If pedestrians don't take what's theirs (in a safe manner), there are just far too many drivers who will ignore them. Fixing that will take decades, best case, but I want to walk around my neighbourhood as a first-class citizen now. So I do.
Disclaimer: I am tall, visible, only do this in good visibility, and live in Canada where driver behaviour is a bit better. If the situation is borderline, I never tempt fate, rather I throw my hands up in the air and make it obvious that yes, I hereby assert that this driver is being an asshole.
We need laws (and enforcement) that make it so that taking risks with pedestrian safety can be ticketed (or other consequences).
I've had experiences recently (in TX) of people forcing my action to avoid being hit. Had someone essentially play "chicken" with me where they were actively accelerating through a crosswalk timing it just so that we do not intersect. (but they were increasing velocity in such a way that if my trajectory were to change, such as tripping, stooping to pick up something I dropped etc, I'd be hit hard).
And many will say "Call the police" but the fact is in a large number of metros (including Austin and others in Texas), the police do not respond to much if anything. A lack of enforcement and consequences (on behalf of the perpetrator) is equivalent to a lack of laws entirely.
Road rage due to damage to their pavement princesses is deadly when your in a cage of steel.
If a driver can be goaded into murder, perhaps they shouldn't have the tools to commit that murder so easily.
As a general rule I go out of my way to not piss off drivers, not because I think they're in the right, but because they can murder me with impunity and they know it.
A rock thrown at a vehicle moving at speed can be (and has been) charged as attempted first degree murder. There are not really any victims in this scenario.
https://jalopnik.com/blood-brothers-kill-woman-after-throwin...
The driver of the vehicle (vehicles cause a dozen 9/11s worth of deaths a year) is armed. Only person that can stop a bad guy with a vehicle is a good guy with a rock.
Your edgy angst is better spent engaging with local levels of government.
Yep definitely a real plan that solves real problems. /s
But I do prefer your scenario instead.
(Bill Burr clip, very adult language)
Sometimes I'll do a big exaggerated step showing drivers that I do not intended to stop, unless they choose to kill me. I won't actually step into a lane when a driver might not have seen me so I feel safe doing it, but it breaks drivers expectations that they own the road.
All this to say: I don’t mind waiting for traffic to pass and I find your aggressive style to be distasteful, dangerous and annoying. That said, I will still stop for you 10 feet away and smile as I think of terrible words in my head.
Giving up Right of Way creates more confusion (think about the “go” / “no you go” game of a car not moving when it’s their turn at a 4-way stop).
no confusion there.
If you don’t want cars to stop for you the solution is easy, stay far enough back from the intersection so it’s clear you’re not trying to cross. Otherwise I will stop for you — it’s the law.
I find it to be boorish.
Boston, on the other hand - those motherfuckers speed up when they see you crossing.
> Assume they don't see you.
So what about kids? They're usually not the best at that game. Are they not allowed to become autonomous beings because there are killer tanks on the move?
It's disturbing.
Major dense metros with viable transit are more immune to this, middle schoolers aren't unheard of but ridesharing probably has raised the threat level.
"If you can't see my eyes, i can't see you".
These kinds of handy one-liners and behaviour patterns are a big part of the problem. I shouldn't have to make eye contact with you, relying on you being semi-awake and not having illegal levels of windshield tint. Screw that, pay attention.
Even if you're in a car and have right of way, if another driver doesn't see you and collides into your car, it's going to ruin your day. The consequences aren't as bleak as if a vehicle collides into your body, but it's still pretty negative, and it's in your best interest to avoid a collision regardless of who would be determined to be at fault.
What it actually was was a game of leap frog.
At 5pm thousands of middle aged men in button ups driving GMC Suburbans, Tahoes and F250s would be released into up/downtown with the sole goal of getting onto the highway as fast as possible so they could get to their suburb 30 minutes away.
Pedestrians were just interruptions. Right on red? GUN IT! Red light? HA! Scooter crossing the road? Run it over!
I wound up almost never walking to work those few years because of how ridiculously mad max walking through Uptown at 5pm was. I saw probably 10+ people on scooters get hit by cars.
Cede Magni Ponderis
In the second case the driver stopped after, and told me she’d slowed because she was blinded by glare and then decided to just keep driving.
I don’t even know how you teach that one to a kid — never cross the street?
People are very good at this, possibly too good, which I assume is why there are laws against doing this to drivers.
We should design pedestrian infrastructure with pedestrian safety in mind.
My neighbor was recently hit while walking her 4 year old and pushing her 1 year old in a stroller. In this case, the driver was making a left turn and as he completed the turn he did not see her in the crosswalk. On that road, it's not easy to make the left, so my assumption is they were solely focused on finding a gap to make the left. I can think of lots of improvements they can make: a crossing guard since there's a preschool there, some crossing flags, a turning lane, etc. But all solutions still seem to rely on driver's not making mistakes.
One other option there is to add raised crosswalks or a raised intersection, depending on the situation. That physically slows down cars as they enter the space where pedestrians may be.
here in the bay area, pedestrians treat cross walks like magic force fields. Drivers have to stay alert. I try to teach my kids: the rest of the world is different. They will run you over and keep driving.
Honestly I wish pedestrians would just cool it a bit here. It’s almost a power game for some. I find myself hanging back from the corner until traffic has passed so I can cross without holding everybody up.
(I seem to have attracted the ire of car haters with this one. Heh.)
I found this post[1] to be a really informative read about why we don't see things near pillars.
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At a traffic junction all but the worst of drivers will look in both directions to check for oncoming traffic. However, it is entirely possible for our eyes to “jump over” an oncoming bicycle or motorbike.
The smaller the vehicle, the greater the chance it will fall within a saccade.
This isn’t really a case of a careless driver, it’s more of a human incapacity to see anything during a saccade. Hence the reason for so many “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you” excuses.
The faster you move your head, the larger the jumps and the shorter the pauses. Therefore, you’ve got more of a chance of missing a vehicle.
We are effectively seeing through solid objects, with our brain filling in the image.
Additionally, we tend to avoid the edges of the windscreen. The door pillars on a car therefore create an even wider blindspot. This is called windscreen zoning.
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