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This seems interesting: > The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would

This seems interesting: > The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action ... Is this really so off-the-mark? Or have we just got used to vehicles being the kings of the streets, displacing pedestrians and filling our breathing air with pollutants?

RyanMcGreal 12y ago
Early outrage over automobiles injuring and killing pedestrians at an alarming rate threatened to stall the growth in driving. In response, the auto industry undertook a major campaign to assert that cars should have the right-of-way and to denormalize people walking and cycling on the street, pushing them to the edges and criminalizing "jaywalking". Now, when a person driving a car kills a person walking, the default reaction is to blame the person walking for not being careful or attentive or visible enough. We have been conditioned point the finger at the pedestrian's earbuds rather than the obvious source of danger. Even when a driver is found guilty of careless driving, the maximum punishment - at least in most North American jurisdictions - is a $500 fine and maybe a few demerit points.
- sandworm 12y ago
  That's a bit of an exaggeration. Pedestrians are not automatically to blame in every case. Today we have rules governing the movements of both pedestrians and cars. There is no default winner. Pedestrians win on crosswalks and such, but not in the middle of highways. And even there the car is no clear winner. For instance, if both driver and pedestrian have earbuds in, society today would say the driver is the more reckless. In fact most jurisdictions specifically forbid headphones on drivers. None that I know of forbid them of pedestrians. And 500$ is certainly not the maximum punishment. Vehicular homicide, negligence causing death, reckless endangerment, DUI ... even basic speeding tickets in many jurisdictions are far higher than 500$.
  - gonvaled 12y ago
    Wherever the blame may be, and whatever the punishments are, the fact is that the quote was more prescient than inaccurate: we should have legislated better in the early days of the automobile. Now it is too late (or will take too long for changes to take effect): the automobiles are ruling the roads, and specially the cities, from streets to parking lots. Urban planning is done (in most cases) with the goal of facilitating car circulation - pedestrians and bicycles are an afterthought, when at all.
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    Speaking for my jurisdication (Ontario), it is theoretically possible to find a driver guilty of careless or reckless driving and a penalty more severe than $500. In practice, it is extremely rare to see a serious charge, let alone a conviction, even when a driver strikes a pedestrian crossing legally in a crosswalk. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/05/18/is_a_persons_life_worth_500_highway_traffic_act_says_yes.html http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/05/18/is_a_persons_life... Here are some quick examples I found: http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/12/driver_fined_500_after_killing_pedestrian.html http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/12/driver_fined_50... http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/13/toronto_woman_fined_500_for_killing_pedestrian_88.html http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/13/toronto_woman_f... http://metronews.ca/news/halifax/449137/man-34-dies-after-being-struck-by-car-in-sackville-crosswalk/ http://metronews.ca/news/halifax/449137/man-34-dies-after-be... And it's not just Ontario: http://gothamist.com/2011/07/14/unlicensed_dump_truck_driver_who_ki.php http://gothamist.com/2011/07/14/unlicensed_dump_truck_driver... http://gothamist.com/2014/04/09/drunk_driver_who_killed_brooklyn_pe.php http://gothamist.com/2014/04/09/drunk_driver_who_killed_broo... http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/11/11/unlicensed-driver-who-backed-over-and-killed-yolanda-casal-fined-500/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/11/11/unlicensed-driver-who-... Et cetera, ad nauseam.
bko 12y ago
Considering that before cars, cities were drowning in horse manure, I would say the quote is off the mark. > The horse was no newcomer on the urban scene. But by the late 1800s, the problem of horse pollution had reached unprecedented heights. The growth in the horse population was outstripping even the rapid rise in the number of human city dwellers. American cities were drowning in horse manure as well as other unpleasant byproducts of the era’s predominant mode of transportation: urine, ﬂies, congestion, carcasses, and trafﬁc accidents. Widespread cruelty to horses was a form of environmental degradation as well. The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-storey windows. A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed. [0] [0] http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Hor...
- gonvaled 12y ago
  Sure, we had a problem with horses. But we also had a looming problem with cars, which is what the quote is (correctly in my opinion) forecasting, one which we are now starting to acknowledge (practically unsolvable currently). So the quote is very much on the mark. The horse manure problem was a somewhat related issue, but does not invalidate the quote. Could we have solved the horse manure problem without creating a pedestrian-hostile society? Who knows, we didn't even try.
adamio 12y ago
http://www.snopes.com/history/document/horseless.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/document/horseless.asp
- gonvaled 12y ago
  I do not know why you were down-voted, that was interesting. So the quote comes from a fictional report from the late 1950s that tried to make fun of regulation of atomic power. That makes it strangely prescient: first, when the automobile was already a mass-media transportation system, the authors of this satiric piece failed to acknowledge the problems that it had already created in the society they were living in. And second, they do not correctly foresee the problems of atomic power (arms proliferation, for example) They use the car analogy wrongly: the car has actually created lots of problems, they simply do not see them, because they are so used to those problems. Note that I am not saying that the car has not advantages, just that some of the problems stated in the quote are real.

RyanMcGreal 12y ago

Early outrage over automobiles injuring and killing pedestrians at an alarming rate threatened to stall the growth in driving. In response, the auto industry undertook a major campaign to assert that cars should have the right-of-way and to denormalize people walking and cycling on the street, pushing them to the edges and criminalizing "jaywalking". Now, when a person driving a car kills a person walking, the default reaction is to blame the person walking for not being careful or attentive or visible enough. We have been conditioned point the finger at the pedestrian's earbuds rather than the obvious source of danger. Even when a driver is found guilty of careless driving, the maximum punishment - at least in most North American jurisdictions - is a $500 fine and maybe a few demerit points.

sandworm 12y ago
That's a bit of an exaggeration. Pedestrians are not automatically to blame in every case. Today we have rules governing the movements of both pedestrians and cars. There is no default winner. Pedestrians win on crosswalks and such, but not in the middle of highways. And even there the car is no clear winner. For instance, if both driver and pedestrian have earbuds in, society today would say the driver is the more reckless. In fact most jurisdictions specifically forbid headphones on drivers. None that I know of forbid them of pedestrians. And 500$ is certainly not the maximum punishment. Vehicular homicide, negligence causing death, reckless endangerment, DUI ... even basic speeding tickets in many jurisdictions are far higher than 500$.
- gonvaled 12y ago
  Wherever the blame may be, and whatever the punishments are, the fact is that the quote was more prescient than inaccurate: we should have legislated better in the early days of the automobile. Now it is too late (or will take too long for changes to take effect): the automobiles are ruling the roads, and specially the cities, from streets to parking lots. Urban planning is done (in most cases) with the goal of facilitating car circulation - pedestrians and bicycles are an afterthought, when at all.
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  Speaking for my jurisdication (Ontario), it is theoretically possible to find a driver guilty of careless or reckless driving and a penalty more severe than $500. In practice, it is extremely rare to see a serious charge, let alone a conviction, even when a driver strikes a pedestrian crossing legally in a crosswalk. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/05/18/is_a_persons_life_worth_500_highway_traffic_act_says_yes.html http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/05/18/is_a_persons_life... Here are some quick examples I found: http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/12/driver_fined_500_after_killing_pedestrian.html http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/12/driver_fined_50... http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/13/toronto_woman_fined_500_for_killing_pedestrian_88.html http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/05/13/toronto_woman_f... http://metronews.ca/news/halifax/449137/man-34-dies-after-being-struck-by-car-in-sackville-crosswalk/ http://metronews.ca/news/halifax/449137/man-34-dies-after-be... And it's not just Ontario: http://gothamist.com/2011/07/14/unlicensed_dump_truck_driver_who_ki.php http://gothamist.com/2011/07/14/unlicensed_dump_truck_driver... http://gothamist.com/2014/04/09/drunk_driver_who_killed_brooklyn_pe.php http://gothamist.com/2014/04/09/drunk_driver_who_killed_broo... http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/11/11/unlicensed-driver-who-backed-over-and-killed-yolanda-casal-fined-500/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/11/11/unlicensed-driver-who-... Et cetera, ad nauseam.

bko 12y ago

Considering that before cars, cities were drowning in horse manure, I would say the quote is off the mark. > The horse was no newcomer on the urban scene. But by the late 1800s, the problem of horse pollution had reached unprecedented heights. The growth in the horse population was outstripping even the rapid rise in the number of human city dwellers. American cities were drowning in horse manure as well as other unpleasant byproducts of the era’s predominant mode of transportation: urine, ﬂies, congestion, carcasses, and trafﬁc accidents. Widespread cruelty to horses was a form of environmental degradation as well. The situation seemed dire. In 1894, the Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure. One New York prognosticator of the 1890s concluded that by 1930 the horse droppings would rise to Manhattan’s third-storey windows. A public health and sanitation crisis of almost unimaginable dimensions loomed. [0] [0] http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf http://www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Hor...

gonvaled 12y ago
Sure, we had a problem with horses. But we also had a looming problem with cars, which is what the quote is (correctly in my opinion) forecasting, one which we are now starting to acknowledge (practically unsolvable currently). So the quote is very much on the mark. The horse manure problem was a somewhat related issue, but does not invalidate the quote. Could we have solved the horse manure problem without creating a pedestrian-hostile society? Who knows, we didn't even try.

adamio 12y ago

http://www.snopes.com/history/document/horseless.asp http://www.snopes.com/history/document/horseless.asp

gonvaled 12y ago
I do not know why you were down-voted, that was interesting. So the quote comes from a fictional report from the late 1950s that tried to make fun of regulation of atomic power. That makes it strangely prescient: first, when the automobile was already a mass-media transportation system, the authors of this satiric piece failed to acknowledge the problems that it had already created in the society they were living in. And second, they do not correctly foresee the problems of atomic power (arms proliferation, for example) They use the car analogy wrongly: the car has actually created lots of problems, they simply do not see them, because they are so used to those problems. Note that I am not saying that the car has not advantages, just that some of the problems stated in the quote are real.