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U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

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Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#411

Post by egberts1 »

mbauman wrote: post #355
egberts1 wrote: post #241

Just a few moments ago, two pedestrians just jumped out in middle of a four-lane residential street that has no crosswalk for at least 400yd in either direction from behind a hedgerow. Didn't see it but lucky i was traveling 10 below speed limit (in a 40mph speed limit) My "S"pecially "H"igh "I"ntensity "T"ooter emitted a 142 dB sound and the glee of watching both pedies startled and scurrying faster across the stree…

I see that anecdote as a sobering reminder of the state of our roads and drivers. That sounds like inappropriate infrastructure (a 4-lane residential stroad?) combined with a person who prioritizes their ability to drive as they wish over others' lives, and who takes glee at their ability to dominate others, and a legal framework that empowers them to do so.

Nah, the reaction time for drivers are getting shorter as pedestrians are getting bolder.

Must get a dashcam, due to increasing legal burden and riskier pedestrians being placed on the driver.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#412

Post by rightbyte »

rationalist wrote: post #374
BluePen7 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I owned an F150 because there's a weird premium on anything smaller, it was cheaper than a Ranger or Tacoma. Eventually just switched to an economy car with a trailer hitch, and it was somehow mind blowing to everyone that a Toyota Camry could haul 2000 lbs. I was hauling a motocross dirtbike, 200lbs (trailer was maybe another 400), if it was a 200lb person any small car could seat 4 of them. When I switched to a spo…

Yes, a car with a hitch and trailer would be more economical to purchase and drive. Unfortunately it's not as convenient for the average person.

A station wagon is about as convinient as a pickup as long as you don't need to transport gravel.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#414

Post by mdu02 »

ArtemZ wrote: post #265
piffey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: drop the public commentary portion of development. Random old people with nothing to do all day shouldn't be allowed to delay a project by months because they want to complain about the orientation of a window on a project. If you don't own the land, weren't democratically elected, and aren't funding the property you shouldn't get a say in local land use. Ridiculous that we've even set up these systems.

That's ridiculous to prohibit residents from having a say about the area development, whether they are old or not.

Matt Yglesias had a good piece about this a few days ago.

https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewyglesias/p/community-me...

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#415

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

And why? TEXTING.

Until states make texting while driving a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties, this isn't going to get better.

I'm so tired of seeing people bellyaching about "speeding" when in fact the real problem is texting. Whining about "speed" lets politicians and law enforcement off the hook for not addressing the glaringly obvious threat to everyone on the road. And instead of cracking down on it, they waste taxpayers' money to destroy taxpayers' roads with ridiculous third-world impediments, stealing from 100% of drivers 100% of the time.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#416

Post by ecshafer »

nradov wrote: post #391
BorgHunter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is zoning regulation as a concept really the root cause, though? Houston famously has no zoning code and is fairly lax with land use generally (although it isn't completely the Wild West), and it isn't very dense. It seems like zoning could even be a key part of the solution, being a tool that could be used to mandate that new construction be more dense around mass transit hubs, for instance. There are lots of anti-d…

Preferences vary, but the vast majority of Americans prefer to spread out and live in single-family detached houses with some space and privacy. HN users love to complain that this is irrational or wasteful or imposes externalities on others. Those are valid points, but they don't change the choices that home buyers make.

Many people do like that. But there is a difference between "Allow people to build a single family detached home" and "make illegal anything except building a single family detached home". If you look at traditional american towns, there are a lot of walkable nice towns with nothing but detached homes, but they didn't have the same setback requirements as they do now.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#417

Post by pastage »

dionidium wrote: post #380
WillPostForFood wrote: post #13

Article ignores it, but looking at the source data you can see pedestrian deaths were flat, then a large spike in 2020 during Covid, and now we are at a new higher plateau. Cause is not a change in roads, or cars, or more SUVs. Covid/lockdowns changed the way people drive. Less civility, less police enforcement, more chaos. Driving is noticeably worse and more stressful than pre-Covid.

Further support for this theory is provided by this graph, which shows two separate, distinct jumps from 2014-2016 and 2020-2022: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzU9P7iX0AARi1F?format=jpg What happened in 2014 was Ferguson, followed by the Ferguson Report, and the initial stages of changes in enforcement. Then in 2020 we had Floyd and an even larger pullback. Roads did not change. Phones had been around for years by 201…

You are really cherry picking to come to that conclusion, but if citations correlates that strongly to less accidents that should be easy to show. It can not be the only thing though.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#418

Post by sidewndr46 »

vwcx wrote: post #351
sidewndr46 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why drivers are increasingly angry where I live is because there is no enforcement of traffic laws at all. Red lights are run nonstop, drivers use bicycle lanes as travel lanes, etc. I watched someone just reverse down a road opposite the direction of travel yesterday. Like it was no big deal.

Agreed. Sometimes I feel that most traffic laws only exist to serve as stand-in probable cause for forces' own agendas.

Nah that's what drug prohibition is for. It turns out almost everyones vehicle smells like weed.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#419

Post by meej »

hermannj314 wrote: post #46

In many states you are required to stop if a pedestrian is crossing the street. What has happened a lot is I will stop to let a pedestrian cross the street at a legal cross walk and the person behind me will assume I am an idiot, honk, and speed around me. My intuition is this is the cause of a significant amount of pedestrian deaths: impatient drivers that assume every stopped car is just an obstacle to zip around.…

This happens a lot in PDX and it makes me furious. It's like putting a hit out on the pedestrian crossing the street. I would like to see how the people honking their horns would like it if someone called for their death.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#420

Post by supertrope »

jdalgetty wrote: post #33

I live in a subdivision full of young families with kids. I'm also a runner, an avid dog walker and someone who walks his kids to and from school every day. As someone out on foot on a daily basis I am constantly blown away by the amount of people speeding on residential streets and not stopping at stop signs. I don't get it! These are clearly people who live in these neighbourhoods yet they don't care enough about t…

Backup cameras are Federally mandated in new cars because there was a predictable kill count of parents running over their own kids in their own driveways. Cars are so common that we don't really think about their dangers.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/cars-us-now-required-backup-camera...

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