4 ms·

It's quite insane that your society puts the onus on the pedestrians not to get hit, and even makes it illegal to cross the road. It should be the licensed driv

It's quite insane that your society puts the onus on the pedestrians not to get hit, and even makes it illegal to cross the road. It should be the licensed drivers' responsibility to not hit someone. And in the middle of a campus cars should of course yield to pedestrians. Such a car-centric world.

sebstefan 3y ago
In the same vein, you could find through experimentation that the speed at which you can finally get hit by a car without someone claiming it's your fault for being too quick on your bicycle is to be approximately stationary But not so stationary, because then you were not visible enough
- matsemann 3y ago
  Schrödinger's cyclist, both too slow and too fast at the same time. When behind on a road: "you're holding up traffic with your slow cycling!". When later causing an accident for not yielding to a cyclist "he came out of nowhere in a reckless speed!".
- FFP999 3y ago
  Well obviously then you should have been wearing a high-viz vest and a full Christmas tree's worth of blinking lights. Then when a driver hits you they can say they were distracted by all the visual effects.
Nemrod67 3y ago
would you say the same for trains? and if not why?
- thecopy 3y ago
  * Train tracks does not take up 70% of cities. * Trains are not constant, they come more seldom * Trains are _extremely_ predicable. Cars are the opposite. This is why trams in i busy inner city are more safe than cars. You know exactly where that tram is going and at what speed.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    Yes, and on top of that if there were a train line on campus with any high speed train traffic it would be surrounded by tall fences and the pedestrians would be provided with off-level crossing. (One or more tunnels and/or bridges)
    - FFP999 3y ago
      This is exactly the case a little ways away at Tufts University in the city of Medford. There's a busy train line that runs through the campus and it's fenced off. Students do sometimes find ways in there and use the right-of-way as a shortcut. Sometimes they get killed doing this--which is why the fence is there in the first place.
- screwt 3y ago
  Not for trains - there's a shared expectation that pedestrians should not access the track. Similarly, not for a freeway. Where some feel the balance is wrong, is at local-level streets. Today the assumption in most places is that cars have total right of way, and pedestrians must keep clear. It doesn't have to be that way. In a residential area, it's quite feasible to say all road users have equal right to use the space. And in that circumstance, put the onus on the car user (wielding a heavy, dangerous weapon) to not hit other road users.
FFP999 3y ago
It's a little more complicated than I've laid out here. There's not a hard boundary between the MIT campus and the rest of the city, in contrast with Harvard Yard on the other side of Cambridge, which is surrounded by high brick walls. Cambridge is an old city and MIT is, for a New England university, fairly young--not to mention that for the first few decades it was at a different location than today, in Boston proper. I'm pretty sure the road was there long before the first university building.
- troupe 3y ago
  Harvard used to have kids getting hit going from the yard to the science building. So the lowered the road and put a park over it.
  - FFP999 3y ago
    That's a funny area, I'd always wondered why it was laid out like that.
troupe 3y ago
Assume that laws gave people the expectation that they could just step out in front of a 3,500 pound moving vehicle and it would instantly stop. The world would probably be a lot less safe for pedestrians than it is today. The laws of physics come into play to at least some extent.

sebstefan 3y ago

In the same vein, you could find through experimentation that the speed at which you can finally get hit by a car without someone claiming it's your fault for being too quick on your bicycle is to be approximately stationary But not so stationary, because then you were not visible enough

matsemann 3y ago
Schrödinger's cyclist, both too slow and too fast at the same time. When behind on a road: "you're holding up traffic with your slow cycling!". When later causing an accident for not yielding to a cyclist "he came out of nowhere in a reckless speed!".
FFP999 3y ago
Well obviously then you should have been wearing a high-viz vest and a full Christmas tree's worth of blinking lights. Then when a driver hits you they can say they were distracted by all the visual effects.

Nemrod67 3y ago

would you say the same for trains? and if not why?

thecopy 3y ago
* Train tracks does not take up 70% of cities. * Trains are not constant, they come more seldom * Trains are _extremely_ predicable. Cars are the opposite. This is why trams in i busy inner city are more safe than cars. You know exactly where that tram is going and at what speed.
- krisoft 3y ago
  Yes, and on top of that if there were a train line on campus with any high speed train traffic it would be surrounded by tall fences and the pedestrians would be provided with off-level crossing. (One or more tunnels and/or bridges)
  - FFP999 3y ago
    This is exactly the case a little ways away at Tufts University in the city of Medford. There's a busy train line that runs through the campus and it's fenced off. Students do sometimes find ways in there and use the right-of-way as a shortcut. Sometimes they get killed doing this--which is why the fence is there in the first place.
screwt 3y ago
Not for trains - there's a shared expectation that pedestrians should not access the track. Similarly, not for a freeway. Where some feel the balance is wrong, is at local-level streets. Today the assumption in most places is that cars have total right of way, and pedestrians must keep clear. It doesn't have to be that way. In a residential area, it's quite feasible to say all road users have equal right to use the space. And in that circumstance, put the onus on the car user (wielding a heavy, dangerous weapon) to not hit other road users.

FFP999 3y ago

It's a little more complicated than I've laid out here. There's not a hard boundary between the MIT campus and the rest of the city, in contrast with Harvard Yard on the other side of Cambridge, which is surrounded by high brick walls. Cambridge is an old city and MIT is, for a New England university, fairly young--not to mention that for the first few decades it was at a different location than today, in Boston proper. I'm pretty sure the road was there long before the first university building.

troupe 3y ago
Harvard used to have kids getting hit going from the yard to the science building. So the lowered the road and put a park over it.
- FFP999 3y ago
  That's a funny area, I'd always wondered why it was laid out like that.

troupe 3y ago

Assume that laws gave people the expectation that they could just step out in front of a 3,500 pound moving vehicle and it would instantly stop. The world would probably be a lot less safe for pedestrians than it is today. The laws of physics come into play to at least some extent.