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Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

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Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#41

Post by tialaramex »

nerdjon wrote: post #18
stuaxo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other places cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians even on non crossings, in practice the penalties for hitting and killing them are way lower than killing a person in another situation.

Pedestrians should also take responsibility for acting dangerously. To me it's the same if a driver cuts in front of me and then slams on their brakes, there was nothing I could have done about crashing into them no matter how safely I was driving. If a person runs in front of a moving vehicle it shouldn't be the driver responsible if they basically cut the car off. A car can't stop on a dime. Drivers should be held…

> A car can't stop on a dime.

That sounds like a you problem. Why is it up to the pedestrian (who may have never driven a motor vehicle) to anticipate the performance characteristics of this large metal vehicle in the street ?

The UK already has designated areas with no pedestrians ("Motorways" ~= US highways [?]) and it has expended considerable resources closing or diverting at-grade crossings of railways (which obviously have a more extreme version of the "can't stop on a dime" problem). You aren't allowed on most airstrips at all, without special permission, in a vehicle or otherwise - so that mostly leaves cars hitting pedestrians, seems robustly like that's actually always the car driver's fault even if (as we see for "Jay-walking") they'd prefer to pretend it was not.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#42

Post by seanr88 »

retrac wrote: post #35
flockonus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not true for Canada as a whole, i know of several people who got jaywalking tickets in BC. Example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jaywalkers-c...

Yes, not obeying pedestrian signalling is one of the exceptions. I'd say that's fairly reasonable -- if people cross freely against indicators it messes with the flow of traffic. I've only seen this actually enforced with examples like in the article, outside a busy transit station.

Even the concept that the flow of traffic is more important than the pedestrian's flow is indicative of the change in attitude. Somehow the car has come to be most important while the pedestrian is a nuisance. Both own and pay for the road but the pedestrian is a second class citizen (obviously some people will moan on about road tax and fuel tax, but these taxes don't come close to paying for the road infrastructure, I doubt they would even pay the rent on the area dedicated to roads in one major city - say NYC).

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#43

Post by kwhitefoot »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #27
sandworm101 wrote: post #2

How quickly we forget history. Horses were also lethal. Look at the number of people killed by horses, either being thrown from them, trampled by them, or run over by carts pulled by horses. Streets were not some utopic garden of pedestrian safety prior to cars. There were no jaywalking rules because society had evolved over thousands of years being rather acceptive of horse-related dangers. When the new device came…

I immediately thought of this as well (horse sleigh scene in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment comes to mind, I mean, neither of us has experience with horse-first transportation, I assume). I just arrived at a different conclusion. To compare the number of people killed by automobiles and their infrastructure, compared to the numbers for people killed by horses (I can't give precise numbers for either, I'll admit t…

You surely have to compare the rates per horse not per unit population.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#44

Post by hkwerf »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #40
tim333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has no jaywalking laws (apart from full motorways) and about 1/3 the pedestrian deaths of the US ( https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/10/exactly-how-far-u-s-s... ). There are other ways to do things.

Germany always is doing super well in these rankings. Yet 2/3rd of the highways have no speed limit at all. It's of course unsurprising: all cars are driving in the same direction on the highway so head-on collisions on the highways are extremely rare. Also pedestrian deaths on the highway: the number is so minuscule it doesn't even register.

However, crossing the autobahn on foot is actually forbidden (§ 18, Absatz 9, StVO), so there is a "jaywalking" law in Germany that probably helps reducing pedestrian deaths on the highway.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#45

Post by zelon88 »

Fricken wrote: post #13
akira2501 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rephrasing the headline for honesty: "Automakers accept the responsibility for the thing they've created and attempt to improve safety outcomes in a patchwork regulatory environment dominated by gridlock and disagreement."

Quite the opposite. Automakers passed the responsibility on to people who don't even drive.

I've noticed that people who don't drive usually don't have frame of reference of what cars are capable of, and usually don't understand all of the simultaneous requirements that must be fulfilled by drivers. So you get pedestrians who don't understand what the stopping distance of a car is, or pedestrians who don't recognize dangerous situations that they create.

In other words, people with driving experience are usually safer, more considerate as pedestrians.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#46

Post by tim333 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #40
tim333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has no jaywalking laws (apart from full motorways) and about 1/3 the pedestrian deaths of the US ( https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/10/exactly-how-far-u-s-s... ). There are other ways to do things.

Germany always is doing super well in these rankings. Yet 2/3rd of the highways have no speed limit at all. It's of course unsurprising: all cars are driving in the same direction on the highway so head-on collisions on the highways are extremely rare. Also pedestrian deaths on the highway: the number is so minuscule it doesn't even register.

Germany does have jaywalking laws though. I'm not sure about Holland which has very low pedestrian deaths.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#47

Post by limitedfrom »

cjensen wrote: post #10

The Library of Congress has a great film taken from the front of a cable car in pre-fire San Francisco [1]. It's absolutely terrifying to see how unsafe the streets were. It wasn't just cars either: horse-drawn carts dart in and out of traffic just as cars did, pedestrians cross at-will in front of all vehicles, and at one points kids mess about jumping on the back of vehicles. It's obvious major regulation was neede…

It's chaotic, but not terrifying or likely that dangerous given the speed / injury/deaths are very unlikely at such low speeds[1]. Vehicles are moving at near-walking speeds, and even with the added weight of carriages/cars, there's a lot of reaction time.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#48

Post by kwhitefoot »

csswizardry wrote: post #20

As a Brit, ‘jaywalking’ is so alien to me. I once jaywalked in front of a police car who stopped and waved/signalled me across the road! Whenever I’m overseas, crossing anywhere when the road is clear is second nature to me and I have to remind myself not to. Conversely, you can always spot a foreigner in the UK: they’re the ones waiting for the signal at a deserted crossing at 2am.

There are not many countries in Europe that have jaywalking laws. Only Germany and Poland come to mind.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#49

Post by moritzwarhier »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #43
moritzwarhier wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I immediately thought of this as well (horse sleigh scene in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment comes to mind, I mean, neither of us has experience with horse-first transportation, I assume). I just arrived at a different conclusion. To compare the number of people killed by automobiles and their infrastructure, compared to the numbers for people killed by horses (I can't give precise numbers for either, I'll admit t…

You surely have to compare the rates per horse not per unit population.

depends, I don't think it's even possible to have as many horses on earth as there are automobiles :)

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#50

Post by alexfoo »

seanr88 wrote: post #37
tim333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has no jaywalking laws (apart from full motorways) and about 1/3 the pedestrian deaths of the US ( https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/10/10/exactly-how-far-u-s-s... ). There are other ways to do things.

No other country has anything to teach the USA. The USA is unique and special for a large number of reasons and so foreign methods won't work here. If I recall they even drive on the other side of the road in the UK, that will never catch on here.

You could phase it in slowly like Ireland did.

Cars on a Monday. Lorries and HGVs switch on Wednesday. All remaining traffic on the Friday.

Done!

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