Cars are such an integral part of American life that I don’t see people willing to change to reduce that 30,000 deaths a year.
On the other hand, 3000 deaths from terrorism (one month’s worth of car deaths) was enough for a majority of Americans to be willing to give up a lot of their freedoms.
Obviously this is advance artillery from the Google Self Driving Car lobby.
And that’s one reason ‘jaywalking’ is a useless insult, and anti-‘jaywalking’ laws simply add police harassment to the infrastructure problem.
“30,000 deaths”…I love to drive, both in a comunity-minded way (lots of signaling, moving with the flow, not blocking lanes) to fast and reckless (wh3333333!!!) but this is how I see driving when wearing the eyes of an alien: the craft weigh between 10 and 20 times of the pilot. It is built of various metals and plastic, and is driven in a linear fashion with the pilot changing velocity and direction at will, no computer guidance. Paths are created for these craft to follow (for the most part) and by the nature of how much work goes into creating these paths, they are, by and large bidirectional, with one craft moving in one direction and on the other side of the path, similar craft moving in the opposite direction. But here’s the kicker: the two paths are separated by 6 inches of yellow markings. That’s it. All it takes is a split second of inattention, and two craft will smash into each other with a total force equal their combined force. Pilots, and other associated passengers and bystanders, are often maimed, if not killed outright."
NOPE
Unsafe at Any Speed became a national best seller in 1965. Fifty years on, the auto industry is still with us.
Covering auto wrecks used to be standard fare for local newspapers back in the 50s, the bloodier the better. " I don’t recall any great revulsion to Autos in that decade, either.
Americans love the perceived freedom and mobility of the car. The daily experience of most Americans is defined by their automobile. Those 30,000 deaths happen to other people.
I’ve known two people killed by automobiles in two different accidents, dated someone who’d been permanently maimed in another wreck, just recently had a dump truck land on my car’s hood. But worse than the human cost when things go wrong, is what happens to the landscape when things go ‘right’. We’ve built a profoundly ugly landscape for the sake of the car…but hardly anyone notices because the only way anyone sees this landscape is through the windshield. I enjoy driving, but I hate what cars have done to my world.
30,000? that’s it?
I know I can’t expect the overblown comments to expect a number that even remotely comes close to the deaths caused by Smoking or Diabetes, but come on, you’re beaten out by the flu.
He’s being ironic- it’s in fashion these days.
Some cyclists use the fact “some motorists disobey traffic laws” to void any discussion of cyclists doing the same. These are the same people who think that placing themselves in the path of a 3000-pound vehicle traveling 35 mph is “being assertive”.
Do each their own. I find highways beautiful and am still looking forward to the highways I was promised by Disney
And some motoristsuse the line “cyclists run red lights, wear spandex, ride on sidewalks, blow stop signs etc” to void any discussion of motorists murdering the occasional cyclist.
I was trying to envision the hot and humid mosquito ridden swamps of Louisiana without the cars and several of the world’s longest bridges. Cars with air conditioning are a godsend there. Certainly the appeal may look very different in giant West coast cities where most every day is a beautiful day to be outside. Before moving to Seattle, the thought my wife and I might only need one car was a rather iffy topic. Being here for several months, it’s questionable if we really even need one car. While the author seems to have a bit of a visceral bias towards regiment and punishment, I really do love large areas designated entirely for foot traffic. Malls, festivals, street parades, Universities, farmer’s markets, and the like all really brighten my day. I think it’s kind of a sad thing that we have designed our cities with so many roads with so little parking.
it’ll never happen. less drivers, stricter licensing requirements, and stricter enforcement are political suicide for anyone who proposes them. there is absolutely no incentive for any sane change in our automobile policy or cultural norms.
Why Cars Don’t Kill 90,000 or more Americans This Year
Seatbelts. Dr. John Paul Stapp, famous as being his own test dummy for those rocket sled high speed stop tests, helped push for car safety. So although US driver numbers have soared, total vehicle deaths have declined to about a third of what they were in the late 1930s.
Second tidbit–there are cool designs for fuzzy intersections that increase safety by making it unclear where pedestrian/car boundaries lie. Drivers slow down out of uncertainty.
Third item, cars are about to become our main personal robots–autonomous, they will really own the roads. We just prepared the world for them to take over.
Governance is a two-way street. (Pun entirely intended.) If you find your local roadways to be inadequate and unsafe for drivers or pedestrians, tell your local legislators, loudly and persistantly if you have to. If they won’t take action, run for office yourself. Enact meaningful change.
But don’t just write off jaywalking as a made up nonsense offence when it is, in fact, a legitimate safety concern. It is not an “insult” as you so claim, it is a legal offense that exists for the sake of preserving life and order.
Your “right” to cross a road comes with reasonable limitations, and it extends only until the point where it infringes on the rights and safety of others. Motorists have just as much “right” to a clear motorway as you do to a clear walkway. However, if a certain stretch of road has substantially more motor traffic than it does foot traffic, it becomes necessary that the pedestrian traffic take second priority, and pedestrians must yield the right of way to motorists, as the two parties cannot both use the path at the same time.
Beyond sheer physical and spatial concerns, there’s also the matter of safety. Motorists are already concerned with navigation and managing traffic at speed - adding a small, hard to see pedestrian unexpectedly to the mix is a recipe for a collision. Even if a motorist sees a pedestrian in time to avoid them, swerving to do so may cause a secondary collision with other vehicles. Even if a motorist has time to break without having to resort to evasive maneuvers, there is still a negative effect on traffic flow, which can have far reaching consequences elsewhere in the transit system.
No, of course you don’t.
If you come to a river that you wish to cross, but it is in flood and dangerous to cross, you find another option - either you seek out a bridge or ford elsewhere, or you wait for the flooding to abate, or you find a ferry or other capable watercraft to bring you to the other side, or you change your plans altogether.
Or, heck, if you’re stubborn, maybe you choose to risk your own life in the crossing. That’s your call, and you have a right to attempt the crossing. But you do not intrinsically have any right to a “safe” crossing, if one does not exist. You have a right to go about seeing that one gets created, but until such time you have to accept the reality of the situation.
However, there’s a problem with this analogy - crossing a highway at night doesn’t merely risk your own life, it also risks the lives of unsuspecting motorists. Any “right” you have to cross the highway is negated when doing so would endanger the lives of others.
This is like saying “theft” is a useless insult, and anti-theft laws simply add police harassment to economic problems. If people were happy and wealthy they wouldn’t steal, right?
In a perfect world, you’re right, we wouldn’t need to criminalize jaywalking, because it wouldn’t happen. People wouldn’t cross into the paths of giant steel boxes on wheels weighing several tons hurtling along at speeds evolution could never have hoped to prepare any of us silly animals for.
Unfortunately, the world is pretty imperfect. Jaywalking is illegal because in most cases, it puts lives at risk. Little to nothing can justify that.
And when you’re walking home, the buses aren’t running, it’s gone dark, and as you walk along the side of the highway…
“Sidewalk closed, please use other side” with two tons of construction equipment, a sheer wall on one side, and the traffic on the other…
As long as you defend the idea that we don’t have the right to cross the street, you enable these policies and infrastructure decisions and their human costs.
“Your “right” to cross a road comes with reasonable limitations, and it extends only until the point where it infringes on the rights and safety of others.”
Whereas yours does not?
You are arguing that the sacred right to drive lethal devices overrules the mere quote “right” unquote to cross the street in one piece; given the current infrastructure driving lethal devices, sure as the sun rises, infringes on the rights sorry “rights” and safety of others, to the point of tens of thousands of deaths.
Actually I’m arguing nothing of the sort, and I’m confused as to how you came to that conclusion.
Nevertheless, allow me to expand upon an earlier statement.
In your hypothetical situation of having a sidewalk closed due to construction at an inconvenient hour, it might very well be the sort of circumstance that I propose having allowances for. If there’s no real traffic to speak of, if the street is practically deserted, if there’s good visibility and the circumstance is more than reasonably “safe” for someone to cross the road? Yes, that should be allowed.
However, this needs to be on a case by case basis. Any number of factors could make the difference between a safe crossing and an unsafe one.
You might suppose it would be safer to cross in the daytime, but without active headlights you might not notice an oncoming car, especially if the construction site you suggested is also inconveniently noisy due to jackhammering or whatever else. Or perhaps the place you wish to cross is at the end of a tight curve, or just under the top of a hill, or somehow else has bad visibility.
My point is that there is no one workable answer - no blanket solution to apply to every situation. Clearly some cases of jaywalking are not at all dangerous, but others are very much so. This is in fact the exact opposite of what you claim I am arguing.
Human judgement is far from infallible, but you seem to be suggesting that we should trust it in spite of readily apparant dangers. You seem outraged at the thought of a pedestrian having to walk to an intersection - an area where traffic naturally slows and comes to a stop and where motorists are most observant and on watch - before crossing the road. You seem indignant at the thought that where a safe crossing is not possible, a pedestrian might be so horrifically inconvenienced as to have to alter the route they take to reach their destination.
You do not have a right to endanger others. If you want to cross a roadway, but that roadway currently has significant motor traffic, you have no right to cross unsafely. If your route is blocked by motorists, you should seek another route.
The same is equally true when the situation is reversed, by the way. If you are driving along and come across a parade, or a protest, or a gaggle of school children crossing the roadway, you quite obviously do not have the right of way. You must either wait for the pedestrians to leave the roadway, or you must find another route.
For as much as you keep accusing me of arguing for… [quote=“MarjaE, post:36, topic:25278”]
the sacred right to drive lethal devices
[/quote]
… it seems far more as if you are arguing for the sacred right to cross any roadway at any time in any conditions for any reason.
I get that you’re dissatisfied with how many areas have failed to accomodate pedestrians with adequate infrastructure, and I wholeheartedly agree that pedestrians ought to have adequate infrastructure, but in my opinion you are letting your frustrations get the better of you.
You’re framing the discussion as an all-or-nothing, black-or-white affair. You’re insisting on a false dichotomy of two camps of thought, each arguing for complete and utter superiority of either motorists or pedestrians.
The reality is not so simple, and far more nuanced. Motorists do tend to dominate roadways, but this is a natural outcome of the way we design our infrastructure, as well as the needs and sheer numbers of automobiles compared to pedestrians. Motorists should not have - and indeed do NOT have - complete dominance of the roadway. Likewise, neither should pedestrians.
There are reasonable solutions possible. Pedestrians and motorists can both have their needs accomodated - perhaps not perfectly, but at least adequately. Part of that means making reasonable compromises.
Pedestrians are no more allowed to walk in the roadway because a sidewalk is closed than motorists are allowed to drive on the sidewalk when a road is closed. Motorists have to wait for pedestrians to clear a roadway just the same as pedestrians need to wait on motorists. And in both cases, if local infrastructure is inadequate and endangering either kind of traveler, that is a concern that needs to be addressed.
The best way to address those concerns is to get involved, gather support (ideally from both sides of the issue), and enact meaningful change. The worst way is to treat anyone who isn’t immediately obviously in complete and total agreement with you as an enemy, or as “part of the problem”. Food for thought.
I smell the hand of propagandist Ed Bernays in this effort to create the idea of “jaywalker” as a “reckless minority” and to help the auto industry propagate its ideal.
In 1953, CEO of General Motors Charles Wilson even became the Secretary of State of “help” Eisenhower propagate the Interstate Highway System. Such a noble sacrifice!
The individual countries have car lobbies, some of them very influential, i.e. Germany.
Yep. They have huge ones in Pompeii. The crosswalks had stepping stones, so you could cross with out stepping in the sewage and mud of the street, and the wheels of carts etc could still pass through.
Don’t fret, everyone. 20 years from now cars will all be self driving, which I am sure will greatly reduce the number of deaths. I dare say, within 50 years if you want to “drive”, you will have to go on a private course somewhere. Imagine people paying, not just to drive fast in a circle, but to cruise mock city grids, like that abandoned military town they use on Mythbusthers.
