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Why can't kids play on a street designed only for traffic to houses on that street? I played on the street all the time as a child. Of course, my streets weren't flooded with drivers trying to save a few minutes by driving through residential areas.

I think you answered your own question: "a street designed only for traffic".

There's something wrong with a street designed only for traffic in a residential neighbourhood.

Depends on the legislation - some places have "living streets", where 1. the speed limit is low, and more importantly, 2. the driver has to give way to "pedestrians and playing children". http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Spielstrasse.jpg

Still - a pretty bad overreaction from the "Dad" :(

The fallacy in your logic is that the streets were not designed for kids to play in. They are designed for cars to drive on.

Furthermore, like was mentioned by previous posters and the article, there are further legal traffic laws that can be implemented to protect side streets from incurring unreasonable or unsafe traffic (e.g. no thru traffic, rush hour restrictions, lower speed limits, additional stop signs or even speed bumps, etc). By all means, local governments should be using these laws and regulations to ensure neighborhood streets are as safe as possible. However, even with minimal traffic, kids playing in a street will always be a risk. If the street does not have adequate safety measures AND enforcement then as a parent you should not allow your child to play in or near the street without accepting the risk.

Most streets in older parts of the country were not designed for people to drive on, and plenty of children played on them. Motor vehicles simply killed enough children when they first became common that children were forced elsewhere.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/fighting-traffic

If we wanted that to be a neighborhood playground, we wouldn't have made it out of cement and we wouldn't have allowed any cars, not even residents'.

Streets are not just paths for cars to pass-through on. They are a part of the places we live. They should be safe even for playing children. Cars can pass through cautiously, allowing children to move out of the way. It's not hard to share the space.

>It's not hard to share the space.

It is easy to share a pie between two people. It is very hard to share a pie between 400 people. In the US roads ARE NOT designed as a shared space between people and cars. If you play in the road you could very well die due to one person on a phone when they shouldn't be.

Stay alive, keep off the road.

>In the US roads ARE NOT designed as a shared space between people and cars.

That's the problem. Kids cannot safely play in the street in many "safe" neighborhoods in the US. They should be able to, but they can't. Americans practically worship cars. The roads are treated like sacred land. Safety and happiness are set aside for the sake of motoring.

>They should be able to, but they can't.

Why should they be able to? Mass + velocity = splat. You can't deny the physics.

The Americans worshiping cars boat sailed like 70 years ago, it is too late to do anything significant about that in a short period of time without spending trillions. Unless you think replacing most of our infrastructure and moving massive numbers of people is a good idea.

And the roads are treated like scared land. They are the arteries and veins of our economy and life.

We played in the street all the time growing up. Dead-end street. Any kid calls out "car" and we know to get out of the road for a minute.

It's a lot more reasonable in a dead-end or cul-de-sac, where any car is either going to one of the houses there or got lost, and where no vehicle should be moving at more than walking speed.

The same logic applies to non-dead-ends if only people who live in the neighborhood use them. That's why people don't want "their" neighborhood streets used as cut-throughs.

Then those people should move to dead-end streets. Because again, it isn't "their" street. It's the public's street.

You are correct. It is not "their" street. However, it is not unreasonable for people to expect that neighborhood streets not be flooded with traffic beyond what they were designed to handle nor put to purposes for which they were not designed.

It is a public street that was designed to service the neighborhood and the traffic traveling to the neighborhood. It is not a highway.

Speed limits are not targets, they’re just legal limits. The reasonable speed to be driving along a given road might be much slower than the posted limit.

In Houston they're more strongly worded suggestions. I have to remind myself to slow down outside of the city and not get frustrated with other people who naturally drive the limit.

It looks like you're only responding to my initial statement "I actually respected the speed limit as I went through". If you read farther, you'll see something completely in accord with your statement: "I was able to verify that at no point was I going more that 5mph below the posted limit, and from the point where those kids were visible, I was going far slower than that."

This is a reasonable comment and perspective, and you're definitely to be lauded for driving cautiously. Also, the father you're describing sounds irrational and insulting. But as the father of a two-year old myself, I'm sitting here thinking (a) my child is just not yet completely under control, and no matter how vigilant I am, I cannot completely eliminate all risk (not to mention the complicated issue of where ideally I'd position myself and my kid, as he matures, on the spectrum of safety vs. independence); and (b) you may be the statistical anomaly here for driving so cautiously. I'm not defending the dad, who sounds like a jerk, and I'm also not faulting Waze for making a buck by optimizing traffic patterns. I'm just putting in a plug for all the parents who most definitely realize their kids shouldn't be "playing in the street," but who are frequently shocked by how much easier it is to lock down a server than a loud and complex little creature who can't take off his shoes but who can, unfortunately, run out into the street in the blink of an eye.

One of my neighbors is known for yelling at people driving fast down our road.

His son was hit and killed while crossing the street a few years ago.

I've been hit by cars twice while bicycling. The first time was my own fault, and resulted in a broken leg. The second time was of indeterminate fault, there being a question due to sun glare on a traffic light.

Why is it that when it comes to driving safety, the first and paramount factor that people jump to is speed? To be sure, speed can make some accidents more likely, and probably worsen the results of many accidents. But I don't see that it's a more important factor than inattention, failure to respect traffic signs or lane discipline, failure to signal properly, poor training, poor automobile maintenance. Of these, inattention (viz cell phone usage, but not other contributors such as interacting with passengers) is the only other one I ever see addressed.

Why doesn't society tell people "keep to the right lane" or "signal your turns"? I'm willing to bet that your neighbor never yells at motorists "stop arguing with the kids in the backseat".

> Why doesn't society tell people "keep to the right lane" or "signal your turns"?

It's funny, because I live in California, and I find myself wanting to yell these things a people all the time.

"Keep Right Except to Pass" is a pretty common sign.

And in at least some states you can be ticketed for improper lane use and failure to signal.

Indeed. I hail from Oregon, where it is the law. Freeway driving, even when busy, is much more pleasant there.

It is, in fact, the law through most of the USA. But have you ever heard of anyone getting a ticket for it?

There are a surprising number of blind corners and vision blocking hills in the world (especially around here). Further, increased speed results in increased distance to stop and increased energy in any interaction. There are very few accidents that cannot be avoided or mitigated by reducing the initial velocities.

> "SLOW DOWN YOU ASSHOLE!!".

I hate these people. They never have any idea how fast you're actually driving. In my experience, the person complaining is deflecting blame. The only times this has happened to me is the result of someone's dog running in front of my car because they couldn't be bothered to control it (or let their kids walk a 100lb dog next to a road).

Speed on residential roads is definitely a problem, but yelling at the people who aren't speeding isn't going to solve the problem.

Perhaps the kids were playing in the street because that dad had earlier told them, "stay the hell off my lawn!"