Here in the US we plow our cars into protesters. Different culture.
Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
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Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#272I am living in Oslo and just came driving from the city center now, not strange when it is almost impossible to drive around there, lot of light regulation (no turn right on red as in US).
Even with socioeconomic value on human life in the $10M range I don’t think it is economically beneficial to the city center.
The ‘no children died’ in 2019 is something else and a really good thing!
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your point exactly? That it is possible that there a few individuals for whom driving is more advantageous than public transport? Of course, it is possible. Is it likely that if everyone drove instead of taking public transport driving would become unbearable for everyone, you included? Of course again. So what are you arguing for exactly? That everyone should drive? Are you looking for absolution for liking…
I don’t exactly understand the point either. Public transit is clearly more efficient when you look at it from a system perspective. A subway can carry 30000/person per hour and a car lane full of cars at 1.2 person/car isn’t anywhere close from those numbers. What is there to argue really? I’m sure you can get door to door faster in a car when you have an empty road and follow a path that doesn’t exist on public tra…
Problem is most people are going from door to door, while your transit system makes you go to wherever it stops. Unless transit has some other large advantage it is going to be a worse choice for most individuals even given traffic. (separate tracks are a large advantage - but only if the tracks more or less go close to where you want to end up)
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a cultural problem, not a crosswalk light problem. Most people (myself included) automatically slow down when driving into a crosswalk. Our intersections are usually fairly small, so it's hard to build up any speed, even if you wanted to.
Oh, it is definitely a huge cultural problem. In the US, many drivers will ignore the existence of pedestrians altogether. For example, pulling up to an intersection and only looking to the left before making a right turn, because that is the only direction that car traffic can be coming from. It isn't every car by any means, but enough cars that pedestrians need to assume that drivers are incompetent until given evi…
This doesn't completely jive with my experience. I live near schools and drivers aren't constantly almost running into kids walking to the park or school.
But it certainly seems true in busier areas with less pedestrian traffic such as mini malls. Especially when pulling out of parking lots.
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Without lights, pedestrians would always have first priority on a crosswalk. Cars would have to stop for any pedestrian crossing the street. Traffic lights in combination with a pedestrian crossing proper (a zebra crossing) seem to be rather rare, at least in Europe. Thus most crossing points of pedestrian would, in absence of traffic lights, not give them the right of way, because crossing traffic generally does n…
In the UK, the Highway Code rule 8 ( https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-pedes... ) points out that pedestrians crossing the road have priority over turning vehicles.
> pedestrians crossing the road have priority over [vehicles turningo into the road they are crossing]
Yes, that's what I wrote. "Crossing traffic" refers to traffic crossing your road. In general, traffic that follows your road always has priority over you making a turn. Hence if you make a left turn you have to yield to oncoming traffic, and pedestrians going straight on the left. Similarly, if you make a right turn, you have to yield to the pedestrians going straight on your right. (When you make a right turn, there should be no way for someone (motorcycle, bicycle) to drive on the right of you, since you are supposed to be the rightmost thing on the road. Obviously you still have to watch out for bicyclists driving on the sidewalk.)
For the same reason you have to yield to pedestrians crossing your exit when leaving a roundabout, even if they don't have a zebra crossing.
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a bizarre article. If you go to Oslo for yourself you will see it is far from car free - there’s cars everywhere like a normal city.
It's because of the various definitions of "city center". The upcoming car free city center in question is just a pretty small area, which has been a driving hell for years anyway, due to all the pedestrians, public transportation and low speeds. Unless you're a taxi who want to increase your fare, you wouldn't want to drive through it anyway.
I think ‘Oslo pedestrianises a couple of streets’ would be more accurate but not very interesting as many places do this.
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#277One interesting observation on Oslo is that, pedestrians do cross the street when it's red for them, if there's no moving traffic close by. This is totally different from, for example, Copenhagen, Stockholm and places I visited in Germany. They're like Italians of the north. That's probably why we felt at home on the streets during our stay there, as a family from Turkey. I would love to have that 0 deaths statistics…
That's not different at all. Why would Norwegians be different from other humans? I can confirm that Swedes and danes do this too. And being of croatian descent I can confirm they do it there too. It's not a cultural thing, it's a human thing to be impatient. If anything it speaks of the flow of traffic. Here in Sweden you can often safely cross the street because the entire length of the street has lights that work…
It's a cultural thing. It even differs a lot by city in the US. In NYC, the mindset is take every inch you can get. In a lot of other places, pedestrians pay attention to walk/don't walk signals more than not.
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's so dangerous, maybe we should get the cars out of the places where people are walking around a lot. Since the primary purpose of a city is for people to get business and life done, and not to move cars from one side of it to the other. People should be able to cross outside of crosswalks, because the cars should be driving fast somewhere else, or driving at a safe speed in the city. That safe speed is far, fa…
Pedestrianization is a thing in a lot of places outside the US and UK. But whenever it is proposed in the US or UK, the usual suspects turn pink with rage and claim that removing cars from the city centre will kill the high street (spoiler alert: it doesn't)
Pedestrianization streets has made some better and others worse. It depends. Generally it makes things better when there are already a lot of Pedestrians around, while it makes things worse when most people are driving there anyway. Most people proposing pedestrianization point only to the success and fail to ask if the situation is the same here. (Those opposed don't seem to be aware of the failures)
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Without lights, pedestrians would always have first priority on a crosswalk. Cars would have to stop for any pedestrian crossing the street. Traffic lights in combination with a pedestrian crossing proper (a zebra crossing) seem to be rather rare, at least in Europe. Thus most crossing points of pedestrian would, in absence of traffic lights, not give them the right of way, because crossing traffic generally does n…
Pedestrians had the right of way before the cars existed
No, historically carriages have held the right of way, and the higher their occupants social status the more right of way they had.
Re: Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, pedestrian signals do NOT signal when it’s safe to cross. Cars almost always have a green in the same direction, meaning they can turn into you. I almost get run over once a month because of this.
Where I live in the US, my understanding is that pedestrians always have the right of way at intersections (regardless of whether there are any traffic or pedestrian signals) unless: 1. There is a pedestrian signal that says to NOT cross, or 2. The traffic signal going in the direction the pedestrian is walking is red. So if the light is green and the pedestrian signal does not say to not cross, then the pedestrian h…
I have a crossing signal. Cars going the same direction as me also have green lights. They make right/left turns into my path ALL THE TIME. I should have the right of way, but that doesn't do me any good when I get hit by a 2-ton metal machine going 40mph. I guess my ghost can take solace in my wife's victorious wrongful death suit?