Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#261

Post by adrianN » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 4:36 AM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #259

adrianN wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that high-density car-free cities existed for thousands of years before cars were invented?

> You realize that high-density car-free cities existed for thousands of years before cars were invented? Not at the scale we commonly have now. If you have any links to a 2000 year old skyscraper, now would be a good time to post it.

Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either. However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#262

Post by lelanthran » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #261

lelanthran wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You realize that high-density car-free cities existed for thousands of years before cars were invented? Not at the scale we commonly have now. If you have any links to a 2000 year old skyscraper, now would be a good time to post it.

Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either. However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around.

> Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either.

Yes. Because technology like the automobile was not around to support the high-density living that we enjoy now.

> However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around.

Nowhere nearly as dense as we want to live now. And that wasn't thousands of years ago either.

My point is that, without the automobile, high density populations could not be supported.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#263

Post by lelanthran » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 5:14 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #218

lelanthran wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In short, walk or take a tram to your parked car if you need to drive it to the next town. What does that have to do with what I said? Without allowing vehicles on roads (and the jaywalking laws that came with it), deliveries to the high-density places where people live , or to city centers, would be limited to what can be drawn on a horse and carriage. Those laws specifically benefited those people who live without…

I have no objection to commercial delivery vehicles, mass transit vehicles or emergency vehicles - I solely object to personal vehicles being assumed to have a right to directly access to every store front in a city. If we shifted out cultural view to looking at these vehicles as borrowing the public space of streets - instead of viewing streets as zones prohibited to pedestrians we'd probably all live longer lives w…

> You can also look at European cities to see how last-mile deliveries to addresses that aren't on car-width roads are handled with cargo and motor bikes.

High-density living requires much more cargo space than motorbikes can handle.

Just moving into the area alone requires an automobile (you're not moving 3 beds, 5 couches and everything else on cargo bikes). hundreds of thousands of eggs, loaves of bread and litres of milk alone is delivered in a large high-density metro per day. you aren't going to fit 100k cargo bikes into the train station.

My point is not that we need to keep autos, my point is that the high-density living we have now would not have been possible if automobiles were not allowed on roads.

We're lucky that it was allowed, because it enabled a rate of progress that would never have been possible without it.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#264

Post by adrianN » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:01 AM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #262

adrianN wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either. However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around.

> Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either. Yes. Because technology like the automobile was not around to support the high-density living that we enjoy now. > However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around. Nowhere nearly as dense as we want to live now. And that wasn't thousands of years ago either. My point is that, without the autom…

You're moving goalposts across continents if a car free city with several million inhabitants doesn't qualify as dense car-free living.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#265

Post by 3seashells » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:05 AM UTC

jcynix wrote: post #11

If you cross the street "near" a red traffic light, that costs you 5€ in Germany. If you admit that you did it intentionally, the ticket price doubles. Happened to my wife some years ago when walking to a bus stop on the other side of the street. How did the cop know that it was intentional? She remarked that there was no car in sight, neither left nor right, on a straight road in town. Oh, and what's the definition…

There is value in a society that upholds norms even if you don't agree with them, even if nobody is watching. I will wait in a ghost city for a green light, ridicule away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-trust_and_low-trust_socie...

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#266

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:24 AM UTC

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…

First thing I taught my children about roads was to always give right of way to any vehicle. Especially at marked crosswalks and regardless of traffic lights. Still, one of them got hit at the pedestrian crossing recently (she is 26 now, needs refreshment lessons it seems).

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#267

Post by ultrarunner » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:34 AM UTC

scoot wrote: post #246

dm319 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law in the UK has just changed to explicitly give priority to pedestrians already crossing the road, particularly in the context of a car turning off a main road and finding pedestrians crossing the road.

Good luck finding a UK driver that knows this, or even a pedestrian! I've had people shout at me for legally crossing a junction while the driver of a vehicle decided I was at fault, because... vehicular mass?

I had a woman literally skid to a stop in front of me to tell me I was running on the “wrong” side of the road. I was running against traffic, and she came from behind, which means that yes, she was actually on the wrong side of the road while delivering her belligerent explanation. Doesn’t have to make sense, I guess.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#268

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:37 AM UTC

digital-cygnet wrote: post #147

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…

I think you've misunderstood the law you've quoted. It's not about "crossing without checking", it's about the pedestrian "yield[ing] the right of way to all vehicles". It's hard to imagine from a modern perspective, but until laws like this were passed roads were not, as today, universally perceived as places for cars to drive. In cities in much of the developing world the pre-jaywalking regime remains: road users w…

Been to Tbilisi recently, there is such strong preference for cars in the center, pedestrians need to walk ~10 min on average to find a crossing and then wait ~10 min for the green light.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#269

Post by Moldoteck » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:48 AM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #67

JWLong wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It shouldn't be. The risk to you is much greater if you hit another car, than if you hit a pedestrian. Addtionally, while you are right that a car can't stop on a dime, speeds have a large influence on the size of coin needed for a car t…

> It shouldn't be. The risk to you is much greater if you hit another car, than if you hit a pedestrian. True but the idea to me is the same for this particular situation, it is something running in front of a moving vehicle with little to no chance to do anything about it as a driver. You are right for speeds and too many people drive too fast in an urban setting, but even a reasonable driving at 20-30 mph can still…

Idk at 30kmh it is fairly easy to stop the vehicle

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#270

Post by lelanthran » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 6:48 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #264

lelanthran wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Global population wasn't at the scale we have right now either. Yes. Because technology like the automobile was not around to support the high-density living that we enjoy now. > However, London had several million inhabitants in the late nineteenth century, before any cars were around. Nowhere nearly as dense as we want to live now. And that wasn't thousands of years ago either. My point is that, without the autom…

You're moving goalposts across continents if a car free city with several million inhabitants doesn't qualify as dense car-free living.

I don't think so. I started the thread with:

>>>> We all benefited, yourself included, from having those early laws on the books.

then reinforced with

>>> The high-density car-free life you dream of would never have been possible

then reinforced, again, with

>> Because technology like the automobile was not around to support the high-density living that we enjoy now.

I thought I was being clear that I was referring to the dense car-free cities we now enjoy, or we expect to have, not overcrowded and unsanitary slums[1].

So you claiming that a dense car-free city is possible is irrelevant to "the car free city we now enjoy", because the car-free cities we now enjoy does not have millions of people living in overcrowded and unsanitary slums.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#19th_century:

> While the city grew wealthy as Britain's holdings expanded, 19th-century London was also a city of poverty, where millions lived in overcrowded and unsanitary slums.