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Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

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Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#291

Post by thfuran »

lelandbatey wrote: post #188
Affric wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car-brain be strong. You gotta give it to the auto-makers. Probably the greatest propagandists of the modern world. The fact is that cars make places suck. They are dangerous to other road users, the roads built for them create dangerous microclimates, monopolise what was once shared infrastructure, and they enable evils such as the supermarket. Cars are like guns in the states but worse.

I think you may have misinterpreted what the person above you said. I think the person above you is actually not as car brained as you think. I read their suggestion not as "everyone should use a car to get everywhere" but instead as: > Cars can't safely be on streets with pedestrians, so we probably shouldn't allow cars onto roads where pedestrians could walk. Instead the only place where cars should be allowed are…

They were referring to the GP and generally agreeing with the person they replied to.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#292

Post by Retric »

giantg2 wrote: post #287
afuchs wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither. Both cost significantly more to build and maintain than at-grade intersections. That's part of the reason more and more grade separated highways are being demolished and replaced with surface roads.

Yes they cost more than at-grade. At-grade is the most common. I'm talking about high volume areas for both traffic and pedestrians, usually involving 6+ lanes of traffic (even if the roads are at-grade) or a need for foot traffic to cross an interstate where no road intersections exist. These are scenarios where at-grade crossings would be extremely inefficient and probably cost more in wasted time, fuel, etc than t…

At high volumes of foot traffic the high cost of sending pedestrians up over a footbridge is greater over the lifetime of a bridge than doing the same to cars.

Consider the physical risks pedestrians takes vs cars over a bridge, the lost time on each journey for cars vs people going over a bridge, fuel costs from additional car trips vs additional fuel cars expend going over a single bridge etc.

Even relatively modest levels of foot traffic pay for a cheap bridge that’s going to last ~50 years.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#293

Post by tetris11 »

plants wrote: post #247
oldbbsnickname wrote: post #210

Automakers 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

AskHistorians Jake Berman covered this in his podcast "Public Transport in North America"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D6HDTu5LYmk

Apparently it's not as black and white as many in this thread would suggest.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#294

Post by _aavaa_ »

wredue wrote: post #39
_aavaa_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they did not make the cars inherently safer. A red light does not stop a driver from driving through a pedestrian crossing when people are there. Speeding laws do little for the bikers in unsegregated bike lanes, mere inches away from an inattentive driver.

Maybe I’m just thinking outside of the box here, but how exactly do 3,000 lbs pieces of metal and glass become safer for people crossing the street in an addressable way by auto makers, when it’s the buyers demanding larger and larger vehicles? On segregated bike lanes, I’m afraid to tell you, cyclists don’t use them anyway, so why on earth should anyone focus on putting them in?

Cyclists very much use segregated bike lanes. The problem with most cities, mine included, is that the “segregated” bikes lines are segregated by a strip of paint on the ground. And have cars darting in and out all the time. Or people park in them, or put out their trash, or have major potholes.

Or, if they are actually separated, they don’t go everywhere people would need to go.

The safest 3000lb piece of metal and glass is the one that doesn’t exist. Car companies need to stop advertising fairy tales to buyers to get them to buy bigger and bigger cars, and need to start advertising (lobby) to cities to have them start banning cars out of. Ore and more of the city.

As long as our cities stay designed with the primacy of cars in mind, we’ll at best be duct tapping solutions for everyone else.

And finally, “in an addressable way by auto makers, when it’s the buyers demanding larger and larger vehicles”.

A) this is not inevitable, it is North America that’s dominated by a want of giant cars. And why? Because the roads and culture are designed specifically to accommodate them.

B) the car manufacturers are still responsible for making them, and it’s not like they’re sitting around saying “darn, well it looks like people want big cars, guess we will have to make some bigger cars”. No, they are actively pushing and advertising bigger cars.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#295

Post by julian_t »

dm319 wrote: post #166
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…

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.

I'm regularly finding that people don't seem to understand the "already crossing the road" part. On several occasions I've had people start to cross a few feet in front of me when I'm indicating and have already started turning, causing me to stand on the brakes and risk a shunt from the car behind.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#296

Post by savingsPossible »

nerdjon wrote: post #12

I am all for a pedestrian focused city, BUT cars will likely never fully disappear for emergencies, shipments, and people with disabilities. In this particular situation I feel like while the Automakers had ulterior motives it was ultimately a net good. Pretty sure we know who will win in in a car vs a human body. Also as much as I do believe in pedestrian focused cities, that isn't the norm in the US and likely will…

The idea that the risk is the pedestrians not the drivers is the problem

Imagine if whenever a car hit a person, it was the car's fault. I bet we'd get less accidents then the current regime.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#298

Post by geysersam »

3seashells wrote: post #276
jcynix wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say waiting for the traffic light to turn green when there is no traffic nearby adds friction rather than reduces it.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#299

Post by peoplefromibiza »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #141
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bike brakes are usually pretty terrible though

Maybe yours but not most people I know who use their bike frequently. Maintaining a bike is cheaper and easier than maintaining a car.

> Maintaining a bike is cheaper and easier than maintaining a car

also debatable

I changed the brake pads of my car two years ago, for 50 euros.

They are still perfectly functional (according to my mechanic opinion).

Admittedly I drive ~200kms a month, but nonetheless maintenance, at least for me, is really cheap.

Re: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

#300

Post by savingsPossible »

userbinator wrote: post #238
tialaramex wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ob…

It's absolutely insane to see the extremist anti-car faction here essentially trying to argue against the laws of physics. Humans can change velocity and look in all directions much easier than cars.

We are not arguing against the laws of physics

We are arguing about the burden. Right now, the burden of preventing accidents is placed on pedestrians and kids. Everyone on foot needs to look carefully, and only step on the road when it is safe

We could revert this burden. The cars need to drive in a way that, if a kid appears at a distance of X meters, they can fully stop without touching the kid. This would mean slower speeds and perhaps better breaks.

Instead of parents afraid for their kids, we could get drivers afraid of jail, losing cars, heavy fines.

There is no question that, when a car is allowed at absurd speeds (like 20 miles per hour -- see the graph in https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds) then the motorist has no time to react and incurs a risk of killing people. If we manage to restrict the speed to 20 mph everywhere a pedestrian might be reasonably expected, then the driver can (physically) react.

What you are saying is basically: I want to drive in a monstrous speed so that it is impossible for me to prevent accidents, so you should prevent accidents. The problem is not the fact that the speed precludes your ability not to murder children (we agree it does!) but that you insist to be allowed to drive at those speeds anyway.

Also, note that this speed we are asking for is typical for many people in rush hour (see: https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/los-angeles-traffic/)

20 mins for 10 km means 30 km/h, or around 18 miles/hour.

So people drive most of the time at safe speeds (to commute) but still don't want to drive at safe speeds to avoid murdering children

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