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what's the deal? so in yankeeland you can't cross the street where you like? |
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Unfortunately we have a culture of "pedestrians are always in the right", even if that's not the law here. The view is cars should always give way to pedestrians. Whilst no one in their right mind would knowingly drive into someone "because I had right of way" were this not the case, this culture sadly engenders a lack of respect for traffic on the part of pedestrians. It can even lead to outright contempt for traffic and encourage kids "playing" in it like sorry incident. There was another incident where a pedestrian's idiocy caused a woman to crash and she successfully sued the pedestrian. I don't know if you remember, but a few years back they were looking to pass a (ludicrous) law that would have made a cyclist in the right in an accident involving a car, no matter who was at fault. The idea being, that it'd be safer because car drivers would give them a wider berth. Safer perhaps (although I doubt it), but hardly just. In actuality, the opposite has occured and there are increasing demands for some sort of insurance, mot and CBT for push bike riders as well as policing of things like running red lights. I'm not proposing the same for pedestrians, but something should be done. No one wants the inconvenience of only crossing in permitted places, but we need to educate (and indeed, put more more responsibility on) pedestrians. In the majority of accidents involving pedestrians, the pedestrian is at fault. It makes me think some more of the government's "Think" campaign money could have been better spent educating pedestrians. To be fair, they have got better in the past couple of years, but they still need to do more IMO. |
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I don't pretend to understand the American traffic rules, but I'd be interested to see what they are on this matter as I will be riding/driving there later this year. |
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In BC any vehicle on the road is to be treated as a vehicle. So if a cyclist and a motor vehicle get into an accident, they would treat it as if it was legally a car. Which gives cyclists the legal responsibility to take an entire lane when they need it (whenever they don't have more than two and a half meters to ride). |
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yep. it shouldnt be illegal, but people should be more aware. any law would be hard to enforce anyway and would be nothing but red tape most of the time - it being illegal to cross the road when nothing is coming would be shite. but people should be aware of the dangers anyway. if you are going to run across the road right in front of a bus, you shouldnt be suprised if you get hit. if you do it more carefully and reasonably, then theres nothing wrong. |
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Sure, people should be aware when jaywalking, but I'm totally against your opinion that it's the case that "pedestrians are always in the right." That's not the way it is. The way it is is that the vehicle driver must always give full attention to what's going on in front of him. If the driver of a car is driving at a speed which would allow him to come to a halt suddenly, and hits a pedestrian that walks out in front of the car, then he's totally in the wrong, because obviously, had he been paying attention, the accident wouldn't have happened. You would, i imagine, say "well, it's also the case that if the pedestrian hadn't walked out in front of the car, the accident wouldn't have happened." This is also true, but: which is the greater pest and danger to life: drivers or pedestrians? I've not much respect for road users: from my experience, they don't deserve much either. If it were up to me, all road traffic would be banned within city limits. As for America, I think it's laughable that jaywalking is actually a prosecutable offense over there. I believe it is here too, but i jaywalk in front of Garda cars all the time, in fact, so too do the Gardai (police) jaywalk in front of cars themselves. It's the way of the road here. |
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seeing as how i'm the first yank to weigh in on this topic... yes it's illegal to jaywalk. just like it's illegal to smoke bud. but none the less, that doesn't stop people from doing either. and that all goes along with common sense. which of course not everybody has. but it doesn't mean either, that you can just blindly group everyone together as retards in that department, like most of you seem to love to do. in regards to the original inquiry, the instances where this has led to trouble, be it jaywalking or smoking, is rare in comparison to the frequency of said violations by any individual. although i have done both near a thousand times in my life, i have never been "caught". but it can happen and it does to a few unfortunate folks. |
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"The way it is is that the vehicle driver must always give full attention to what's going on in front of him. If the driver of a car is driving at a speed which would allow him to come to a halt suddenly, and hits a pedestrian that walks out in front of the car, then he's totally in the wrong, because obviously, had he been paying attention, the accident wouldn't have happened. " I don't mean to be rude, but you don't/can't drive, do you? All a driver of any vehicle can ever be expected to do is drive at a speed at which they can safely stop (including reaction time and a slight margin for error) in the distance they can see to be clear (and that they have right of way for). If someone enters into that space, they are the ones at fault, regardless of whether they are on foot, bike or 10 ton artic lorry. What I meant by, "pedestrians are always in the right." is not that that, they're not; they're often in the wrong- more accidents are caused by pedestrians acting like lemmings than speeding (source, DFT's figures 2005). I meant there's a cultural perception that because someone is in a car (and rightly, has a greater responsibility) that it's somehow completely their fault when a pedestrian chucks themselves into the path of their car. I've hit a kid while driving. I was doing more than 10mph under the speed limit (30). A kid ran out from in front of a bus without looking. He was fine, because by the time I hit him, I'd braked and got it down to about 10mph. Naturally, the witnesses and the kid himself all said it was his fault, I wasn't going too fast, nothing I could have done etc. The only way it could have been avoided would have been for him to look before crossing. I agree that a lot of road users are selfish fuckwits who shouldn't be on the road. Things like indication (or indeed, stopping at give way lines) are all too often overlooked. Sadly, with our fondness (in the UK at least) for replacing traffic police with speed cameras, this is likely to |
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...likely to only get worse. |
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I dunno. You're driving, the car in front brakes very hard. You do too. You still read-end him. It's your fault. That's a very fair rule. Don't see why it shouldn't apply to pedestrians. You seem to have the same contempt for pedestrians that I have for drivers. We'll leave it here. |
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If a car in front brakes and you rear end them, you haven't (see my previous post), "drive at a speed at which they can safely stop (including reaction time and a slight margin for error) in the distance they can see to be clear (and that they have right of way for)." Tailgating is a dickhead's game and you'd rightly be at fault if you rear ended someone whilst doing it. If you're following a pedestrian (say, a runner in the road) and they stop and you rear end them, that's also your fault (and the law would rightly see it that way too). Same rules apply. The situation you describe is different though. The critical difference is a car cannot always predict where a pedestrian will appear from and run into their path. Yes, by going slower you can reduce the odds of it happening/impact of it, but if they run out 5 ft in front of your car, you'd still hit them when doing only 10mph. As to cars being kept out of population centres. Nice idea, but watch the economy fail and the country fall into disrepair: Today I had a delivery arrive at my house, that had to come by van. I've also got a plumber here at the moment. Had he walked from his house it would have taken him 5 trips on foot to carry all the pipes/tools he needs, the cost of the job would go up 3-4 times I wouldn't be able to afford to have my boiler repaired. Something that always gets my goat is this notion that car drivers hate/resent pedestrians; not all pedestrians drive cars, but all car drivers are pedestrians. No driver wants things to be unduly harsh on pedestrians as they themselves would suffer when on foot. For this reason I don't think the majority of drivers in the uk would want Jay Walking to be illegal. Also, with respect, I have given hundreds of hours of my time to a road safety charity and have been described as "very competent" and "fast, safe and courteous" by several police drivers I have trained with. I'm not exactly some reckless idiot who drives beyond their abilities or without concern for other p |
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...other people's safety. |
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In response to your first paragraph - i wasn't talking about tailgating. Let's say you're on a motorway, and are not tailgating, but are still only about 1.5 car lengths from the car in front, travelling at about 60mph. it's very possible, if the person in front were to brake hard enough, that you'd still hit them. that's your liability. nothing to do with tailgating. As for the pedestrians, yes they, like cyclists, are unpredictable and vulnerable. the onus is on you, the motorist, to mind that fact. |
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Well it's a good job you're not in charge then because you're an idiot. |
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convincing argument... |
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jaywalk on my bonnet baby |
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I like that, in America, you can turn right without having to wait for the traffic light to be green. Wish they'd introduce that for the Left Hand Turn in the UK. |
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our roundabouts probably make driving easier than having junctions everywhere like in the US of Eh? another rant: over here, its illegal to walk along the side of a dual carriageway (behind the crash barrier). i got moaned at by coppers several times before. whats wrong with doing it at night? if i'm parked in a carpark on one side at 2am, why can't i hop across the carriageway to a garage on the other side to buy a drink? bloody cops |
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The DFT is actually looking at the possibility of that at the moment. On one hand there'd be less opportunity to use it here (as the roads are more crowded the number of times where it'd be safe to do so would be reduced), on the plus side, it'd ease congestion without the cost/hassle of building new roads. I'd be all for it, so long as they tightened up the laws/highway code regarding liability at traffic lights at the same time (you'd think that green means go and red means stop and if you run a red you're automatically at fault, but that's not the case currently). redrum: It's not only a possibility, but at those speeds/distances it'as a likelihood that you'd hit them if they had a car with good brakes and threw them on as hard as possible without locking up. Again, leaving inadequate stopping distance is covered by my first point. The theoretical best practice (ROSPA, IAM, DSA, Police Drivers Handbook, etc,) is that you should be able to stop safely even if the car in front stops instantly (as in, it hit an invisible brick wall). At motorway speeds, this is a bit impractical, as there'd be such a large gap that other cars would see it as you letting them out and would likely pull out in front of you. Similarly, applying the theoretical best practice in snow/ice means leaving 800m between cars at motorway speeds, which again, is never going to happen. I would say that I agree thought that in general most people on the motorways leave far too small a gap. |
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