Seeing red: Why cars are killing more people
cityobservatory.org
cityobservatory.org
I am not blocking scripts, and there are no errors in the console. The only network requests that are failing are analytics requests that are being blocked. The HTML source does not appear to contain an article that has failed to load. None of the requests appear to be for article content, just a lot of libraries, stylesheets, and images.
Interesting snippets I found while reading the source:
<!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->
/* <![CDATA[ */
var newsletter = {"messages":{"email_error":"Email address is not correct","name_error":"Name is required","surname_error":"Last name is required","privacy_error":"You must accept the privacy policy"},"profile_max":"20"};
/* ]]> */
https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/164569/put-cdata...
Thanks for that tidbit of info. I was picturing some horrific build script with the canonical JS stored in XML.
Lately I've been getting better at recognizing distracted driving and getting out of the way. I appreciate that rideshare drivers started having bright visual indicators to show which company they are driving for. Those folks are often extremely distracted. I'll also stay away from delivery drivers as they too are frequently distracted. I recall one FedEx driver who got angry at me for telling him to stop looking at his phone while his vehicle was in motion. He pointed out that it was not a phone, which didn't actually matter... I'd appreciate any other tips on how to handle distracted drivers if you are using the road.
Dunno about the enforcement but in France it is illegal for drivers to use their phones even when the car is stopped.
Text:
We’re killing more people because more people are ignoring traffic signals
We’ve charted the ominous increase in road deaths in the past several years, and now there’s a new bit of evidence of just how bad the problem has become. In 2017, according to an American Automobile Association analysis of NHTSA data reported by the Los Angeles Times, we hit a new high for the number of people killed by cars running red lights.
> In 2017, the latest figures available, 939 people were killed by vehicles blowing through red lights, according to a AAA study of government crash data. . . . AAA isn’t sure why the numbers are on the rise or why they have increased at a far higher rate than overall U.S. roadway deaths. Since 2012 the number of highway fatalities rose 10%, far short of the 28% increase in red-light running deaths.
There are likely many causes for the increase in fatalities. Some of it sure has to do with the increase in driving, prompted by cheaper fuel.
Red-light running is also likely another indication of the growing problem of distracted driving. Drivers who are texting or distracted by in-cabin technology are more likely to miss a red light.
It also has to be mentioned that our efforts to use “smart” technology to improve compliance with traffic laws is woeful. Traffic engineers invest untold millions in efforts to automate traffic lights to provide motorists with a green wave, but spend little effort to promote greater compliance with red lights and speed limits. For example, despite its official policy of trying to achieve Vision Zero, for example, the City of Portland has just eight fixed speed cameras. Several states, including Texas have banned automated red-light cameras. Automated traffic enforcement is a technology that’s been shown to reduce speeding and red-light running and save lives.
We’re all enamored of the prospects of technology to make life better, but in one of the few instances in which we have a proven technology that’s been shown to save lives, we’ve limited or actually prohibited its deployment, with predictable results, in the form of an increasing death toll.
Traffic code is unenforceable by current methods. That's the place to start. I for one am all in favor of the idea of red light cameras however, they were shown to actually cause more accidents. Go figure.
Adding to this, the issue was not directly with the cameras themselves but with the length of the yellow light. In order to increase revenue from traffic cameras, municipalities were reducing the amount of time the traffic light was yellow. However, reducing the length of the yellow light also leads to an increase in car crashes.
[0] https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-sho...
[1] https://phys.org/news/2012-09-length-yellow-caution-traffic-...
The parent commenter only reposted the text from the article.
I started keeping score of pedestrians walking into a poorly placed pole on a corner outside of my office. Since June we are up to 48. We convinced our landlord to put a potted tree in front of it, which helped, but the local SeeClickFix community reported it and had it removed as potted plants are code violations.
Watch a busy street sometime. People do funny shit, like walk into traffic without looking or wandering into buildings while using the phone.
Further I'd like to note some crosswalks have a compliance rate of 0%. I was in Santa Monica. The sidewalk was closed. To comply with the signage I backtracked to the first available crosswalk to crossover. I waited and waited and no one stopped. I even stepped in the road to indicate my intent to cross. Still no one stopped. A ridiculous disregard for pedastrians is why people are dieing out here.
No, just like a deer jumping across the road isn't just a danger to themselves.
[0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/vid...
> Police aren’t writing $136 tickets for “blocking the box” on Mercer because doing so would penalize the other drivers with more gridlock, by clogging a traffic lane, said spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb
Compare the language used when pedestrians are killed by cyclists.
Is this very common? I've been hit by cyclists before (apparently red lights are a suggestion if you're pedaling?) but killing seems like it would be difficult.
https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/08/killer...
and links to this picture of a red light. http://cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/red_li...
That's all the content I can get out of their source code.
Hope that keeps drivers on their toes.
https://time.com/3643077/red-light-cams-rear-end-collisions-...
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15135851/rear-end-cra...
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05049/
> The city responded to what is truly a life and death crisis by erecting small yellow signs which read: Seniors Safety Zone: Drive Slowly. One more piece of city signage for drivers to ignore as they race to the next red light.
Cyclist here. There are a few crossing I go through every day where drivers need to yield to cyclists. I started keeping statistics on how often drivers yield to cyclists at these locations, and it's only about 62% of the time (N = 58). This is despite the TWO signs at each crossing saying for drivers to yield. I've talked to a few drivers at the next stop light and many of them see me but choose to plow through the crossing anyway because they are unaware of the law and the signs.
I think these signs exist as a CYA measure for the city. The city will then blame the driver if something bad happens. I regard signs saying to yield to cyclists or "share the road" or whatnot as evidence that a particular location is dangerous to cyclists because they city wouldn't spend the money on the sign if they didn't have to. Since the signs don't work, they mainly serve to mark dangerous locations.
> Drivers of high-end cars are the worst: BMWs, Audis and at the top of the list, Porsche drivers.
Yep, as a cyclist I've noticed that luxury car drivers are particularly bad on average. Pick-up truck drivers seem to have a worse reputation among cyclists but I'd say they aren't worse drivers specifically than luxury car drivers on average. Though trucks are larger so they perhaps should get more attention.
Pretty much any time I can tap on a vehicle that is pulled into the bike lane or cross walk I do just to let them know that they are driving poorly. Not anything that will leave a mark, just enough to get their attention. I usually end up doing this two to four times a week.
Most of the time it seems to me that the offending drivers are in pretty poor physical shape. So I've just kind of chalked their driving behavior to be due to their lack of experience using the bike trails and sidewalks.
Specifically the issue is running red lights and not stopping at stop signs. It's not "optional" for bikes in California.
Example: A couple of years ago my mom was bicycling on the bike path near her home. There was a driver stopped at a stop sign. They were stopped behind the bike path crossing which they are also supposed to yield to but never saw her coming down the bike path. Instead they were searching the on-coming traffic for an opening to cross the intersection. My mom thought she made eye contact before starting to cross but apparently the driver never saw her. Just as she started crossing the driver saw an opening and gunned their vehicle crashing into her bike and throwing her. She ended up needing to get knee surgery due to that.
And that doesn't even start to get into how most stop-lighted intersections are not designed for bicycle use. Many stoplights that I end up at are weight sensitive meaning that there is no way for me to trigger a green light to go straight or make a left hand turn without first crossing the right turn lane, pushing the cross walk button (if it exists at all) and then crossing back to the left hand turn lane.
Haven't red light cameras been linked to increases in accidents? I'm pretty sure I've read it was in part due to decreasing the length of yellow lights to try to increase revenue.
I can't remember the exact reason anymore, but it was pretty interesting. Once they fixed the issue, they deactivated the cameras lol.
An increase in minor accidents, and decrease in major accidents involving death, which is exactly what you want.
I think distracted driving is the problem IMO. I cannot go anywhere without seeing people driving while looking at their phones and cops right next to them not doing anything about it.
This is bullshit. People just don't like them. People don't like having to stop at yellow lights, including the people setting the laws.
https://tucson.com/news/local/no-more-tickets-from-tucson-s-...
They can pull 1000 people over for various offenses like drifting out of their lanes or failure to signal but that isn't going to put fear into people like it would if all of those 1000 people were busted for driving while holding a cell phone.
People tend to overestimate their ability to drive well while playing with their phones and if you're caught but the officer doesn't see it in your hands it only takes a second to drop it into the seat next to you.
And to be able to receive this ticket readily, with no ability to hide a cell phone or claim to be in a navigation app. And it applies to other major causes of distracted driving accidents: drinking, distracting passengers to the driver, eating, and whatever else.
In the time before dash cams, there was the option that this would be a subjective offense, an officer's word against the perpetrator, and so many of these are "secondary" offenses (a warning and reason to pull over for something else). But now that every officer has a dash cam, they can be objectively evidenced.
a dash cam might see someone holding a cell phone to their face, but people texting or checking social media sites tend to keep their phones in their laps which is why police want the birds-eye view of a semi to spot them. Bikes have been used at intersections but with low held phones and high SUVs that wasn't always very effective.
https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...