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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

#611

Post by somenameforme »

actionablefiber wrote: post #588
somenameforme wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like mentioned it's not just population growth. It's population growth alongside the fact that there's more pedestrians than ever. And unfortunately I missed probably also perhaps the single biggest factor: smart phones. Not only do you have more pedestrians than ever, they're also now going to be walking around with their faces shoved into a smart phone instead of paying attention to their surroundings. That pedestr…

> That pedestrian deaths were higher at some point in the past is what's the real story here. I deeply disagree with this take. I am living in a world in which boxes of metal fly around my unprotected flesh at high speeds, and "will I make it home safe today" is not only a dice roll for my life, but one in which the odds are getting worse by the day. One thing that keeps these numbers comparatively low is a pervasive…

I can definitely see your perspective. It's hard for me to respond here because I tend to be obsessed with data, and data is surprisingly hard it is to find this topic. Even something as simple as a real car ownership rate over time, and not registrations / population (which is about as meaningful as guns / population in terms of ownership), is surprisingly hard to find.

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

#612

Post by loco5niner »

pkulak wrote: post #570
loco5niner wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hesitant to take the Max in Portland because of the homeless/drug problem and I'm a fairly big guy in the prime of life. Definitely not taking my family. I LOVE being able to cart my kids around in my perfectly sized and designed mini-van.

Statistically, the Max is way safer than your minivan. I take my family on the Max all the time.

citation please.

I did take the max recently downtown to Jury duty, it was fine. Lots of extra security that wasn't there when I rode daily years ago.

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

#613

Post by Tanoc »

raverbashing wrote: post #599
Tanoc wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not necessarily. Starting in 1996 there was an update to CAFE regulations (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) that set tighter restrictions to start 2005 which only got tighter year over year from there. Conveniently thanks to the Jeep Cherokee XJ, the Chevrolet/GMC S-10 Blazer/S-15 Jimmy, and the Ford Explorer moving into a more luxury oriented direction, SUVs became the fastest growing segment starting in 1994. So…

> the U.S. has set in motion the death of the small car. Small cars sell fine everywhere else in the world

Not for very much longer outside of insulated markets like Japan and central Italy where big cars physically will not fit the streets. In the UK for example nearly half of all cars on the road now are SUVs or CUVs which are inherently larger than their hatchback counterparts regardless of what size and tax class they're weaseled into. Two of the best selling cars there in 2022 were the Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai, both compact CUVs with Nissan having completely dropped hatchback offering in that size class. In the EU and U.S. crash regulations have dictated cars be wider to accommodate side-impact airbags and side-sill reinforcement bars on doors, while hoods grow taller to adhere to pedestrian impact regulations. In China it's starting to be seen as unsightly or lower class to still be clinging to an A or B-class city or subcompact car, and so the market has trended towards mid-sizers. Combine this with the small car profit problem, and cars like the Ford Fiesta and Kia Picanto won't be around for very much longer. Ford's already discontinuing the Fiesta this year with no announced replacement.

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

#614

Post by masklinn »

rootusrootus wrote: post #461
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…

That probably varies a lot by region and neighborhood. My neighbors and I don't usually stop at our stop sign. But the sight lines are good and none of us drive faster than 15 mph, so formally stopping just because there is a sign is not worth much. If someone is walking or riding their bike, we stop for them whether there's a stop sign or not. We did have a neighbor once who tended to speed, but peer pressure turns…

You should try to get the stop signs replaced by yields and possibly some traffic calming. A stop sign everyone blows through is a normalisation of deviance.

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

#615

Post by pandaman »

cmh89 wrote: post #609
pandaman wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conversation is about pedestrians walking into traffic while staring in their phones, jaywalking in other words. Please don't try to ad hominem, it just shows that you don't have any arguments of substance and degrades the discussion.

> The conversation is about pedestrians walking into traffic while staring in their phones, jaywalking in other words Sorry, you are not understanding what jaywalking is. If you can find a definition of jaywalking that mentions phone, I'll concede your point, but you can't, because it has nothing to do with phones.

Sorry, the rules don't work like that. Jaywalking with a phone is still jaywalking, same as speeding with a phone is still speeding or littering with a phone is still littering. Here is the definition from Wiki:

Jaywalking is the act of pedestrians walking in or crossing a roadway that has traffic if that act contravenes traffic regulations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

Please show me how using a phone suddenly stops contravening with traffic regulations or whatever definition you believe is true that cancels jaywalking somehow when you stare at a phone.

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

#616

Post by oezi »

strix_varius wrote: post #582
oezi wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to get pulled over for this? In Europe you will just get a letter with your fine.

What? Without pulling you over, how would they know who you are in order to mail you a fine? The point of the plate is to identify the car, after all. Otherwise, you're just an anonymous moving 2-ton hunk of metal.

If something is wrong with the car, the owner of the car gets the fine. The owner of the car is on file.

If somebody uses the car on the owner's behalf and the fine is tied to the driver the fine must be forwarded by the owner to this person.

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

#617

Post by wiether »

RajT88 wrote: post #100
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…

Also a runner here - over the years I've lived in a handful of towns, and the wealthier the town, the more likely people are to just totally blow stop signs without checking. (And they get mad if they almost hit you)

As a cyclist in France and Belgium, I'd say it's again the extremes.

Wealthy and poor neighborhoods are the dangerous ones where drivers are absolute dangers. And to me the reason is simple : there's not much law enforcement there. The rich ones because they are friends with the mayor/police chief so they have orders to not bother the locals. The poor ones because not sending police there is the easiest way to keep the bad guys there. At least they are not doing their stuff elsewhere.

Many people told me so and I didn't wanted to believe them because it was too simple. But bad experience after bad experience made me come to the same conclusion : where there's no law enforcement, more and more people are breaking the law, no matter the consequences for their peers.

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

#618

Post by actionablefiber »

sokoloff wrote: post #124
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.…

The problem with making this jailable (which I do not support in the absence of a collision) is that you stopping to let a pedestrian legally cross is difficult to distinguish from you stopping in a travel lane or bike lane to pick up an Uber fare or stopping to double park near someone waiting for their own Uber. The latter two cases are actually obstacles created by anti-social behavior and are probably more common…

Ok, but what do you do then?

Fundamentally the issue is that cars are huge visibility blockers. It is completely inconceivable that a cyclist could stop or slow to let a pedestrian cross, and the driver behind them would not see the pedestrian.

Without clear sight lines, drivers would need to communicate. But fundamentally drivers have extremely limited means of communicating information to those around them, and all of them are ambiguous. Hazard lights can mean a million things, including either "please pass me" or "it is extremely dangerous to pass me". In my city they most commonly mean "I want to park in this bike lane." Honking can mean a million things too, and sounds angry, aggressive, and startling. You can't really use your words, in a car, unless all of you have quiet engines, quiet tires, and roll your windows down. It is very hard, in most lighting conditions, to see the driver if they are trying to signal with their hands, because of sun glare, window tinting, lighting differentials between the cabin and the exterior.

So, the car in front blocks your ability to receive information about what's in front of them, while also being unable to communicate any helpful information themselves.

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

#619

Post by strix_varius »

oezi wrote: post #616
strix_varius wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Without pulling you over, how would they know who you are in order to mail you a fine? The point of the plate is to identify the car, after all. Otherwise, you're just an anonymous moving 2-ton hunk of metal.

If something is wrong with the car, the owner of the car gets the fine. The owner of the car is on file. If somebody uses the car on the owner's behalf and the fine is tied to the driver the fine must be forwarded by the owner to this person.

And since the issue we're discussing is missing a license plate, how do you propose identifying the owner of the car, in order to fine them, without pulling the car over?

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

#620

Post by AlwaysRock »

kube-system wrote: post #324
AlwaysRock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that is a weird one because no one is going to get ticketed for going the speed limit or 5 over in the passing/leftmost lane and technically they are doing nothing wrong. It just makes driving more difficult for everyone else. The rightmost lane is somewhat similar. You really shouldnt travel in it. It's for getting on and off the road. If you are in it you're making it harder for other to merge on/off the road.…

> The rightmost lane is somewhat similar. You really shouldnt travel in it. It's for getting on and off the road. If you are in it you're making it harder for other to merge on/off the road. But again you're not going to get a ticket for pulling into that right lane and staying as long as you'd like. I'm curious as to where this is the law. It was not in the state where I learned to drive.

It isnt law anywhere. That is my point. If you're traveling in the rightmost land on a three lane highway you are making it difficult for others to get on and off. The middle lane is where you should be.
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