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The pros and cons of placebo buttons

economist.com

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Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#131

Post by MikeHolman »

olyjohn wrote: post #88
r_klancer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I visited Seattle, I crossed a wide-ish, but completely clear street against the light. When I got across, an homeless-looking guy came running up to tell me, "Don't do that, man! Fifty dollars, and they'll catch you!" I remember wondering how anyone ever got anywhere.

Weird. I've been downtown for 3 years now, and I've never seen or heard of anybody getting a jaywalking ticket. I pretty much use the New York style and cross the street when it's clear. I feel like I'm a competent enough adult to see when it's clear to go. However, I do watch the signals and give cars right-of-way when they have it. What people do here is continue to cross after they lose right-of-way. This means ca…

I live in Seattle as well, and last year I saw some lady jay walk right in front of a cop car. The cop yelled out, "Hey maybe use the crosswalk next time." Without even turning around, she flipped the cop off and kept walking.

No ticket, nothing.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#132

Post by noobiemcfoob »

yholio wrote: post #124
noobiemcfoob wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is based on no data at all and just a handful of assumptions that are most certainly far from true.

I happen to work for a council and know the general order of magnitude for road infrastructure investments - I participate in their approval. I would file this suggestion of "building smaller intersections", that is, completely re-routing the traffic flows in a given area, in the purely fantastical bin. If we could squeeze 20% more traffic capacity from a given congested intersection with a one time investment of, sa…

Hahaha well that's all you had to say! You're more informed than your first comment led me to believe. Thanks for writing this out. If you wish to avoid my disparaging remarks in the future, lead with this and not vacuous negativity on someone else's thoughts.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#134

Post by msla »

doublepg23 wrote: post #127
msla wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plenty of left-wing thinkers have advocated for police abolition. Impossible. Not bad or wrong or even stupid, but impossible. If you have no police, everyone's police. How is that abolishing the police?

If you're reducing terms to meaninglessness yes, "everyone's police." The thinkers analyze the role police play in modern society. This refers to modern police forces that have their most direct roots in the late 18th century.

My point is, if there's no specialized police, you have everyone trying to be police, and, well, when every random person tries to do a technical job where peoples' lives are on the line, how do you think it's going to turn out? How do you think evidence is going to be handled?

The thinkers have a political point to make. Well and good. They'd do well to think about chains of custody and interrogation rules and why those things are important to having a society not run by capricious mobs who convict and then hold the trial.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#135

Post by toast0 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #117
dazc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I avoid pressing the button if there is a chance of crossing without having to delay traffic. The only reason being that, when driving, I wish people would do the same since I always seem to get held up by a red light when the person who pressed the button has long since gone.

I do this, if the crossing interrupted traffic immediately then it would be better (imo; I'm both a driver, pedestrian, and cyclist), but they often wait, which when it's raining ... Some low-use crossings on busier roads (in UK) will interrupt immediately. Presumably they realise that delay causes pedestrians to choose crossing without the traffic signals assistance; and so signal controllers go for the safer option…

Not sure about signals in the UK, but the signals I've experienced in California tend to want a certain minimum time as green in a given direction... If that direction has been on a green for at least that long, any input for the other direction will cause the light to cycle immediately; and if the crossing button was used in that direction, the minimum time is usually increased.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#136

Post by toast0 »

mikepurvis wrote: post #114
goodcanadian wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting about the road sensor. In Vancouver (years ago, admittedly), I had no problem triggering the road sensor with my bike.

Interesting! I've never had success triggering them, though that's not surprising given I'm on an aluminum and carbon frame. There was actually a kickstarter a few years ago to build a magnetic loop you could put on your bike to trigger the sensor via a button press, but unfortunately it didn't meet its funding target and seems to have gone underground: https://www.veloloop.com/faq/

If you've got metal rims, and the loops are reasonably tuned, you should be able to trigger them if you're well positioned. Apparently, adding a copper wire loop under your rim tape will work for carbon fiber rims as well.

There's some pretty good information here: https://www.bikewalknc.org/bicycle-detection-at-traffic-sign...

But I've been lucky enough to have California government on my side, I guess.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#137

Post by fingerlocks »

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #95
bhauer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. As a pedestrian, one of the most irksome circumstances is incorrectly assuming an intersection is automatic and losing a cycle because you chose to optimistically not press the button. So if you're not absolutely certain an intersection is automatic, you generally will press the button. Frankly, I don't think governments should engage in this kind of deceptive social engineering. If you have a problem with ja…

I like that you assume a reasonable person would only lose a single cycle. Once I walked up to a pedestrian scramble intersection with several people standing at it and it went around the cycle once in front of me and I realized none of them had pressed the button. I clarified aloud to them that you have to press the button as I pressed it. They exclaimed that they thought something was wrong with it as they had been…

To be fair, In Seattle there are many that are located comically far from the intersection. I’ve been through two light cycles until I found the button hiding in the distance.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#138

Post by KozmoNau7 »

msla wrote: post #126
doublepg23 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are being philosophical, plenty of left-wing thinkers have advocated for police abolition.

> plenty of left-wing thinkers have advocated for police abolition. Impossible. Not bad or wrong or even stupid, but impossible. If you have no police, everyone's police. How is that abolishing the police?

The commonly suggested alternative to the top-down authoritarian police we know today is horizontally organized citizen militias. In other words, a "police force" not beholden to the interests of the elites and the state, but by and for the common people.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#139

Post by pintxo »

s1mon wrote: post #24
Balero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe jaywalking is illegal, and enforced in Seattle. When I'm in the UK I will normally not press the pedestrian button (unless its the type of pedestrian only crossing which only activate with the button, not on traffic lights on a junction) . But when I'm in the US, or a different country with jaywalking laws, I will stick to the rules much more rigidly. I also really enjoy the first time crossing a road when…

Jaywalking is illegal pretty much everywhere in the US, but enforcement is very selective and regional.

That's interesting.

Just checked it for Germany, sensibly it's fined if you walk on the Autobahn or some other street limited to cars only. Crossing any other street - even if there is a crosswalk nearby - will only be fined if you at least create a danger for someone else. And then it's all <= 10€.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#140

Post by doublepg23 »

munk-a wrote: post #129
doublepg23 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are being philosophical, plenty of left-wing thinkers have advocated for police abolition.

I don't know where this is coming from but this "plenty" you've spoken to is not at all representative of the left-wing thinkers I've spoken to personally. There's no reason to drag politics into this.

It was merely a philosophical digression that clearly went nowhere.

I'm not sure how you could've assumed I meant "all" left-wing thinkers. Only that a significant amount have talked about it.

You're very much welcome to go-to Anarchist or Marxist circles and argue for the modern policing system though.

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