Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by poulsbohemian | Hacker News Reader

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In 2003 a work colleague and I were crossing 5th ave in Seattle headed to lunch. While legally crossing, multiple cars ran the red light, collided with each other, then struck her. It was truly a miracle that she lived; frankly her being significantly overweight was likely the only reason she was saved. I was very lucky to jump back out of the way and avoided being struck.

That same year, there were two other car-pedestrian accidents at that same intersection with at least one involving the fatality of a German tourist.

When I was called by the Seattle Police Department as a witness to the accident, they did everything they could to tell me that we had been jaywalking, rather than recognizing that no, multiple cars had in fact been speeding trying to make it through the already red light. Fuck the police.

In reality, I'd say that my co-worker's life changed for the better. She lost a lot of weight, took up new activities, moved to the Bay Area, and had a new outlook.

For me, having seen all of it in moving detail, I guaranteed it resulted in undiagnosed PTSD.

In 2005 I was in Seattle watching a couple with a small child receive a citation for jaywalking because they were still in the road after the red hand stopped blinking. While the officer was writing the citation I saw the lights change and three cars ran the red, then at the beginning of the next cycle a car jumped the green to make a left before oncoming traffic. The officer didn't even look up.

Cars run red lights all over in downtown Seattle. Probably every other day I see a near-miss that if pedestrians were simply following their WALK sign and not being extra cautious they'd have gotten run down.

The most frustrating is when cars run red/yellow lights and then block the intersection so other traffic can't proceed on their greens. (Annoying when you see your bus coming but it can't get through an intersection because cars are blocking it). And the police don't care. There will literally be a police officer helping direct traffic out of a garage just feet away from vehicles that ran red lights and are now blocking intersections or trying to drive through a crosswalk as pedestrians are using it.

But boy are they eager to issue jaywalking tickets to pedestrians.

When we were kids, my brother got chastised by the police for getting hit by a car while riding his bike 'dangerously' along the non-stopping direction at a 2-way stop.

It's a pretty good way to impress upon a kid that the police are operating on some other end than simply enforcing the law.

Almost got hit in downtown Mountain View of all places over the summer when a car ran a red and we had entered the crosswalk after the pedestrian signal turned to walk.

It's insane that a driver would try to run a red in an area teeming with pedestrians in the middle of the day.

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