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Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

nytimes.com

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Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#131

Post by op00to »

joefife wrote: post #98
Aeolun wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would be nice if we had more sidewalks, but they are financially unsustainable I call bullshit. The smallest 50 people village in the Netherlands has sidewalks. It’s not that it’s unsustainable, it’s that nobody wants to pay for it. Or that americans build too friggin big.

Indeed. It's a very strange argument - sidewalks require significantly less to sustain. For a start, the build quality can be a lot lower - a sidewalk doesn't need to support lorries with 13t loads. As for maintenance, the damage to them is far less, and repairing a sidewalk would usually be a small diversion rather than the drama of a road closure. I'm not quite sure why anyone would think sidewalks are an unthinkab…

$350k per mile length of a 6 foot wide sidewalk. That's what people don't want to spend money on.

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#132

Post by [deleted] »

collegeburner wrote: post #88
efitz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly did you get to “the cause of reckless driving is fat people who don’t walk everywhere?” Show your work. In most places in America walking is not a practical mode of transportation because of distance; it’s miles from your house to the grocery store, for instance. If you live in a city this might not be obvious to you but half the country lives in the burbs or rural areas. Separately, it would be nice if w…

It's also temperature. I'm not walking in 100 degrees, even 3 blocks because I'm soaked when I get there and stink.

[deleted]

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#133

Post by nerdponx »

amcoastal wrote: post #79
nerdponx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: are FL and TX not "the South"? Or is it more about rural vs urban?

It really depends. I took an entire geography class back in college called "The South", and a big part of it was defining what exactly the south is. Some people would consider Texas and Florida to be parts of the south, but most do not. Florida and especially Texas, are part of their own thing. You're also right that its partially an urban versus rural thing, drivers in Atlanta or Charlotte can be very aggressive, bu…

For what it's worth, drivers in Miami seem even more aggressive and reckless than in Boston.

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#134

Post by op00to »

joefife wrote: post #104
collegeburner wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also temperature. I'm not walking in 100 degrees, even 3 blocks because I'm soaked when I get there and stink.

The Spanish manage?

The spanish shut down in mid day due to heat, and stay up late to take advantage of cooler nights. We can't expect every society to just emulate the spanish (who, probably unrelated to their mid day shut down, are not in an excellent financial position now.)

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#135

Post by CalRobert »

nverno wrote: post #44

This article seems pretty misleading. Looking at the historical trends [1], there were more pedestrian deaths per year 50 years ago. And that is before taking into account that the population has doubled since then! There is clearly an uptick in recent years, but this nyt article is trying to hard to hype it up. Coming off historical lows, around 10 years ago, the percentage yearly increase can sound more shocking th…

I suspect the number of miles walked has fallen quite a lot in the last 50 years. Like talking about how so few children are killed cycling to school without noting that close to no children cycle to school, compared to decades past.

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#136

Post by CalRobert »

Drivers are the leading cause of dead kids. But for some reason we completely ignore it, while focusing on gun violence (which is also bad, to be clear).

I really don't know a solution aside from moving to a country that's better designed. The US seems too far gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul_xzyCDT98

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#137

Post by [deleted] »

gameswithgo wrote: post #2

In Austin Texas we have an absurdly well marked crosswalk on the way to the elementary school, to a close approximation nobody has ever stopped to let us cross. Our daughter was nearly killed once, so far. It seems so many people in America are so fat now they don’t imagine people would ever walk, so they drive without regard for pedestrians and active hostility towards cyclists and park in the way of sidewalks, maki…

[deleted]

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#138

Post by ghaff »

jpm_sd wrote: post #83

I live in a dense, walkable Boston suburb that is served by the MBTA commuter rail. But it's also full of "Masshole" drivers and adjacent to a couple of high-traffic major highways. I've observed a sharp increase in impatience and road rage, both on our 25 mph city streets, and on and off Rtes 1 and 93, in the last 2 years. Not to mention ever-more inattentive driving with eyes on phones. It's pretty alarming. I don'…

I somewhat hesitate to anecdata this in the same general area. But...

For a time, I might have been inclined to put it down to people just weren't driving and had "forgotten" how. But I think that's hard to argue for at this point. I've nearly got run off the road on a merge or had a horn blown at me followed by a pass on the shoulder because I was apparently only going at the speed limit multiple times in just the past month or two.

Boston area driving has been quite aggressive forever. But I don't think I've seen it this actively bad/dangerous as it has been the past year or two. (And a number of people I know have said likewise.)

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#139

Post by op00to »

aww_dang wrote: post #77
paulcole wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of walking is foreign to a huge number of Americans, regardless of how fat/thin they might be. Try living in the suburbs and telling someone you’re going to walk an errand that’s 5 miles round-trip. You might as well tell them you’re going to Mars. I grew up and lived in rural/suburban Florida (god-awful weather) and I never learned to drive. I walked everywhere (no sidewalks). People whose lives revolve aro…

People drive to the gym to run on a treadmill. I can allow for some circumstances where this makes sense, but that's not always the case.

I don't do treadmill, but I used to run in the street and have since stopped. I mostly row now. My reasonings for treadmill vs running in the stret

- Safer than running on the street (crappy streets, ignorant drivers, etc.)

- I can concentrate on running, not on staying away from getting creamed by cars.

- They've got TV, I could get my garbage news fix (I don't read/watch news regularly)

- They've got bathrooms, running makes me shit sometimes, if I go out in the morning.

Of course, I stopped going to a gym because I do have an erg at home, and I don't really want to go to a large indoor location where people are huffing and puffing right now.

Re: Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges

#140

Post by masklinn »

kmlx wrote: post #52
cianmm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in Ireland and there is a signposted pedestrian crossing that cars routinely ignore in a park near my house. A good technique, I’ve found, is point your phone at them as you prepare to cross. It seems to scare them into stopping. Normalisation of dangerous driving is a global phenomenon where car culture reigns.

elevated pedestrian crossing is the solution here. used across London with great effect. anyway, there are many ways to calm traffic.

So “let’s make walking even more inconvenient but find ways to moan about how much they cost to boot”.

Sinking roads and giving all surface level to pedestrians would be an active improvement, though obviously not a cheap one. The great bit is when you remove the cars you can backfill the dig and forget about it entirely.

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