How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking” • Hacker News Board

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#81

Post by Symbiote » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

725686 wrote: post #12

gambiting wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already true in many places, in a lot of European cities you see a sign like this when entering: https://lsmlomza.pl/pliki/2014/03/lsm-znak1.jpg And it basically means that pedestrians have an absolute priority before cars, they can walk on the street as much as they like and you as a driver have to exhibit some extreme attention because if anything happens, it's 99% certain you will be found at fault.

Is that sign real? It is awful design. The meaning is complete obscure to me.

It is blue and rectangular, which means it shows positive information ("this may be done").

The picture is an adult and child playing on the street. This street is for adults and children to play in.

In practise, in countries where it's less common it will have a text description, and you'd then recognize it abroad even when you don't understand the text: http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/uploads/3/2/9/2/3292309/publi...

Circular blue must be done. Pedestrians must use this path: https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/footway-sign-picture-id...

Red-bordered circles forbid something: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/no-pedestrians-road-sign-253...

And red-bordered triangels warn of something: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Singapor...

You should now understand all the road signs used outside the USA and Australia :-)

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#82

Post by kozak » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #71

kozak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People tend to get less motion sickness when they are in control of the motion (i.e. drivers are not as susceptible to motion sickness as their passengers). So in this future world you might still be allowed to hold the steering wheel (if you paid for the option of having one in the car at all), but the car will take control from you immediately as soon as it decides that someone might be in danger (just like some pr…

People take busses and trams and trains with no issues. There aren't any steering wheels for all passengers to hold.

OK, let's rephrase: some percentage of people will still be ready to pay extra to be able to control the car to some extent.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#83

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

jdhopeunique wrote: post #46

mlinksva wrote: post #27

Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.

If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…

[deleted]

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#84

Post by andys627 » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #24

This is silly. >"Ultimately, both the word jaywalking and the concept that pedestrians shouldn't walk freely on streets became so deeply entrenched that few people know this history" The article makes it seem like the only reason the rules exist as they do now is because some industry players forced us into this situation. No. The rules exist now because the majority of people agreed that cars should be given the roa…

Definitely not. Car dominance is heavily subsidized at all levels of government.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#85

Post by dahart » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

meri_dian wrote: post #59

dahart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Streets are for cars and sidewalks are for people! That didn't used to be true. I'm fascinated by ideas that become so canonized, so ingrained that you can't even imagine the alternatives. > This article tries to make this seem like a pedestrian dystopia compared to the good ole days when kids could frolic in the streets. Well said, we do live in a pedestrian dystopia now. I love that many urban areas in the US and…

There are no better alternatives. That's the point. The article makes it seem like the only reason the rules exist as they do now is because some industry players forced us into this situation. No. The rules exist now because the majority of people agreed that cars should be given the road and people should be given the sidewalks, and that people darting to and fro on the street would be very bad for everyone involve…

> There are no better alternatives.

Sure there are, cities in the US are starting to build better alternatives already.

> The article makes it seem like the only reason the rules exist as they do now is because some industry players forced us into this situation.

True, the article does make it seem like that. Because that's what happened, it's a fact that US auto industry propaganda led to the establishment of jaywalking laws.

> Sure the car industry backed these ideas, but people accepted them because they made sense.

You seem to be wanting to litigate the safety of mixing cars and pedestrians. Nobody here is arguing that walking in the street is safe. The article is the story of what happened, which isn't up for debate. We can argue about whether crossing the street should be legal, if you want, but there are many countries in the world where it's not illegal to cross the street. There are many people in the US who think it shouldn't be illegal, and also think crossing a busy street is a bad idea.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#86

Post by closeparen » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

Joe-Z wrote: post #14

raverbashing wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At current city density scales? It wouldn't work New technologies require new ways of organizing things, in the same way nothing is expected to take precedence from a train in a shared crossing. It is technologically infeasible Did the automakers invent 'crossing a red light' as well? Did they invent the parking meter?

>New technologies require new ways of organizing things... I think it's pretty clear by now that organizing whole cities around the automobile was a huge step in the wrong direction and the sooner we begin to correct it the better. Just look at Copenhagen as a shining example of a city that began re-focusing its traffic on actual people (and not f *ing metal boxes taking up way too much space) decades ago.

Copenhagen isn’t McMansions on quarter acre lots, while most Americans panic at the suggestion of any density level higher than that. Permission to play in the street won’t fix low suburban density or the low effective density of high rise neighborhoods that are mostly vacant investment properties.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#87

Post by Symbiote » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #16

725686 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that sign real? It is awful design. The meaning is complete obscure to me.

At first glance, I read it as "caution, children at play". But I assume that if this is a standard sign, it would be covered on the drivers license test in that country.

Caution signs are red-bordered triangles.

Warning of children in/near the road: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Ma...

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#88

Post by konschubert » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #72

makmanalp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we could be living in a situation where pedestrians take precedence and have right of way over cars in city streets, and the opposite in highways, which I think would be much more desirable, especially in crowded cities. Perhaps even ban cars except for abutters, commercial vehicles and emergency vehicles from the densest city center areas. God that would be a relief. edit: OK, yes, obviously you can and should…

If someone wants to play soccer in front of the bus or tram, what do you do? Just shut down the public transit system that day? Tell all the commuters to turn around and go home? The city is cancelled today because streets aren’t for transportation?

You're attacking a strawman.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#89

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

mlinksva wrote: post #27

Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.

I think the answer to pedestrians versus cars is the same as for cars versus trains: grade separation.

Turn the sidewalks into elevated walkways. Or use pedestrian tunnels underneath the road surface. Pedestrian crosswalks are a money-saving measure, ignoring one of the many externalities involved in automobile manufacture. Cars simply should not be driving on pedestrian walkways, and pedestrians should not be walking anywhere that does not have a significant physical barrier between them and the massive objects moving at high speed.

Re: How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

#90

Post by nxsynonym » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

spaced-out wrote: post #52

nxsynonym wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that one is biologically unavoidable and the other is stubbornness in the name of saving production costs.

If someone ate an orange or banana and left the peel on a park bench, I'd still consider that littering.

and? obviously I don't want heaps of chamber pot contents on the sidewalk either. The point I was making is that, yes all littering is bad, but why does the consumer shoulder the burden when a huge majority of packaging can be avoided?