481–490 of 524 posts
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In the US it is illegal to ride a bicycle on a sidewalk in most places
Yup. Bikes are 'cars' unless being walked. That includes crosswalks.
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I mean... it's context to make it relevant to US readers. You didn't see me say there was a direct comparison to be made. And you're kind of contradicting your claim that it's totally useless. 121/million vs. 1/million shows at what order of magnitude the comparison takes place, which is good enough to contextualize things, and your example of Austin further shows that the order of magnitude isn't far off.
It's context that makes no sense. How about this one?: "In my neighborhood last year there were also no vehicle fatalities." Is that in any way helpful?
It's also useless because a neighborhood is too small a unit of measurement to be useful, period. Unlike cities, states, or the entire country, the vast majority of neighborhoods have zero vehicle fatalities.
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I'm in the US, which also allows cars and peds to share a "green" in the same direction. I regularly have cars nearly run me over when they turn left/right while I'm in the crosswalk with a valid crossing signal. The problem, in the US, is that drivers don't give a shit about anybody but themselves. They are completely self-centered. If there were penalties for hitting pedestrians or cyclists, this might change. I pr…
> Hitting a pedestrian or cyclist is almost always deemed an accident, with no fault assigned (or, if fault is assigned, a $200 fine is the result, not loss of driving privilege). This is common also in Sweden, but parallel green still generally works well. So enforcement cannot be the only explanation.
- the roads are more car-centric than European cities and suburbs. Crossings are poorly timed, poorly lighted, too wide, in the wrong places, etc.
Some contextual data from US cities in 2018 City – City Population (Metro Area Population), City Density per Square Mile, City Traffic Fatalities Oslo [1]: 690,335 (1,588,457), 3,938, 1 Nashville [2][3]: 692,587 (1,930,961), 1,374, 82 Portland [4][5]: 653,115 (2,478,810), 4,911, 34 Milwaukee [6][7]: 592,025 (1,572,245), 6,155, 68 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tenn…
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And then also, many pedestrians see the walk sign and just start crossing while staring at their phone without even glancing around to be sure there aren't any inattentive drivers heading their way.
While true, the distractedness (on the part of the pedestrian or the driver) doesn't absolve the driver of their responsibility to yield in this scenario. A driver who hits a pedestrian in this scenario will be subject to criminal and civil penalties, and rightly so.
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Highway speeds are 90-110km/h (55-70mph). General speed limits are 80km/h and 50km/h (50/30mph) depending on pop. density. Speeds are often reduced if the road is sub par or if there have been accidents on that bit of road. Yes. The limits are low, but definitivly not _incredibly_ low.
What highway? I was pretty surprised to not be on a proper motorway, it was all 2-lane highways. IIRC it was max 80km, with plenty of 70km and lower limits. I drove Oslo Airport -> Flåm -> Bergen -> Oslo Airport. Looks like E16 / 7 / 52 were the roads involved, 968km loop.
The motorways are mostly on the south-eastern part of Norway, where it's reasonably flat. There aren't that many of them, building infrastructure here is really hard.
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/e16-bergen-voss-kara-til-_noreg...
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I think you are talking about jaywalking, but Europe and the US are really big. In LA you get a ticket for jaywalking, while in NYC everyone crosses anywhere including weaving though moving traffic. And some cities in Maine the pedestrian always has the right away at cross walks and otherwise don't have lights.
pedestrian always has the right away at cross walks Isn't that the very point of a crosswalk?
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When I visited the USA for a conference, I looked up a nice coffee place that was just across the street from the academic campus where I was staying. I went to the nearest crossing point, waited for several cycles of the traffic lights, and still couldn't deduce when it was safe to cross. The road markings were black and white stripes, which mean "cars must always stop for pedestrians crossing here" where I live (UK…
It varies from state to state and city to city. Some have the very regulation you are talking about. I have never seen it enforced. In your case if there was no indicator light. Then you could go for it when the traffic was going in the same direction as you or when clear from the other direction. The general rule of thumb is from any corner you can cross. That does not mean you get to stop traffic to do so. Though i…
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It's context that makes no sense. How about this one?: "In my neighborhood last year there were also no vehicle fatalities." Is that in any way helpful?
No. We have no knowledge of your neighborhood, whereas US readers have a good-enough picture of the US. It's also useless because a neighborhood is too small a unit of measurement to be useful, period. Unlike cities, states, or the entire country, the vast majority of neighborhoods have zero vehicle fatalities.
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Is that easily bypassed? I don't need my car nagging me because I put a large box in my back seat.
For the cars I had, it was only on the driver seat. I think it's fair to assume there is always a person driving.
I've got another vehicle where it goes full chicken little if I don't button the seat belt first.
Both of them make me nostalgic for a Mitsubishi I had where the "chime" was a specific speaker that was easily disconnected and not a full blown part of the stereo/canbus/ecu and blasting out of every speaker in the car.