As a motorcyclist I wish jaywalking was a crime in my country. Here people step out in front of you out of nowhere. A collision with a pedestrian would ruin my year at least if it didn't kill me.
Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
271–280 of 324 posts
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#272Automakers are also directly and/or indirectly responsible for the destruction of American local mass transit and the dysfunctional regression in urban planning* towards inefficient suburbanization. * It wasn't unplanned. It was the purposeful design of city planners who failed to take into account unintended externalities including gridlock, pollution, and cost.
Can you point to a book or other resources that support this claim? Interested in learning more. Always looking for another reason to hate cars as a New Yorker
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#273If 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…
> 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. Not to be nitpicky, but if that were the case, wouldn't she have seen the cop?
No, it was a motorcycle cop, parked besides some trees, standing sideways and not in the direction where she was headed.
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#274If 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...
While I too agree with norms in general, there is such a thing as common sense.
And common sense might tell you that waiting at a lone traffic light in the outskirts of a town in the early morning, sun rising, no car in sight for some hundred meters in each direction, does not add value to society?
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
An estimated $597 per U.S.household per year in general tax revenue dedicated to road construction and repair. That's a $597 donation from every non-driving household to every driving household, annually. https://pirg.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Who-Pays-for-Roa...
Presumably all those people have their food delivered from the farm to their house on foot? If they ever have a heart attack they will call EMTs to run to them with a stretcher and walk them to the hospital? And they built their home and furniture with trees felled on the lot they live on?
The (false) assertion was "Quite literally it is the drivers who pay for the infrastructure used by everyone on the road. They earned it."
The comment you replied to points out that it was false.
You are correct that there are secondary advantages. However, the advantages you listed don't require the extensive and expensive road system the US has. Furthermore, there are secondary disadvantages you must also consider.
> Presumably all those people have their food delivered from the farm to their house on foot?
You are viewing things through a century of laws meant to encourage vehicle transport over other forms of transport.
In places where there are much stronger limits on vehicle transport, you still have truck transport to local grocery stores, but they may be limited to morning delivery hours, or using streets where pedestrians always have the right-of-way over cars.
You're probably wondering how people get to the stores. Historically there were corner stores within walking distance, where you would go for essentials, and larger stores you might visit once a week or less. These were replaced by supermarkets, with a larger selection, on the assumption people could drive there and buy many things at once. This lead to Wal-Mart and other big box stores, on the edge of town where land was cheap, and which could only be reached by cars. Public taxes subsidized the road system to get to these larger stores, and made it harder for local stores to compete, leading to an inter-dependency which is hard to break.
Furthermore, during COVID our local stores started offering home delivery service, and they've continued to do so. Having one vehicle deliver to 50 homes means fewer cars on the streets, and less need for parking, so less need for driving infrastructure.
> If they ever have a heart attack they will call EMTs to run to them with a stretcher and walk them to the hospital?
Even Mackinaw Island, which prohibits most motor vehicles, has a motorized ambulance. https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/01/mackinac-islands-new-cust... .
> And they built their home and furniture with trees felled on the lot they live on?
Even if personal vehicles were banned - which isn't going to happen! - there's still the 50% of the road budget which comes from taxes. That is enough to maintain a road system which can provide delivery, construction transport, emergency services, and more.
In any case, why should the law be that transport and construction vehicles require right-of-way over pedestrians even in the middle of a city block?
As for the secondary effects, why do we have so many paved roads when gravel roads would do? Building and maintaining paved roads is more expensive. But drivers can go faster on paved roads, and traditionally US roads were optimized for drivers.
Why do we have city road lanes which are 12-feet wide when 10-foot or 9-foot is safer and takes up less space from other uses? But drivers can go faster with wide lanes (which makes any collisions or crashes more deadly).
Why do they need to go faster? Partially because of post-war sprawl, enabled by cars and ideas of zoning purity. Cul-de-sac layouts, which are meant as a way to be safe in a car-dominated community, end up re-enforcing that car dependency, as they are hard to live in without a car.
Furthermore, the larger plot size of suburban living means city utilities like power, water, and sewage, are more expensive per capita than more compact pre-war areas.
This system of subsidized suburbia was deliberately encouraged by the federal government, and not an organic process. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/we-have-always-subsi...
See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI&list=PLJp5q-R0lZ... .
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
While I too agree with norms in general, there is such a thing as common sense. And common sense might tell you that waiting at a lone traffic light in the outskirts of a town in the early morning, sun rising, no car in sight for some hundred meters in each direction, does not add value to society?
It adds reliability, unconscious adherence to rules, a reduction of friction. I don't want people to jdrive in pedestrian only zones, just because nobody is up and about. Chaos is a mental taxation, ditracting from endavour.
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As soon as you get over this entitled view, like the road is your own little go-kart track This view was not espoused by the OP. You've made it up for some reason.
They’re complaining about pedestrians not being vigilant. I’m saying drive slower and more carefully, fully expecting that peds will carelessly cross the road, and there will be fewer issues.
We agree that you did make up the "go-kart" nonsense.
On responsibility - each party has one. Don't stumble across streets glued to your phone; don't drive recklessly. There's no point pretending one is the real responsibility. It just adds noise.
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#278Note 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…
As a matter of principle, pedestrians should not have to yield to vehicles at all. Obviously they should, but the law shouldn't tell them to.
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#279Automakers are also directly and/or indirectly responsible for the destruction of American local mass transit and the dysfunctional regression in urban planning* towards inefficient suburbanization. * It wasn't unplanned. It was the purposeful design of city planners who failed to take into account unintended externalities including gridlock, pollution, and cost.
Car-centric urban planning has massing (mostly hidden) negative externalities:
1. Cars are discriminatory: only licensed 18+ (and not too old) can drive. A whole demographics of children+teens+disabled have lost their mobility independence.
2. Cars robbed children of they street. Street should be a social place for humans, not a car storage space and a race track for rat runners.
3. (UK) 50% of car tripes are less than 1 mile. If these motorists had the option of cycling, everyone (pedestrians,cyclist,motorists) would be better off.
4. Much more....
Cities should be for people not machines. Cars should be treated as guests in our social space, not first-class citizens with cyclists and pedestrians having to tiptoe around cars.
Some links:
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNRnKXd9sHE (Sam Balto Bike Bus)
Melissa & Chris Bruntlett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoSdNTwizHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVhYcJH_m5o (Watch as 100s of Kids & Parents Bicycle to one Amsterdam School)
Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then again, the only reason that that's particularly dangerous is because of the car. Such behaviour in front of a bike, for example, would ve annoying but not really dangerous.
It would be more dangerous for the cyclist.
When a pedestrian and a cyclist collide, it would be more dangerous for the cyclist indeed, I think.
But it would be less dangerous for the cyclist, than it would be for a pedestrian to collide with a car.
And of course, in the former case, it's the person who chose the riskier mode of transport who assumes the risk.