps have huge fines, huge police/court $$ burden. Cops tied up at speed traps prevent no crime, just fine a few people/day as the ticketing process at the street level is very slow. Automatic radar speed traps are fast. People hate them because they also have huge fines = lobby politicians a lot. The small nominal fine will get compliance without the same amount of lobbying and other pushback,
edmcnulty101 5y ago
> It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, As a fat person and I think I can take the liberty to speak on behalf of other fat people, you are absolutely correct. So be sure to please get out of the way and stay out of the way. Another good option is to go to the city council and have them rope off areas of the town for pedestrians only, if you want to be safe.
giantg2 5y ago
Are you actually in the crosswalk when people don't stop? I imagine most people don't know the law this well, but... the vehicles don't have to stop unless you have at least one foot in the crosswalk in most states. So they could just be assuming you are letting them go, or they're jerks.
sjg007 5y ago
Let your local police department know, they will gladly sit there and ticket offending vehicles.
op00to 5y ago
> America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk It's got nothing to do with obesity. The personal auto is the US government-dictated and subsidized default transportation method. Anyone not using a personal auto is "less than". In other words, if you're walking, you're a subhuman.
pwr-electronics 5y ago
I briefly worked in one of the statistically worst states for bicycle safety, but I was still surprised to learn how many older people fantasized about running over cyclists, or had a "they probably deserved it" attitude whenever a cyclist was struck by a car. One time, a couple of coworkers were riding single file in the generous shoulder of a wide nearly empty multi-lane road in the early morning when they were both run over from behind in a hit and run. One had to have his spine fused. I still saw the same attitude of contempt, even from coworkers who otherwise liked them. I switched to mountain biking after that.
- tim333 5y ago
  Strange really - I've never figured what that's all about, speaking as a driver who has no problem with cyclists.
  - pwr-electronics 5y ago
    It's a culture war topic.
    - tim333 5y ago
      Ah. Not seen so much of that in London though in the comments section of the Daily Mail some people rant about cyclists. Guess it's more seeing them as an enemy tribe rather than them actually cluttering the road. In London the bigger aggression issue I've seen is cyclists having a go at pedestrians which also puzzles me a bit if less so.
notacoward 5y ago
Framing your argument in terms of "fat people" weakens it considerably. There are plenty of lazy skinny people too, and the biggest problem is people's sense of entitlement. Pitting pedestrian/cyclist entitlement against driver entitlement is IMO less effective than treating transportation as a matter for sharing and cooperation instead of competition. As competition, non-drivers will always lose. And no, I don't think that's right, but the universe doesn't care what either of us thinks is right.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stetrain 5y ago
Well that correlation can work in the other direction too. What if poor US urban planning has led to sedentary lives where walking to places like grocery stores, parks, or transit is unpleasant, inconvenient, or impossible. So we sit on our butts and drive our cars everywhere, which means more lanes and more parking lots which in return keeps things farther apart and less walkable. People who are never pedestrians perhaps have reduced empathy for being one, and being in a big metal car vs passing in-person on the street leads to less personable reactions (ie road rage). And car-focused infrastructure decisions lead to more dangerous interactions between fast traffic, pedestrians, and cyclists. The tiny bit of time I have spent in some dense european-style walkable neighborhoods left me feeling much more a part of the neighborhood and like I would be a much healthier person in general living in such a place long term.
- stetrain 5y ago
  Another piece to this is that being able to drive a car is in many parts of the US considered essential to being able to work, buy groceries, etc. Which I think leads to lax driver training and enforcement. Suspending someone’s license is potentially destroying their livelihood. Whatever the cause, our driver training, enforcement, penalties, and general respect for piloting a vehicle in a safe manner seem lower than many European countries.
- thaway2839 5y ago
  It is indeed a vicious cycle.
kilotaras 5y ago
That's why I'm a big advocate for infrastructure changes. The expected behaviour should be the most comfortable one. Raised crossings[1] or deliberate narrowing [2] forces people to pay attention and slow down. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raised_Crossing_In_Panmure_Auckland.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raised_Crossing_In_P... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5376862,-0.1105682,3a,75y,197.58h,88.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sn8HgwzyCZJqzkIxuwRnE4Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5376862,-0.1105682,3a,75y,19...
Beltalowda 5y ago
> It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, so they drive without regard for pedestrians and active hostility towards cyclists and park in the way of sidewalks, making walking or riding bikes to school seem so scary and unpleasant that few kids do it anymore, leading to more fat Americans who would never imagine walking. It is really depressing. In my experience the mentality that drives this is "the road is for cars, you should not be here at all". You see this not just in the US where the infrastructure is extremely car-centric, but also in e.g. New Zealand. With smaller roads people seem to instinctively understand that it needs to be shared, but with larger roads this understanding seems to go away.

_dain_ 5y ago

Can you link to this crosswalk on Streetview? I have a mental image of the kind of crossing you're describing and I want to see if it matches with the reality.

Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago

When I lived in LA, it was downright dangerous to try and cross a road as a pedestrian. I once ended up on some guy's hood who decided that red lights just didn't apply to him. No major harm done thankfully, but if he'd have been going any faster I wouldn't be here today.

wffurr 5y ago

Like WALL-E except the hover chairs weigh 3000lb and can go 80 mph.

unicornfinder 5y ago

To be fair I think the problem isn't just the people but how the roads and infrastructure is designed in the US. It's very anti-pedestrian.

thex10 5y ago
To reconcile this with the parent comment... yes. Crosswalk markings, however bold and bright, alone are insufficient to make an intersection safe for pedestrians.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  That is cultural. In Germany, crosswalks are very much adhered to.
sillyquiet 5y ago
Since pedestrian deaths are 'surging', its gotta be down to something that's changed, not a factor that's been constant all along, right?
- gbtw 5y ago
  Transport cost are too high forcing people to use alternatives like walking.
  - donkeyd 5y ago
    Why do you need to look for such far fetched explanations when you can clearly see massive amounts of people texting while driving? I drive quite a lot (for European standards) and I've seen the amount of people holding phones increase massively. I can recognize it from a mile away by the way people are driving.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      And for that matter, people texting while they're walking across the street with earphones in. I honestly don't even feel comfortable wearing earphones when I'm walking in the woods much less on a city street.
- paulgb 5y ago
  One thing mentioned in the article that rings very true is that vehicles are getting bigger. It’s not unusual to see trucks where the front grill is too high to see a child, or even some adults. We have the statistics to know that these vehicles are disproportionately likely to kill pedestrians, but vehicles sell based on the safety of people inside the vehicle, not people outside of it. It’s a vicious circle, too. If everyone else has an SUV, you also want an SUV so you’re not crushed by one in a crash.
  - sillyquiet 5y ago
    Maybe. Again, there have been ginormous trucks and SUVs around the rounds since the 90s, why would we see a sudden spike and not a gradual increase since then?
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
No, it's people. Everyone is so fucking angry now. The only (convenient) road out of my neighborhood is through two school zones. People will PASS me in a school zone. Not the normal pass, but the floor it I'm angry pass. It's happened multiple times. They're so fucking selfish they would endanger CHILDREN just to not have to wake their sloppy ass up 10 minutes earlier so they can get to work on time.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > No, it's people. It really is not just that. The netherlands didn’t fix their traffic by telling people to drive better (in fact they did relatively little of that), but by redesigning the entire driving conditions around the results they wanted. Properly incentivising, and taking advantage of human psychology for other reasons than exploitation, is much more reliable than scolding people. Getting stuck on “it’s people!” will be largely ineffective, because it’s not how people work. Though if your only goal is to have something to moan about, carry on, that’ll certainly keep.

amcoastal 5y ago

Its just where you live. Welcome to large cities. You can move to more hospitable parts of the country where people still have basic respect for people. The politics in the South sure have annoyed me, but dealing with the public (i.e. people who you don't know) in everyday life is miles different compared to living in NY, CA, FL, TX etc.

sokoloff 5y ago
The first time I saw opposite direction traffic stop to show respect to a funeral procession (common in the South), I was very confused.
- cdot2 5y ago
  It has never occurred to me that people might not do that.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    In Massachusetts, cross traffic doesn’t even always stop…
Kye 5y ago
It's more you trade sets of respects and disrespects. Small towns are great as long as you conform to a narrow set of socially conservative expectations. The south isn't all bad, but the bad escalates faster than in other places the further you are from a major highway.
- amcoastal 5y ago
  Definitely agree with this sentiment. My perspective on receiving more respect in the South probably has a lot to do with being a redneck looking white guy.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

cianmm 5y ago

I’m in Ireland and there is a signposted pedestrian crossing that cars routinely ignore in a park near my house. A good technique, I’ve found, is point your phone at them as you prepare to cross. It seems to scare them into stopping. Normalisation of dangerous driving is a global phenomenon where car culture reigns.

kmlx 5y ago
elevated pedestrian crossing is the solution here. used across London with great effect. anyway, there are many ways to calm traffic.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  We used to have lovely speedbumps every 50 meters or so in our neighborhood. Can’t drive fast if it’ll make your car fly.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    Such active traffic calming measures can be combined with more passive ones (lane narrowing, visual obstructions) to create a psychological slowdown effect in addition to the physical ones. This works especially well combined with pedestrian and cycle passthroughs and such, including to avoid “drive-through” neighbourhoods without having to make the neighbourhood entirely impassable and a pain in the ass to residents.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      >including to avoid “drive-through” neighbourhoods without having to make the neighbourhood entirely impassable and a pain in the ass to residents. I suspect that Google Maps and the like have worsened the level of driving through residential neighborhoods as they route you through a maze of residential streets to save (in theory) two minutes.
      - masklinn 5y ago

usrusr 5y ago

In the age of Peloton and other indoors-only fitness trends, being fat is no requirement at all for hostility towards any means of outdoors transportation that isn't a Very Large Wheelchair.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I forget where this was, but I recall seeing video of police crossing on a crosswalk undercover and whenever a vehicle would fail to yield a cruiser would appear and pull the offender over. I would like to see a lot more of this. In Chicago, people have always blown red lights at speed right in front of parked police cars because they know police won’t do anything (and I’m not even sure if the police are allowed to do anything—allegedly they can’t chase suspects unless they believe they are a threat to society, and I’m not sure that includes “reckless driving”). The article didn’t mention it, but I also wonder if this (like the surge in violent crime) is driven in part by changes in policing following the BLM protests (e.g., police make fewer traffic stops for fear of finding themselves in an incriminating situation).

_dain_ 5y ago
>I would like to see a lot more of this. The problem is, it doesn't scale, especially in a city as big and violent as Chicago. It only works so long as police keep their foot on the gas (so to speak); they minute they let up on traffic enforcement (because of competing priorities) things will get worse again. If one person speeds, that person is an idiot. But if everyone speeds, the road engineer is an idiot. A systemic problem like this is a result of poor road design, not individual deviant drivers. Police should not be burdened with the responsibility of ensuring safety in a system that is unsafe by design. The roads need to be redesigned so that drivers naturally feel unsafe at high speed.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Traffic circles / roundabouts would go a long way.
  - dboreham 5y ago
    Plenty of roundabouts here in Montana.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  As it stands, Chicago has police cars all over the place (in every neighborhood I’ve lived in anyway) often just sitting there parked and by my estimation there’s close to zero traffic enforcement, so we certainly seem to have a lot of capacity for maintaining this sort of enforcement and I suspect it would be like introducing a few wolves into a national park—it doesn’t take much enforcement to drive significant, broad changes. > A systemic problem like this is a result of poor road design, not individual deviant drivers. In many cases, I agree that there is a systemic problem at play, but these cases tend to be highways (i.e., no pedestrians) and the issue is politicians setting speed limits which traffic engineers understand to be unsafely low for the road’s design (the safest speed being that which 85% of drivers would naturally drive if unencumbered). And it hardly matters how engineers design the road because politicians will always respond to a vocal minority who argue that the limits should be lower. However with respect to streets (i.e., places where pedestrians belong) rather than highways, the issue is only systemic with respect to enforcement—many other parts of the country (or even the same places with different enforcement) have similar streets but drivers are better behaved. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t room for improvement everywhere, but only that the issue isn’t “Chicago has stupid street engineers”.

efitz 5y ago

How exactly did you get to “the cause of reckless driving is fat people who don’t walk everywhere?” Show your work. In most places in America walking is not a practical mode of transportation because of distance; it’s miles from your house to the grocery store, for instance. If you live in a city this might not be obvious to you but half the country lives in the burbs or rural areas. Separately, it would be nice if we had more sidewalks, but they are financially unsustainable in low density areas. Separately, the US does have an obesity problem, and exercise would help, but the biggest issue by far is dietary sugar/carbohydrates.

goodpoint 5y ago
No. Distances are high because of low density. Sidewalks are financially unsustainable because of low density. People are obese also because they don't walk because of low density. Low density is caused by car culture pushed by car manufacturers and oil companies.
- collegeburner 5y ago
  Because I don't want to live in some 3x3 postage stamp with close neighbors and people peering in and no yard, let alone an apartment sharing walls between people. Screw high density, I've lived in it and it sucks. Oh and I am extremely fit, obesity is bad choices not "car culture".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    You should visit other countries.
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
> Separately, it would be nice if we had more sidewalks, but they are financially unsustainable in low density areas. What makes sidewalks expensive to maintain, relative to roads? > the biggest issue by far is dietary sugar/carbohydrates This is not clear. See this highly fascinating series on the obesity epidemic: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-part-i-mysteries/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p.... Other suspects are HFCS and seed oils.

maxerickson 5y ago

I'm pretty sure lots of car-first/car-only people are not fat.

burlesona 5y ago

Moved to Austin during the pandemic, and my experience has been the same. It feels very dangerous to walk or bike anywhere, even in residential areas, because of the aggressive drivers. Even when I’m driving, the pervasive road rage here is much worse than anywhere else I’ve lived (including 3 other major cities). It’s been a real disappointment.

op00to 5y ago

aww_dang 5y ago

I'm all for cycling, but as a former bike messenger this take feels a bit extreme. The obesity crisis is real and people should get out and be more active. No matter how many concessions are made, most people are just unable to get over the lack of inertia and start cycling. Even if we allow for a hypothetical safety utopia, comments here will cite sweating as a deal breaker. I understand and empathize with beginners who are not acclimatized to cycling on a busy road. However it doesn't change the fact that you have to start somewhere and build your comfort levels. Pragmatically, this is the more important self-fulfilling dynamic. If you don't start building your skills and instead blame drivers... There are hostile drivers out there. After decades of riding (sometimes wildly irresponsibly) I can only count on one hand motorists who were actively trying to run me over. In those cases the sentiment was mutual and we had already exchanged words or otherwise escalated. Would have been easy to avoid. Contrast this to the cultural/class rhetoric against pickup-truck drivers. As a self-appointed expert in the domain, this doesn't ring true for me. It fits better with the theme of Internet hyperbole and media alarmism.

bdauvergne 5y ago
What exactly is the problem with sweating ? The rest of the world sweats without thinking about it.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Whatever problems may exist can be easily resolved by showering and changing clothes. They can be further minimized by dressing appropriately.
- analog31 5y ago
  Somehow it's perceived as a norm that you can't arrive at work, a restaurant, or the store, with any amount of sweat on you. There's a bit more to it than this, of course. Most American cities have more extreme climate, longer commutes, and more hills, than in the northern European cities that are held up as the gold standard of cycling culture, but people ride bikes in southern Europe too. In turn, this makes it "necessary" to wear special cycling garb, change, and shower when you arrive at work. Vanishingly few workplaces provide a convenient place to shower and change. But I ride my bike to work year-round in a city that gets (for instance) about 10 degrees hotter than Amsterdam, and I manage it.

pinephoneguy 5y ago

Someone in Indiana honked at me for using a crosswalk yesterday thinking I was supposed to yield to them for some reason. I think people from rural areas and suburbs just aren’t used to driving in smaller streets.

sethammons 5y ago
I and colleagues used to have to cross a moderately busy street in Orange County, CA. A marked crossing section a block from the train station. I was routinely honked at and vehicles would swerve around. I started carrying a strobe flashlight and would glance it towards fast moving cars. This usually slowed them down but pissed them off more. Not blinding them mind you, just a flash. Sooooo put out that they will have to slow for up to 20 seconds.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  Can you show me this crosswalk on Streetview? I'm trying to get an idea of the kinds of environments people are talking about in this thread (I'm non-American).
  - sethammons 5y ago
    Here is the exact intersection. It looks safer than it is (or was, I've since moved far away). https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7878268,-117.8588114,3a,75y,72.64h,88.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUVDQOb0I-hmAlddL6IX-lg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7878268,-117.8588114,3a,75y,...
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      That doesn't look safe at all. Five lanes! And you have to cross them all in one go, with no signaling!!! My goodness. Such a thing would never be constructed here (UK)*. There would be, at minimum, a protected pedestrian island in the middle, so that in crossing you only need to look in one direction at a time. Almost always a set of pedestrian-controlled traffic lights too. In the Netherlands they might even go a step further and put in a continuous sidewalk (i.e. the surface the pedestrians walk on remains at the same level as the sidewalk, so that cars have to rise onto it like a speedbump). Here is an example comparable to yours: a 4-lane major road intersecting perpendicularly with a 2-lane minor road. Pedestrians have controlled crossings across the major part, and protected islands so they never have to cross more than two lanes in one go: https://goo.gl/maps/MYbcyPgQZD1PMAL69 https://goo.gl/maps/MYbcyPgQZD1PMAL69 This design is standard everywhere. And it isn't even optimal (it doesn't accommodate cyclists very well). *If you searched high and low across the country you might find a counterexample or two, but the fact remains that this kind of junction is thoroughly alien to the British built environment.

salawat 5y ago

...Hate to break it to you, but that's just Austin. Don't know what it is; but Travis County brings out some of the worst driving habits in people.

aurizon 5y ago

In Toronto there are paid people with fluorescent traffic warden clothes and signage who attend all crosswalks and traffic light for the student travel periods, AM, Noon, PM. Other times they have walk buttons that start flashing lights and an overhead banner (flasher lighted)

palijer 5y ago
And that still doesn't seem to stop reckless driving from killing pedestrians. The only thing that will slow drivers down is when they feel unsafe themselves, or have a risk to their vehicle. Adding signs or automatic fines doesn't do anything. You need narrower streets utilizing actual traffic calling techniques. It's such a sad sight to see signs with a "traffic calming zone" sign, but absolutely zero traffic calming done. It'll be a wide open street, we'll paved, no trees right against the road or bollards in the middle or speed bumps. Watching this video feels like an alternative reality that never happened and it seems great. https://youtu.be/bAxRYrpbnuA https://youtu.be/bAxRYrpbnuA
- aurizon 5y ago
  Yes, good video. Canada and the USA has this demonic granting of speed rights to drivers. They could put in automatic speed traps on all street, with a fine by mail of a small amount, say $10 = a nuisance, but as they pile up the constant nag by mail, with a forced full payment to renew the plate will have a coercive enduring affect. It is important to keep it small - with a caveat. You are allowed to go yo court. If you challenge in court = higher tier of fines + time wasted burden. After a few months most will comply. Now manned speed traps have huge fines, huge police/court $$ burden. Cops tied up at speed traps prevent no crime, just fine a few people/day as the ticketing process at the street level is very slow. Automatic radar speed traps are fast. People hate them because they also have huge fines = lobby politicians a lot. The small nominal fine will get compliance without the same amount of lobbying and other pushback,

edmcnulty101 5y ago

> It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, As a fat person and I think I can take the liberty to speak on behalf of other fat people, you are absolutely correct. So be sure to please get out of the way and stay out of the way. Another good option is to go to the city council and have them rope off areas of the town for pedestrians only, if you want to be safe.

giantg2 5y ago

Are you actually in the crosswalk when people don't stop? I imagine most people don't know the law this well, but... the vehicles don't have to stop unless you have at least one foot in the crosswalk in most states. So they could just be assuming you are letting them go, or they're jerks.

sjg007 5y ago

Let your local police department know, they will gladly sit there and ticket offending vehicles.

op00to 5y ago

> America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk It's got nothing to do with obesity. The personal auto is the US government-dictated and subsidized default transportation method. Anyone not using a personal auto is "less than". In other words, if you're walking, you're a subhuman.

pwr-electronics 5y ago

I briefly worked in one of the statistically worst states for bicycle safety, but I was still surprised to learn how many older people fantasized about running over cyclists, or had a "they probably deserved it" attitude whenever a cyclist was struck by a car. One time, a couple of coworkers were riding single file in the generous shoulder of a wide nearly empty multi-lane road in the early morning when they were both run over from behind in a hit and run. One had to have his spine fused. I still saw the same attitude of contempt, even from coworkers who otherwise liked them. I switched to mountain biking after that.

tim333 5y ago
Strange really - I've never figured what that's all about, speaking as a driver who has no problem with cyclists.
- pwr-electronics 5y ago
  It's a culture war topic.
  - tim333 5y ago
    Ah. Not seen so much of that in London though in the comments section of the Daily Mail some people rant about cyclists. Guess it's more seeing them as an enemy tribe rather than them actually cluttering the road. In London the bigger aggression issue I've seen is cyclists having a go at pedestrians which also puzzles me a bit if less so.

notacoward 5y ago

Framing your argument in terms of "fat people" weakens it considerably. There are plenty of lazy skinny people too, and the biggest problem is people's sense of entitlement. Pitting pedestrian/cyclist entitlement against driver entitlement is IMO less effective than treating transportation as a matter for sharing and cooperation instead of competition. As competition, non-drivers will always lose. And no, I don't think that's right, but the universe doesn't care what either of us thinks is right.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

stetrain 5y ago

Well that correlation can work in the other direction too. What if poor US urban planning has led to sedentary lives where walking to places like grocery stores, parks, or transit is unpleasant, inconvenient, or impossible. So we sit on our butts and drive our cars everywhere, which means more lanes and more parking lots which in return keeps things farther apart and less walkable. People who are never pedestrians perhaps have reduced empathy for being one, and being in a big metal car vs passing in-person on the street leads to less personable reactions (ie road rage). And car-focused infrastructure decisions lead to more dangerous interactions between fast traffic, pedestrians, and cyclists. The tiny bit of time I have spent in some dense european-style walkable neighborhoods left me feeling much more a part of the neighborhood and like I would be a much healthier person in general living in such a place long term.

stetrain 5y ago
Another piece to this is that being able to drive a car is in many parts of the US considered essential to being able to work, buy groceries, etc. Which I think leads to lax driver training and enforcement. Suspending someone’s license is potentially destroying their livelihood. Whatever the cause, our driver training, enforcement, penalties, and general respect for piloting a vehicle in a safe manner seem lower than many European countries.
thaway2839 5y ago
It is indeed a vicious cycle.

kilotaras 5y ago

That's why I'm a big advocate for infrastructure changes. The expected behaviour should be the most comfortable one. Raised crossings[1] or deliberate narrowing [2] forces people to pay attention and slow down. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raised_Crossing_In_Panmure_Auckland.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raised_Crossing_In_P... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5376862,-0.1105682,3a,75y,197.58h,88.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sn8HgwzyCZJqzkIxuwRnE4Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5376862,-0.1105682,3a,75y,19...

Beltalowda 5y ago

> It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, so they drive without regard for pedestrians and active hostility towards cyclists and park in the way of sidewalks, making walking or riding bikes to school seem so scary and unpleasant that few kids do it anymore, leading to more fat Americans who would never imagine walking. It is really depressing. In my experience the mentality that drives this is "the road is for cars, you should not be here at all". You see this not just in the US where the infrastructure is extremely car-centric, but also in e.g. New Zealand. With smaller roads people seem to instinctively understand that it needs to be shared, but with larger roads this understanding seems to go away.