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Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

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Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#101

Post by alexfoo »

giantg2 wrote: post #87
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the amount of road space, infrastructure, resources devoted to cars vs. pedestrians. The typical way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway for example is via a bridge - the pedestrian has to put up with going up and down the stairs. Pedestrians typically have to go out of their way to cross streets even at level. Traffic lights have “beg buttons” for pedestrians to use, god forbid they interrupt the flow of…

"The typical way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway for example is via a bridge" I'm not sure where you're from, but I have seen very few of these. Usually the ones I've seen are over a very busy road with few to no intersections and a lot of foot traffic. These are beneficial to the flow of both car and foot traffic instead of using long cycle times. “beg buttons” I'm sorry, but that is some extreme spin. What…

Pedestrians are second class in most crossings though (at least in the UK).

For traffic lights that are always green except when a pedestrian wants to cross we do have the “beg button” but the problem is that there is usually a reasonable delay before the lights turn red to stop the cars.

Obviously there needs to be some sort of delay between sets of red lights otherwise someone could just spend the day pressing the button and crossing all day whilst the traffic backs up. But the delay is front loaded. There doesn’t need to be such a long delay before the lights turn red if the lights have been green for a long enough period prior to that. Poor implementation.

I’m sure there’s a study somewhere where they decided to go with the pre-delay for some reason, but I’ve never found anything.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#102

Post by culopatin »

scubbo wrote: post #56
retrac wrote: post #23

Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal crime. There are jurisdictions in the USA where it's legal. And it's legal here in Canada. Even the term stands out -- I'm familiar with "jaywalking" but you only use a term for it if it's illegal. We just call it "crossing the street", or "impeding the flow of traffic", depending how you do it. (It's not exactly a free for all: in Ontario there is still a requi…

> Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal crime. When I first moved from the UK to the USA, I assumed that "jaywalking" was a made-up thing that you warned tourists about, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear . How could crossing the road be _inherently_ illegal, even if done in a safe manner!?

I got a ticket in Prague for crossing “wrong”, so it’s not a US only issue.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#103

Post by soperj »

armchairhacker wrote: post #33
retrac wrote: post #23

Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal crime. There are jurisdictions in the USA where it's legal. And it's legal here in Canada. Even the term stands out -- I'm familiar with "jaywalking" but you only use a term for it if it's illegal. We just call it "crossing the street", or "impeding the flow of traffic", depending how you do it. (It's not exactly a free for all: in Ontario there is still a requi…

In Boston (and maybe Massachusetts as a whole), jaywalking is a crime but the fee is literally $1. There was a Boston globe article about this, where some journalist spent his day intentionally and blatantly jaywalking everywhere, including right in front of cops. He didn’t get a single fine.

> including right in front of cops

Was the journalist white?

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#104

Post by wilsynet »

rrradical wrote: post #88
avalys wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of traffic laws that make things technically illegal even if they're perfectly safe ("no U-turn"), for the purpose of keeping traffic flow orderly and efficient. Not sure why this should be any different or why pedestrians should not be expected to follow traffic laws, or why the law should allow pedestrians to step into traffic whenever and wherever they want.

U-turns are not perfectly safe. Last week I saw a U-turner almost a hit a biker as they backed up after not being able to complete the turn in one pass. Can they be done safely? Sure. But that's not the same as perfectly safe.

Cars also hit bikes when cars are backing up, making turns, driving above the speed limit, driving below the speed limit, when the driver opens the door. Really, many varied circumstances that have nothing to do with making a U-turn.

Perhaps the phrase “perfectly safe” is wrong. Maybe “otherwise intrinsically safe” would be more accurate. Having said all that, I do wonder if we have U-turn accident statistics.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#105

Post by zelon88 »

giantrobot wrote: post #74
zelon88 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

> In other words, people with driving experience are usually safer, more considerate as pedestrians. A great example of this is pedestrians in San Francisco. I've never seen more entitled oblivious assholes that pedestrians there. They seem to have no situational awareness and blithely jump out in front of cars. One of my favorite stupid pedestrian tricks is them jumping out from between parked cars crossing without…

Cambridge/Boston is the same.

Another one that baffles me is seeing people ride E-bikes and scooters on streets with cars or worse, walk ways and trails where other motor vehicles are not allowed.

These are not environmentally friendly alternatives. They are Chinesium E-waste with low quality batteries. They will be driven for one or two years then put in a closet and forgotten about. When they do get used they typically cause more greenhouse gasses from regular cars that have to yield to them, or stop busy intersections so they can cross.

As an avid dirt bike rider it is especially frustrating because these are usually the same people (yuppies) who would call the police on me if I took my 17 year old 200cc dirt bike down the same trails.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#106

Post by whafro »

mikrl wrote: post #82
trothamel wrote: post #79

Note that like most laws, Jaywalking laws tend to make more sense when you read them. Here's the law in New York: https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2015/vat/title-7/artic... 1152. Crossing at other than crosswalks. (a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadwa…

Canada specific, but… Diagonal crossing is a thing in Quebec City at certain intersections which stop the traffic flow in every direction. Otherwise I only ever do it when I cannot see any cars which is fairly common at night in rural areas.

My family calls that sort of intersection “the doublecross”

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#107

Post by pixl97 »

interestica wrote: post #95
rrradical wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U-turns are not perfectly safe. Last week I saw a U-turner almost a hit a biker as they backed up after not being able to complete the turn in one pass. Can they be done safely? Sure. But that's not the same as perfectly safe.

> as they backed up That's no longer a U-turn

When you start looking at the average size of an American 4 wheeled land yacht you'll understand why U-turns are illegal.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#108

Post by justajot »

giantg2 wrote: post #57
seanr88 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Even the concept that the flow of traffic is more important than the pedestrian's flow" Is it? It seems like in the example, both parties are following a signal. Cars must yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Sure, some places have jaywalking laws when not in a crosswalk (in some cases including implied/unmarked crosswalks), and most require impeding traffic as a component. A few places could move towards common sens…

The designs of most cities in the U.S. absolutely treat pedestrians as second class citizens compared to automobile traffic. I'm currently working on a project that demonstrates exactly this (among other things) in Dallas. It's both sad and amusing how true it is.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#109

Post by alexfoo »

jcpst wrote: post #97

Where I live in the US, people simply do not stop at pedestrian crosswalks. It doesn’t matter that there’s a large fluorescent sign, and bold white stripes on the road, and a person waiting to cross. I’ve even had a police officer drive straight through while I was waiting to cross. But it seems like they’re respected if you install large flashing lights that the pedestrian can activate.

In the UK the law is sufficiently vague.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/2400/part/I/crosshe...

“ Precedence of pedestrians over vehicles at Zebra crossings 25.—(1) Every pedestrian, if he is on the carriageway within the limits of a Zebra crossing, which is not for the time being controlled by a constable in uniform or traffic warden, before any part of a vehicle has entered those limits, shall have precedence within those limits over that vehicle and the driver of the vehicle shall accord such precedence to any such pedestrian. “

The point is that simply waiting to cross you are not “on the carriageway” and therefore the driver of the vehicle is not required to stop (by some reading of the law).

Common custom is that you do stop for people waiting to cross but sometimes you really do have to stick a foot into the road to make people stop for you and allow you to cross.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#110

Post by simonbarker87 »

ljm wrote: post #86
scubbo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worth pointing out that "jaywalking" is not a universal crime. When I first moved from the UK to the USA, I assumed that "jaywalking" was a made-up thing that you warned tourists about, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear . How could crossing the road be _inherently_ illegal, even if done in a safe manner!?

Roads in the US aren't as safe to cross - you wouldn't take a shortcut across a dual-carriageway in the UK and that's just 2 lanes in each direction. Walking is just an afterthought really, until you get into certain areas like South Beach in Miami.

If I was in London or another large city and could see a multi lane road was clear then I wouldn’t think twice about crossing it.

It’s also not illegal to cross a dual carriage way in the UK on foot afaik. Motorways are but not at A road.

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