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What's the volume of pedestrians on pedestrian crossings in places where this is implemented? Seems dangerous to get a 'cross' / 'walk' signal when there's sti
by afandian 4y ago
What's the volume of pedestrians on pedestrian crossings in places where this is implemented?
Seems dangerous to get a 'cross' / 'walk' signal when there's still traffic.
- reaperducer 4y agoWhat's the volume of pedestrians on pedestrian crossings in places where this is implemented? How cold is the sun? How shallow is the ocean? How dark is a light? The question makes no sense when applied to an area the size of a state.
- unsafecast 4y agoIf you come at a complete stop anyway, it's fine with me. Bikes can't accelerate all that quickly, so it ends up being pretty slow traffic.
- qubex 4y ago> Bikes can’t accelerate all that quickly Interesting statement. Do you have some data? I’ve often mused anecdotally that the initial acceleration from the first pumps on the pedals give a pretty abrupt change in momentum.
- unsafecast 4y agoI don't. I just compared my perception on how I and other people accelerate with the width of the road. Intuition tells me it's not dangerous (of course, assuming everyone is responsible). Now that I think about it, it depends on a lot of factors. I don't know how the roads look in Idaho, but I assume they're much wider than where I live, which gives you more time to get up to speed. I haven't considered e-bikes either.
- MisterMower 4y agoYou shouldn’t need data, it’s common sense. How long does it take a car to go from stopped to 30mph? Five seconds? How long does it take a cyclist to go from stopped to 10mph? Certainly not less five seconds. In those scenarios, average acceleration for the car is 6mph/s, for the cyclist it’s 2mph/s.
- qubex 4y agoAs you say so yourself that’s average acceleration. No contest there.
- MisterMower 4y agoWell you don’t know the difference between momentum and acceleration so I figured I’d walk you through a little thought experiment. Sorry you didn’t find it helpful!
- qubex 4y agoI don’t know the difference between [difference in] momentum and acceleration?? Says whom?? Δp=mΔv=FΔt
- falcolas 4y ago> Bikes can't accelerate all that quickly E-bikes are changing this dynamic pretty quickly. And unpredictably. They can get from 0 to 20 faster than a car.
- unsafecast 4y agoYes, I hadn't considered e-bikes when I made that comment. Definitely changes things.
- bombcar 4y agoThe vast majority of these are the stop->yield. The US "overstops" in that there are thousands of 4 way stop intersections that should be either 2 way stops or 2 way yields.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoI think the point of this is to slow people down. We also have speed limits that are rarely followed because they are often set far below safe driving speed on a road, so without the stop signs many people have the impulse to drive 10+ mph over the speed limit.
- francisofascii 4y agoWhile they are less efficient, I much prefer the consistency and safety of 4-way stops, especially when visibility is low due to parked vehicles.
- avianlyric 4y agoIn the US pretty much every pedestrian crossing gets a walk signal while there’s still traffic, thanks to right-turn-on-red for cars. Big difference is being hit by a 90kg human on a 10kg bike going 15mph is much less likely to kill you than a 2000kg SUV doing 20mph. Additionally bike still have to yield to pedestrians, not to mention a bike is only 50-90cm wide, compared to 1500cm-2000cm for a car. Makes it much easier for both bikes and pedestrians to evade each other, should one or the other be behaving irresponsibly.
- afandian 4y agoThat seems crazy to me! How are blind people, or people with reduced mobility, expected to navigate a crossing if they can't trust the light? A bike has less mass than a car, but I'd rather not be hit by a bike at all, to be honest. Let alone a child or someone more vulnerable.
- thesuitonym 4y agoAmerican intersections are built exclusively for cars, everybody else is an afterthought (when they're even thought of at all)
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoThe same way that they do at an intersection with a stop sign and a cross walk. It's the car's responsibility to see them and yield.
- ipython 4y agoAlso left turn yield on green lights. I’ve found that to be especially dangerous both as a driver and pedestrian at night, where it can be hard to see whether there is anyone crossing on the far parallel crosswalk when you yield left on a straight green light.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago> a 90kg human on a 10kg bike going 15mph Sure, it's not a car crash but this is still equivalent to someone throwing a full bodyweight punch which can easily knock you unconscious and kill you when your head bounces off the pavement.
- actionablefiber 4y agoPeople riding bikes are still expected to yield to people crossing. In many U.S. cities the Idaho Stop, while not technically legal is already what most cyclists do, myself included. Either the crossing volume is low enough that it is trivially easy and safe to find a gap to fit through, or high enough that you simply wait for an opening, or dismount and squeeze through on foot.