5 ms·

I had a suspicion that there were more idiots on the road after and during covid. good to see this reflected in the data, but sad to know that it's actually tru

I had a suspicion that there were more idiots on the road after and during covid. good to see this reflected in the data, but sad to know that it's actually true. no matter where I go in the USA I see people speeding easily 50% over the limit, running red lights, blowing through stop signs. it's ridiculous. given how many people die I'm surprised government's having made safety technology mandatory. things like toyota safety sense are pretty effective - you can check on youtube. people will place random dummys in front of the car and it stops pretty accurately.

Toorkit 11mo ago
Not just the US, my village in Germany has a limit of 30 kph, people drive through with 60.
- pixl97 11mo ago
  Have the village start adding some wicked speed bumps.
  - cedilla 11mo ago
    Speed bumps work but putting big flower pots in the way is even better. It forces people to slow down without giving them the feeling that they get slowed down for no reason. We humans are so easy to trick.
- physicsguy 11mo ago
  We're 30mph through my village but because it is a 'cut through' the local government deem it to be important and the speed cannot be reduced. Even though we had two cars go round a sharp bend into a tree within a month of each other, in dry conditions.
- pmontra 11mo ago
  Not Germany here but I witnessed buses of the bus company of my former city driving at 50 or more in a 30 km/h area. Some of those areas have a 30 limit because of a good reason, some probably only to add up kilometers and make the city council look good.
sumtechguy 11mo ago
Then to add to that I see every single day people walking doing silly things and walking into the roads where they should not be. One dude I saw just a few days ago was crossing an interstate (see that about 2-3 times a month in the same place). I see jwalking pretty much every day. I see people walking when the signal says to stay put. I see people darting out from between parked cars. I see this every day. Sure they have priority. But a car doing 55 does not care. Keep your head on a swivel. I make sure I cross at the places designated to do so and also make sure there are no cars coming at that moment because some fool decided that was the perfect time to play with their phone.
- pixl97 11mo ago
  A lot of this is parked cars right beside a 55mph highway. Or stretches of stroad that are a mile long with no pedestrian crossings. In the US we love to zone that 'business over here' and 'residentials over there' which means you have to cross high traffic areas to do anything. And if you're without car you're rightly screwed.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  But most of these issues are highlighting road/driver issues, not pedestrian ones. People jaywalk because the lights are timed more for the convenience of the drivers. People dart out between parked cars because the nearest crosswalk is a long way away. People cross the interstate because otherwise their 5 minute walk becomes an hour. Drivers shouldn't be going 55 in spots where someone can be obscured by a row of parked cars. etc.
- nekusar 11mo ago
  There's a LOT going on with what you said. Im going to separate it for logical discussion and not the order you said it in. > I see jwalking pretty much every day. Jaywalking was a created crime by the early car companies to try to take away blame from distracted drivers. https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking-became-a-crime/ https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking... says it better than I. > One dude I saw just a few days ago was crossing an interstate (see that about 2-3 times a month in the same place). That IS a problem. However, what is the locality doing to fixing an obvious problem of 'nowhere to safely cross a high speed road'? Aside "fuckit, cross halfway when it looks safe" is basically the only sane response. WALKING up or down an interstate or major highway to get to a light or some crossing way would take 1+ hours to do. > Then to add to that I see every single day people walking doing silly things and walking into the roads where they should not be. Are they actually obstructing, or just crossing and you don't like that? > I see people walking when the signal says to stay put. So in my liberal-ish city in a republican state, we have basically terrible cargo-cult traffic control. They do shit like "dont turn on pedestrian lights when nobody presses the button", no right-turn on reds even if theres no ped crossing, arbitrary bad speed control, stuff like that. On the city square, its routine to see no cars cause the lights are anti-timed to impede cars. BUT the light will be green allowing all those cars (NONE!) to continue. So yeah, we look the 1 way - its a 1 way road - and we will cross when we're not supposed to. Again, this is what happens when you mix blaming pedestrians, poor traffic handling, and cargo cult liberal ideas all together. Makes a terrible situation for everyone. > I see people darting out from between parked cars. Again, goes back to car companies criminalizing "jaywalking", in order to steer the blame to humans rather than humans driving a 1 ton slab of metal and plastic. > But a car doing 55 does not care. Ah hah! And there's the gotcha. You're not talking about downtown and slower streets, like city residential or the city square. You're talking about Stroads, this bastardized terrible mix between a street (slow, humans everywhere) and a road (high speed, no humans, limited entry/exit). Not Just Bikes talks extensively about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM Yes, Stroads kill. And Stroads are EVERYWHERE in the USA. This US-centric anti-pattern is best seen with a state highway going 55MPH, maybe dropping to 40-45MPH with a town built AROUND this bisecting nigh-uncrossable stroad. They are some of the most anti-human infrastructure we have seen. > I make sure I cross at the places designated to do so and also make sure there are no cars coming at that moment because some fool decided that was the perfect time to play with their phone. Thats the problem with stroads and the highways that bifurcate towns and cities. There's FEW places to cross, and the lights themselves are almost never set up to actually allow pedestrian traffic. And you're lucky to even get a sidewalk. And if you do, your door prize is face full of vehicles fumes and super loud vehicles. The USA has sold off and demolished pedestrian infrastructure for implicitly requiring everyone have a motor vehicle, unless you're lucky enough to live in a rare city with great public infra. (And no, bus lines that share the road with regular vehicles will take you 2 hours to get where your car can take you 20 minutes.)
bombcar 11mo ago
I’d like someone to do a deep dive in the data; I suspect that almost all of the fatalities involve some variation of “not following the laws” simply because nobody does. We need crosswalks enforced by spikes that pop up from the ground or something similarly draconian to get people to wake up. The US mostly (but not completely) solved the school bus problem (people passing a bus dropping off children) by having exceptionally hard penalties and enforcing them significantly for the first few months. A similar nation-wide campaign is needed around auto safety.
- potato3732842 11mo ago
  >The US mostly (but not completely) solved the school bus problem (people passing a bus dropping off children) by having exceptionally hard penalties and enforcing them significantly for the first few months. They also changed bus routing best practice to alter the sorts of stops that were causing the bulk of the passing. Like for example right side stops on roads divided by any sort of median are avoided where possible these days.
  - bombcar 11mo ago
    That also had the side effect of moving the stops to side streets; rarely if ever are the “commuting roads” stopped by schoolbusses anymore. Which makes it nicer tot drive, too.
    - potato3732842 11mo ago
      The side streets are a better place for kids/parents to be waiting around too.
myrmidon 11mo ago
> there were more idiots on the road after and during covid I don't think the data really supports this, because pedestrian deaths have been rising continuously since 2008 instead of abruptly after 2019; there is at least a bunch of other factors at play. Most suprising to me was the sharp rise in the "pedestrians on drugs" quota. Personally, I think that "more distracted pedestrians" (from smartphones) is also an interesting theory which could possibly explain the huge increase in Sedan-lethality.
- rsynnott 11mo ago
  > Most suprising to me was the sharp rise in the "pedestrians on drugs" quota. I'd be cautious of reading _too_ much into that, because in that time period the US has largely legalised a popular drug. You'd expect this rate to rise just because a cop asking "were you using cannabis" in the US is now a very different threat level than it was 20 years ago.

Toorkit 11mo ago

Not just the US, my village in Germany has a limit of 30 kph, people drive through with 60.

pixl97 11mo ago
Have the village start adding some wicked speed bumps.
- cedilla 11mo ago
  Speed bumps work but putting big flower pots in the way is even better. It forces people to slow down without giving them the feeling that they get slowed down for no reason. We humans are so easy to trick.
physicsguy 11mo ago
We're 30mph through my village but because it is a 'cut through' the local government deem it to be important and the speed cannot be reduced. Even though we had two cars go round a sharp bend into a tree within a month of each other, in dry conditions.
pmontra 11mo ago
Not Germany here but I witnessed buses of the bus company of my former city driving at 50 or more in a 30 km/h area. Some of those areas have a 30 limit because of a good reason, some probably only to add up kilometers and make the city council look good.

sumtechguy 11mo ago

Then to add to that I see every single day people walking doing silly things and walking into the roads where they should not be. One dude I saw just a few days ago was crossing an interstate (see that about 2-3 times a month in the same place). I see jwalking pretty much every day. I see people walking when the signal says to stay put. I see people darting out from between parked cars. I see this every day. Sure they have priority. But a car doing 55 does not care. Keep your head on a swivel. I make sure I cross at the places designated to do so and also make sure there are no cars coming at that moment because some fool decided that was the perfect time to play with their phone.

pixl97 11mo ago
A lot of this is parked cars right beside a 55mph highway. Or stretches of stroad that are a mile long with no pedestrian crossings. In the US we love to zone that 'business over here' and 'residentials over there' which means you have to cross high traffic areas to do anything. And if you're without car you're rightly screwed.
ceejayoz 11mo ago
But most of these issues are highlighting road/driver issues, not pedestrian ones. People jaywalk because the lights are timed more for the convenience of the drivers. People dart out between parked cars because the nearest crosswalk is a long way away. People cross the interstate because otherwise their 5 minute walk becomes an hour. Drivers shouldn't be going 55 in spots where someone can be obscured by a row of parked cars. etc.
nekusar 11mo ago
There's a LOT going on with what you said. Im going to separate it for logical discussion and not the order you said it in. > I see jwalking pretty much every day. Jaywalking was a created crime by the early car companies to try to take away blame from distracted drivers. https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking-became-a-crime/ https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking... says it better than I. > One dude I saw just a few days ago was crossing an interstate (see that about 2-3 times a month in the same place). That IS a problem. However, what is the locality doing to fixing an obvious problem of 'nowhere to safely cross a high speed road'? Aside "fuckit, cross halfway when it looks safe" is basically the only sane response. WALKING up or down an interstate or major highway to get to a light or some crossing way would take 1+ hours to do. > Then to add to that I see every single day people walking doing silly things and walking into the roads where they should not be. Are they actually obstructing, or just crossing and you don't like that? > I see people walking when the signal says to stay put. So in my liberal-ish city in a republican state, we have basically terrible cargo-cult traffic control. They do shit like "dont turn on pedestrian lights when nobody presses the button", no right-turn on reds even if theres no ped crossing, arbitrary bad speed control, stuff like that. On the city square, its routine to see no cars cause the lights are anti-timed to impede cars. BUT the light will be green allowing all those cars (NONE!) to continue. So yeah, we look the 1 way - its a 1 way road - and we will cross when we're not supposed to. Again, this is what happens when you mix blaming pedestrians, poor traffic handling, and cargo cult liberal ideas all together. Makes a terrible situation for everyone. > I see people darting out from between parked cars. Again, goes back to car companies criminalizing "jaywalking", in order to steer the blame to humans rather than humans driving a 1 ton slab of metal and plastic. > But a car doing 55 does not care. Ah hah! And there's the gotcha. You're not talking about downtown and slower streets, like city residential or the city square. You're talking about Stroads, this bastardized terrible mix between a street (slow, humans everywhere) and a road (high speed, no humans, limited entry/exit). Not Just Bikes talks extensively about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM Yes, Stroads kill. And Stroads are EVERYWHERE in the USA. This US-centric anti-pattern is best seen with a state highway going 55MPH, maybe dropping to 40-45MPH with a town built AROUND this bisecting nigh-uncrossable stroad. They are some of the most anti-human infrastructure we have seen. > I make sure I cross at the places designated to do so and also make sure there are no cars coming at that moment because some fool decided that was the perfect time to play with their phone. Thats the problem with stroads and the highways that bifurcate towns and cities. There's FEW places to cross, and the lights themselves are almost never set up to actually allow pedestrian traffic. And you're lucky to even get a sidewalk. And if you do, your door prize is face full of vehicles fumes and super loud vehicles. The USA has sold off and demolished pedestrian infrastructure for implicitly requiring everyone have a motor vehicle, unless you're lucky enough to live in a rare city with great public infra. (And no, bus lines that share the road with regular vehicles will take you 2 hours to get where your car can take you 20 minutes.)

bombcar 11mo ago

I’d like someone to do a deep dive in the data; I suspect that almost all of the fatalities involve some variation of “not following the laws” simply because nobody does. We need crosswalks enforced by spikes that pop up from the ground or something similarly draconian to get people to wake up. The US mostly (but not completely) solved the school bus problem (people passing a bus dropping off children) by having exceptionally hard penalties and enforcing them significantly for the first few months. A similar nation-wide campaign is needed around auto safety.

potato3732842 11mo ago
>The US mostly (but not completely) solved the school bus problem (people passing a bus dropping off children) by having exceptionally hard penalties and enforcing them significantly for the first few months. They also changed bus routing best practice to alter the sorts of stops that were causing the bulk of the passing. Like for example right side stops on roads divided by any sort of median are avoided where possible these days.
- bombcar 11mo ago
  That also had the side effect of moving the stops to side streets; rarely if ever are the “commuting roads” stopped by schoolbusses anymore. Which makes it nicer tot drive, too.
  - potato3732842 11mo ago
    The side streets are a better place for kids/parents to be waiting around too.

myrmidon 11mo ago

> there were more idiots on the road after and during covid I don't think the data really supports this, because pedestrian deaths have been rising continuously since 2008 instead of abruptly after 2019; there is at least a bunch of other factors at play. Most suprising to me was the sharp rise in the "pedestrians on drugs" quota. Personally, I think that "more distracted pedestrians" (from smartphones) is also an interesting theory which could possibly explain the huge increase in Sedan-lethality.

rsynnott 11mo ago
> Most suprising to me was the sharp rise in the "pedestrians on drugs" quota. I'd be cautious of reading _too_ much into that, because in that time period the US has largely legalised a popular drug. You'd expect this rate to rise just because a cop asking "were you using cannabis" in the US is now a very different threat level than it was 20 years ago.