Excepting the ones who look you in the eye knowing you can turn right on red, easily if you’re the first vehicle in line too.
Those people you’d cut a break, since the laws governing transport heavily favour your chosen mode at a cost to everyone?
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I’m a little lost to understand your summary here…Why is a car turning right looking left? Are you thinking of Right on Red? If so, then pedestrians shouldn’t be in the cross walk anyway…
I am saying that the flashing hand/countdown means no new crossers…and those in the crosswalk should clear the crosswalk…meaning that pedestrians clear room for cars to turn quickly and unobstructed…before the light turns red.
People in cars are watching for pedestrians, as they should, for turning as well as oncoming traffic…but most are conditioned to gun it through because pedestrians will clog the crosswalk until the opposing light goes green …so cars try to squeeze through breaks or gun it before the pedestrians start at the first turn of the green.
If I had my druthers, I would make most busy intersections all-walk/none-walk intersections to eliminate entirely the danger or cars and pedestrians sharing the road. But that’s too rare and perhaps hard to program for.
Yes.
So is there any time and any place that you think we should cross the fucking street?
Obviously not, or they wouldn’t hit us, if when we try to cross while the light is white!
If it is a busy intersection, we can’t safely cross while the light is white and while the drivers are looking left and turning right. Since the drivers don’t wait, and they don’t look for us, we have to wait until after the drivers are done. If it is a busy intersection, they aren’t done until the light is painfully flashing orange.
Meh. I figure that if you’re in a car, you’re sitting comfortably in the warm while I’m out here in the wind and rain. You can fucking wait a few seconds while I get over to the other side of the road and under some shelter.
Conversely, I figure that if I’m in a car, I’m sitting comfortably with the radio and heater on, so I’ll chill here for a couple of seconds so you don’t have to stand for another couple minutes on that exposed street corner.
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And yet, despite the apprarent impossibility, people somehow still manage to get across the road.
Oh, knock of the faux self-effacing “I’m an idiot” crap. You’re not Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.
You seem to expect the drivers to look where they’re going and wait for us to pass, but they don’t.
I am just working with the reality that they start as soon as their light turns, and that makes it dangerous for us to go before they have finished.
At a busy intersection, we may get across the road either by waiting for the cars to pass, so that we can get across without being hit, and crossing after the cars have passed, which means after the light has started painfully flashing orange, or avoiding the intersection and crossing elsewhere.
P.S. Are you in Britain? Maybe drivers are somewhat careful in Britain.
Do you mean a right on red is hitting someone crossing their crosswalk, not the perpendicular cross-walk? I think that’s an exception, not the usual…yes, a tragedy, but not rampant. And the auto does have a responsibility to check for pedestrians in their cross-walk before they enter the crosswalk to start/finish a turn. I haven’t heard of that kind of accident being rampant…but pedestrians entering the cross-walk when they don’t have the right of way or entering in front a car already turning is much more prevalent and risky.
I got hit trying to cross. No broken bones, since they had just started, but damn…
I think you’re setting up a victim-blaing catch-22 though. If we cross when you want us to cross, then we have to cross when the drivers are going and aren’t looking, and they can insist we “enter[ed] in front a car already turning [which] is much more prevalent and risky.” If we wait, then you also seem to be against that “I am saying that the flashing hand/countdown means no new crossers…”
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Land of the free.
Where crossing the road can send you to jail.
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Proof that you’re not an idiot.
Yeah, those situations suck. Where I work, there’s a traffic light right out of the parking lot, and when I get off my shift at 1am, the light stays red till presumably 6am. I’ve never seen it turn green (it’s a T intersection, and the thru-traffic section is permanently green all night), to the point where the first time I encountered it, I sat at the light for half an hour getting progressively more stressed out and annoyed.
I just blow through it now. There’s no point in following the law when there’s no accommodation for common sense. I could sit there till sunrise when the circuit timer starts back up again, or I could just make my left turn when I see there aren’t any cars on the road for a mile in either direction.
Right turn on red, and then a U turn. Just kidding, but dashboard camera evidence may help. Park there and film the light for 10-20 minutes on your lunch, and save it. If you ever get pulled over bring it out.
What’s crazy is that there’s car sensors embedded in the pavement at this stoplight too.
The whole point of those sensors are to let the thru traffic have a green light all the time, then when someone wants to merge onto the “T”, they’ll run just one cycle on the lights. But of course, they can’t be arsed to run this system exactly how it works during the day at night.
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Where I grew up in St. Louis in the wee hours they would switch to flashing red/yellow.
I have when on 2 wheels run red arrows for left turns as the bike isn’t always enough metal to trip the switch and in WA I am legally allowed to go if safe to do so.
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Oh, knock of the posting crap. You’re an asshole, and you’re in his living room.
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The two things that broke the spell of America for me, as a child: Learning about American healthcare and Jay Walking.
Los Angeles is notorious for its terrible windy wet weather, after all. Freezing, too!
los Angeles is not alone in privileging drivers over pedestrians.
there’s also a essential speed difference. For example, a detour of a mile is a major inconvenience for a pedestrian, a rather minor one for a driver.
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I don’t remember when I used the traffic lights in Berlin, Germany, or in Italy the last time. I think it was 10 years ago. 10/10 would cross the street again
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I believe @JonS is Australian. I can attest that drivers in the UK aren’t especially attentive, but the cops won’t (in fact, can’t) prosecute you for crossing the damn street, so there’s that.
