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Comment by catalogia | Hacker News Reader

As I said, there is no conceivable way you can ensure total safety; you can only improve your odds. It's not a matter of who "the problem" is. The driver being legally to blame (which is obvious) won't bring you back from the dead.

My priorities as a pedestrian are 1) Stay safe. 2) Obey the law. I do not count on the later to satisfy the former. I go above and beyond the requirements of (2) to satisfy the requirements of (1), because I am cognizant of my inability to sue myself back to life.

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Sometimes I post things that I know will be controversial, and other times I'm surprised by what turns out to be controversial. I certainly didn't expect generalizing "look both ways before crossing the street" to be controversial.

I fear perhaps some have mistaken me for a habitual driver who wants to blame pedestrians. That couldn't be further from the truth. I am a habitual pedestrian with a rational fear of drivers.

So my concern with this mentality is that the problem really is drivers most of the time it's not something you as a pedestrian can do anything to mitigate or prevent. Generally, as a driver myself, I try to be courteous to pedestrians but I've had multiple times as a pedestrian where drivers have intentionally tried to hit me while running, as in swerved at. When my wife road her bicycle motorcycles would swerve at her and my daughter. We had a girl in our city running last year where a vehicle literally crossed the road, went offroad and ran her down to hit her then drove off. While I'm sure that most drivers try to be good drivers I can almost count on people running red lights in my area, not respecting crosswalks, and generally just being poor drivers. There's literally nothing I as a pedestrian can to to avoid a car moving faster than I can get out of the way. When running I wear reflective gear and headphones that allow outside noise in so that I can hear the road, I stay off the road in pinch points or areas of the visibility, and I still got hit when being careful. People who are normally fine outside of the vehicle turn into sociopaths and monsters when in their vehicles. So while yes there's some impetus on pedestrians to do their part it doesn't matter when vehicles don't do their part.

> "the problem really is drivers most of the time it's not something you as a pedestrian can do anything to mitigate or prevent.

Of course drivers are to blame, but that doesn't mean there aren't things pedestrians can do to improve our odds. My point was never that drivers aren't to blame. If I had a magical wand I could wave that vaporized all cars, I'd wave it and solve the problem for good. But I don't have that and fantasizing about it won't help me. What I do have is the ability to, for example, establish eye contact with the driver of every car I step in front of.

Will that keep me safe? No. Will that make me safer? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does.

> When running I wear reflective gear and headphones that allow outside noise in so that I can hear the road, I stay off the road in pinch points or areas of the visibility, and I still got hit when being careful."

Did you stop wearing reflective gear because of that? Probably not, because I'm sure you do actually recognize that reflective gear makes you safer even if it doesn't make you safe. That's all I've been saying. If somebody comes at you with homicidal intent, reflectors won't help [you]. But if a driver were lazy, inattentive, tired, or otherwise dangerously incompetent but lacking murderous intent, there are many things a pedestrian can do improve their odds. Or maybe you want to believe that every single driver has murderous intent and reflectors are a liability to pedestrians because they make you easier to hit, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Supposing it were true though, the pedestrian could still opt to camouflage themselves by wearing dark clothing with poor visibility....

Just to reiterate: The possibility of the pedestrian taking defensive action does not in any way suggest that the pedestrian is at fault when they get struck.

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