it’s cute and all, but the real reason they don’t stop is because the authorities aren’t enforcing that law effectively. the places where people stop crosswalks do so because they’ll get a ticket if they don’t.
this may raise awareness, but won’t change behavior in the long run.
when i lived more in the city and didn’t own a car i would make hard eye contact with drivers when crossing. my logic was that if they kill me I’ll at least haunt their dreams with that look.
You can do the same thing without cops more cheaply in the long run. Just raising the crosswalks to sidewalk height completely changes driver behavior, as it’s both a speed bump, and it’s clearly communicated that the crosswalk is the pedestrians’ territory that the driver is crossing through.
We can deal with most of these issue through design rather than a threat of fines.
Motorcyclists have a name for that, it’s “What the fuck you looked right at me!??”. Usually used when a car is taking a left turn directly infront of a bike.
That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.
I’m not convinced it’s all about enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, there’s not much threat of enforcement but cars stop at the slightest hint of a pedestrian crossing anywhere. Not sure how they pulled it off but there it’s a culture thing, not enforcement.
it’s cute and all, but the real reason they don’t stop is because the authorities aren’t enforcing that law effectively. the places where people stop crosswalks do so because they’ll get a ticket if they don’t.
this may raise awareness, but won’t change behavior in the long run.
when i lived more in the city and didn’t own a car i would make hard eye contact with drivers when crossing. my logic was that if they kill me I’ll at least haunt their dreams with that look.
You can do the same thing without cops more cheaply in the long run. Just raising the crosswalks to sidewalk height completely changes driver behavior, as it’s both a speed bump, and it’s clearly communicated that the crosswalk is the pedestrians’ territory that the driver is crossing through.
We can deal with most of these issue through design rather than a threat of fines.
Cyclists have a name for that and I think it’s something like “the life saving look”. Usually used when changing lanes or at an intersection.
Motorcyclists have a name for that, it’s “What the fuck you looked right at me!??”. Usually used when a car is taking a left turn directly infront of a bike.
That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Are they now?
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.
I’m not convinced it’s all about enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, there’s not much threat of enforcement but cars stop at the slightest hint of a pedestrian crossing anywhere. Not sure how they pulled it off but there it’s a culture thing, not enforcement.
Yeah but then you can’t bitch about cars in a car-bitching community.
If your traffic infrastructure requires a cop to stand there for it to work, it’s shit infrastructure that’s designed to fail.
Ah, the Kash Patel look…