this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Fuck Cars

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

"The driver inches into the crosswalk, watching the oncoming traffic to his left and waiting for a gap to appear. He finally spots one and accelerates into the turn"

Um, what? There are cars zooming across the crosswalk, which definitely wouldn't have a crossing signal. In this imaginary scenario, a pedestrian is trying to sprint across an intersection against a crossing signal.

There are enough horrific traffic situations created by cars and urban congestion, do we really need to make up a stupid and unlikely one where the pedestrian is the idiot? If anything, this article should be against right on green. Good luck with that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think the article means that a pedestrian is trying to cross in front of the turning car where the pedestrian does have right of way, so perpendicular to the turning car and parallel with the traffic which has the green light and walk signal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)
======    ====
           P
         C

P is pedestrian, C is car. Equal signs are cars going right.

Pedestrian is crossing the road going left. Pedestrian has a green light/cross walk. The car C isn't looking at P; the car C is looking at the gap in the equal signs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

So a pedestrian walks in front of a car that has pulled into a crosswalk while the driver is looking the other way? And then after all of these specific conditions are met, a pedestrian is hit by a car that is starting from a dead stop and, given the width of a crosswalk (which it's already pulled into), travels three feet before impact?

My point is given how many actually dangerous traffic conditions that exist that inhibit walkability, this statistically unlikely (see the report to congress on "RoR" accident frequency below) and extremely specific scenario seems like a stupid one to focus on.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm surprised you're surprised that people are talking about it. I have personally experienced this multiple times as a kid, and judging from the downvote ratios going on, it seems like other people have had similar experiences.

Tl;dr it's a very common occurrence

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

My point, which I will repeat one more time, is that there are significantly more dangerous and more commonly occurring issues created by the interface between pedestrian and car infrastructure in urban environments.

Our current conversation is about a relatively rare and less pressing concern, and our attention would be better spent addressing more dangerous scenarios, of which there are many, and about which there will be less resistance.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Dude. It fucking happens. People die. It's not hard to find out. Don't rely on your own thought experiments when there is actual fucking data at your fingertips.