It seems pretty obvious to me that being a mindful pedestrian is simply a matter of self preservation
Difficulty of looking both ways and pausing for a second before you cross the street: 1 unit. Difficulty of getting getting every single driver in any area where pedestrians have the right of way to drive slow enough that they can make a safe stop assuming any pedestrian can legally dart into the street without warning: 1,000,000,000 units.
And yet I've seen plenty of people turn 90 degrees across a street at their usual walking pace with no pause and with their eyes on their phone and headphones in their ears.
If you want to spin that particular chamber of probability because legally you're technically protected, honestly I feel worse for the driver who has to live with that memory now and wonder what they possibly could have done to prevent it short of just never driving a car at all.
“Not trying to blame the victim... but this is a teachable moment not only for drivers, but for cyclists...”
... it would be a true statement, which is why I didn’t say the GP was making a false one, but a normal native speaker would at least recognize it as a strange thing to say.
Cyclists should wear helmets, and the cyclist certainly is partly to blame. But no one was suggesting that the cyclist is guilt-free, so the actual effect of the statement is to try and draw a false equivalence.
It’s like saying “sure, global warming is real, but let’s not forget the effects of gradual and natural cyclical climate change.” No educated person in the discussion “forgot” the second, but by phrasing it this way you’re implying we should be paying equal attention to a large effect and a much smaller one.
You are definitely correct about even then you should check. And once you check and see it is clear...keep checking as you cross.
An acquaintance of mine from college was killed crossing Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, California late on a Friday afternoon, in a crosswalk at a fully controlled intersection, with the cross traffic having a red light.
Colorado Blvd is a major street, and late on a Friday afternoon would have a fairly high density of cars.
The car that hit him was going something like 80 mph. At the time he started crossing, that car would have been 3 blocks away. Even if it had been the only car on the road, at that distance there would be no way to judge the speed, and any car that far away traveling anywhere near legal speeds would be far enough away to not be a danger to any normal pedestrian crossing.
With the other cars that were on the road on a late Friday, it probably would not even be possible to see the car that hit him when he entered the crosswalk. There would have been several cars stopped at the intersection obstructing his view, plus cars at the intersections further up the road, or in transit between the intersections.
His only chance would have been to keep checking oncoming cars as he crossed, even after all the cars actually at or near his intersection at stopped.
Almost no one does that. Mostly once we see everyone nearby stop we just concentrate on cars that are turning and so might enter the crosswalk even though the light is red (assuming we are in a right turn on red jurisdiction).
Lesson #1: Treat each step as you cross the street as if it is your first step into the street. Do your full "is it safe to cross" scan constantly.
Lesson #2: Cars very far away at the time you start to cross can make it to you before you finish, even if traffic seems heavy enough that there is no way they could go fast enough to reach you. Your scan needs to look out farther than you think it needs to.
The girl who ran a red light three feet in front of me while looking at her phone would agree with you -- that is, if she even realized she had done it. (I was in the crosswalk and I stopped when it became apparent that she wouldn't)
There was a car coming. She shouldn't have been in the road, period.
You have a self-responsibility, which most people act on (self-preservation). But as a driver you have a responsibility to pedestrians who can be killed by the machine that you are driving. That is the greater responsibility and why active care for pedestrians should be one of the highest regards of a driver (or autonomous driving system).
No kidding. This might be a somewhat controversial opinion, but I think the elephant in the room here is this general "pedestrian has right of way" notion. It's much easier for pedestrians to watch out for and evade cars than the other way around, and yet we seem to insist the opposite? That seems rather backwards and contrary to the laws of physics.