71–80 of 370 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if no one uses them, they weren’t well designed to start with.
I guess the jaywalking law is partly to avoid disrupting traffic, but the most efficient cross is the one when no traffic is present, and that's more likely in the middle of the road than at an intersection.
This makes sense for freeways but in cities this should be flipped.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I was saying that 30 miles would have to be the limit on every street though, in cities you would probably have to do 10 if everyone could step onto the street at every moment.
We don't need to guess at probabilities. We can look at the data. Aactual cities where jaywalking isn't a crime; they do not set the speed limit at 10, and it all seems to work fine.
reedf1 wrote:
> You could easily imagine a world where pedestrians have the right of way on the streets, and cars "request access to the road" in a similar way that pedestrians do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asking pedestrians to cross streets where cars are stopped and they are mostly protected? How is that broken?
Making the pedestrians go the long way prioritises driving, which leads to more people driving, which leads to more traffic, fumes, etc. But most broken seems like a stretch!
So if you are waiting at an intersection pedestrian crossings and getting impatient you can just move over a bit and cross anyway?
Basically it means that pedestrians are allowed to cross the road anywhere, anytime, but they still have to yield to car traffic except at pedestrian crossings without a semaphore or at the Walk signal. It's a very common-sense law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making the pedestrians go the long way prioritises driving, which leads to more people driving, which leads to more traffic, fumes, etc. But most broken seems like a stretch!
The average person probably violates jaywalking laws multiple times a day. What other law do most people break constantly as just part of day to day life?
Trevor Noah titled a book Born a Crime in reference to his birth in South Africa, similar laws remained in force in many US states until 1967 which means a number of people walking about the US today have an existence that was a crime.
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Granted you've misinterpreted the posters point - but I will respond to your perception of his point (which I agree with). You could easily imagine a world where pedestrians have the right of way on the streets, and cars "request access to the road" in a similar way that pedestrians do. Actually, if this is not easy for you to imagine - it suggests enormous internal bias.
That's literally how it works in the UK
Population density of Manhattan: 78,000 per square mile
(according to wikipedia on both)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's literally how it works in the UK
Population density of London: 15,000 per square mile Population density of Manhattan: 78,000 per square mile (according to wikipedia on both)
Not growing up in america I never understood what jaywalking was - I legit assumed it was a pedestrian crossing a freeway because nothing else made sense. Growing up I was taught explicitly to do what in the US was a crime: crossing between intersections because it is vastly safer than crossing at intersections. Obviously, there's a more complex issue with jaywalking where it is a crime that is trivially easy to enfo…
Jaywalking is any crossing in a wrong / illegal way, not about intersections specifically. Mostly it's about not using crosswalks, so I don't see how it collides with what Europe does. In Europe you also have differences with some countries where crosswalk lights are as a mandate from God and nobody will cross even at 2am deserted road. And then you have countries where the crosswalk lights are mere decorations.
There is a massive difference between "country culturally tends towards using designated crossing points" and "it's a criminal offense to not use them". I'm curious about which countries outside of the US, especially in Europe, that criminalize jaywalking.
Not growing up in america I never understood what jaywalking was - I legit assumed it was a pedestrian crossing a freeway because nothing else made sense. Growing up I was taught explicitly to do what in the US was a crime: crossing between intersections because it is vastly safer than crossing at intersections. Obviously, there's a more complex issue with jaywalking where it is a crime that is trivially easy to enfo…
Do you not have pedestrian crossings/stoplights for pedestrians in your country?
Which means the only legal place to cross a road is an intersection, which is significantly less safe for pedestrians.
Next time you're going for a walk, try to estimate what % of intersections or crossing points are protected (stop signs for all roads, traffic lights, or barriers). Similarly, when you're out driving try and see how much you slow down for each intersection (ie non-jaywalking crossing points) - this is not a judgement on driving style this is just about working out relative safety. Any unprotected intersection you go through without significantly slowing down (think dropping to parking lot speed) for is a location where crossing away from the intersection is safer.
Safety for pedestrians crossing a road is primarily from collision avoidance - as I said in another comment the amount of damage from a pedestrian vs vehicle collision high at even "low" car speeds.
Not growing up in america I never understood what jaywalking was - I legit assumed it was a pedestrian crossing a freeway because nothing else made sense. Growing up I was taught explicitly to do what in the US was a crime: crossing between intersections because it is vastly safer than crossing at intersections. Obviously, there's a more complex issue with jaywalking where it is a crime that is trivially easy to enfo…
> crossing between intersections because it is vastly safer than crossing at intersections It's true in most city streets because even if cars drive faster outside of intersections, if we walk fast and have good visibility then it's not an issue. There are very busy roundabouts with crosswalks right next to them. As a driver having to stop means being scared for your car's behind.
The safest way for a pedestrian to cross a road is a location where there is the greatest opportunity to avoid a collision at any speed. That means minimizing number of directions you need to watch for traffic, and maximizing the likelihood of being in the line of sight of drivers. That means you want to cross away from intersections.
Crossing between intersections means that as a pedestrian you only have to be concerned about traffic from two (or even just one) directions, and for oncoming traffic you will definitionally be in the direction the drivers are facing.
Crossing at intersections means as a pedestrian you are having to watch for traffic from more directions, including directly behind you, and traffic approaching the intersection has drivers who are necessarily going to be having to look at places other than directly in front of them in the case of traffic coming towards you on the street you are crossing, and traffic coming from the other streets may not by physically able to see you on the intersecting cross street (from their PoV) prior to actually reaching the intersection.
Hence crossing between intersections is safer because it reduces the likelihood of any collision, as it's easier for everyone involved to be aware of everyone else.
Speed of a pedestrian vs vehicle collision is much less of a safety factor than just not having the collision at all, because the difference in speed between "walk away" and "going to hospital" is very small - well within normal intersection speeds. At higher speeds of course the likelihood of going to the morgue skyrockets, but when considering the safety of "low speed" collisions it's important to consider a "low speed" collision that is minor for an adult is still easily able to kill a child, and the speed _required_ to kill is not that high as demonstrated by multiple pedestrian vs cyclist collisions that have killed people (I think generally older people or just really bad luck but its just important to recognize that the "serious damage to soft and squishy people" is way lower than people think).