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Comment by ksimukka | Hacker News Reader

Recently (3 months ago), I was visiting family in Portland, OR and experienced an odd event. For context, I currently live in Oslo, Norway.

As I was using a crosswalk, a Prius driver felt compelled to yell slurs at me. I can only guess that the inconvenience of having to yield to a pedestrian was some kind of trigger.

Another observation was that very few pedestrians wear reflective gear. It almost seemed as if wearing dark clothes at night was intentional. I suspect that also has a negative effect on drivers as it can be extremely difficult to see pedestrians.

I think pedestrian and driver safety go “hand in hand”. In Norway, pedestrians are expected to wear reflective gear and drivers are required to yield. Based on my empirical evidence, it is significantly safer walking in Oslo, Norway than in Portland, OR.

I can only hope at this point that enough people come together to try and improve the safety in the states.

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It's apparently not in the interest of traffic engineers in the U.S. to care for pedestrian (or cyclist) safety. It's been this way since the post-war area where everything was built for cars, and this seems to have manifested in peoples' minds like the concrete they built. Hard to remove this. People seem to fight over minor improvements (like adding a protected bike lane or making safer crosswalks) while a drastic change would be necessary (like building completely different roads or changing underlying laws).

I'd recommend checking out the "Not Just Bikes" YouTube channel for some interesting observations on the differences between the U.S. and Europe when it comes to traffic safety. Also, Strong Towns is a resource you might want to check out: https://www.strongtowns.org/

> It's apparently not in the interest of traffic engineers in the U.S. to care for pedestrian (or cyclist) safety.

Knowing the average engineer, traffic engineers probably care about a lot of things.

What usually happens is that someone higher up (politicians, city administrators, etc) set up an incentive system that forces the engineers' hand. Stuff like: "Increase car traffic speed in region X by Y% in 2023".

Funny you mention that metric since it happens often and is irrelevant since throughput would be way more interesting since it is often chosen as a metric to "solve" congestion, especially total throughput (including not cars) would most likely increase the total speed (in general) for all commuters due to limiting congestion.

Don't mention to car-centric politicians the most effective speed for safe throughput is about 40kph/25mph and not 120/75.

> Don't mention to car-centric politicians the most effective speed for safe throughput is about 40kph/25mph and not 120/75.

I would assume that depends on the road in question? Eg Autobahn vs dirt road?

If not, that would be a very interesting result!

Throughput is mostly independent of road as distances between cars increase more than you can speed up to compensate (you reaction time stays the same or get's worse). Type of road can make a difference, obviously dirt makes the distance requirements worse. If people also exit/enter the road it's even worse.

I was assuming an ideal road though with everyone sticking to the same speed. Cross lane movement and speed difference in traffic also places limits and slower speeds limit both of those afaik.

It's pretty well known graph in traffic engineering -- Max throughput isn't free flowing traffic. (Though I remember it at 35-40 mph on interstate/motorway).

The basic reason is that free flowing traffic requires bigger gaps between vehicles. (safe anyway, but practically the way people drive generally follows the safe spacing function, but with a 'bit' of y offset). At the minimum latency (the free flow speed (ffs)) the spacing between cars is x seconds, so you get 3600/x cars per hour. At maximum flow rate, ~1/2 the ffs, the spacing is more like 1-2 seconds, so you get closer to 2k cars per hour. Even slower, the cars can be packed closer, but you don't clear the road nearly as quickly so the throughput is lower.

See https://courses.washington.edu/cee320ag/Lecture/Freeway_LOSd... (page 13) and https://courses.washington.edu/cee320ag/Lecture/Freeway_LOSd... (page 9)

It's a little bit like the tradeoff between latency and throughput in servers.

Traffic engineers routinely make design choices that prioritise minor driver convenience (think 5 seconds saved) over pedestrian life-or-death.

I've become disillusioned with the Not Just Bikes guy. He tends to omit key disadvantages of the lifestyle he's advertising.

Which are?

Costs mostly. He's talking from a privileged position of someone who can afford living in Amsterdam with his lifestyle.

Take for example buying groceries in your corner shop daily on your way back from work. Easily 50% more expensive than taking a longer, less frequent trip to a larger supermarket further away.

But what upset me the most was showcasing a building built somewhere in Canada that was, in his view, great because it didn't have parking spaces.

What actually happened is that the building rented-out parking spots from a nearby multi-level parking lot and was only allowed to be built as an exception, because it was too tall according to the zoning. And it shows, because it stands out like a buck tooth.

I live in a country essentially taken over by construction companies' interests and this is the kind of bullshit they peddle to improve their margins.

I don't follow. One of the things he rallies against the most in his videos is precisely laws — like zoning regulations and parking minimums — which make it illegal to build walkable neighbourhoods and encourage car-dependent sprawl.

As for buying for the corner shop being 50% more expensive, why? What are you basing yourself on to make that assertion?

> One of the things he rallies against the most in his videos is precisely laws — like zoning regulations and parking minimums — which make it illegal to build walkable neighbourhoods and encourage car-dependent sprawl.

I see this as a perspective of someone who never lived in a walkable city that has both zoning and parking minimums. It's not a case of either-or.

The type of construction he's proposing is a net negative to how a city functions - specifically it was a particularly tall building in an area where four floors + ground level buildings were already allowed - that's an already appropriate density for a city.

> What are you basing yourself on to make that assertion?

That's my experience from just about every European city I spent any appreciable time in(meaning - at least a few months) - especially the one I grew up in.

And no wonder - grocery stores scale exceedingly well so far as there's cheap land to build on. That's not the case in city centres.

Ah the famous Tade0's-experience-price-index /s :)

Sure, I'd love to see how prices in small shop chain retailers compare to big box chain retailers. But sorry, your personal gut feeling is not data enough for me.

As for walkable cities with zoning and parking minimums, perhaps it can technically be done? But you do agree that it makes it extremely difficult and disincentivised, right?

I don't follow your argument. I've lived in various major European cities and it was always easy enough to find a discount supermarket (Lidl, Aldi etc.) within walking distance, and if not, maybe within 5 minutes of cycling. There would've rarely been a need to use the (more expensive, but certainly not 50%) corner grocery store. Everyone can afford this — quite the contrary: people often ignore the hundreds of Euros they spend on a car, because it's just a given for them. (That said, I know there are lots of people who depend on the car for getting to a work location because of lack of public transport.)

I don't know about the building you're talking about and can't weigh in on this.

A store placed where land and labour is expensive will necessarily have considerably higher prices than one far away from such an area.

I had friends who, in order to save money, went by bus, did shopping for the whole week and just Ubered back, because even compared to a local Lidl it was worth it. Of course it was a major time sink, but spread over a week didn't affect them too much.

My personal record was in Zurich, where I had a whopping 3.6km to the next Lidl, from which I only returned by bus, because those ~4CHF saved on the ticket there afforded me 1kg of bananas(2CHF instead of 3 in Coop) and a can of tuna.

This is the type of reality I'm talking about - note the lack of cars in these scenarios.

I wish I could find the clip showing the mentioned building, but a cursory search didn't yield results.

> My personal record was in Zurich, where I had a whopping 3.6km to the next Lidl, from which I only returned by bus, because those ~4CHF saved on the ticket there afforded me 1kg of bananas(2CHF instead of 3 in Coop) and a can of tuna.

By bicyle, 3.6 km would take 10-15 min without riding hard.

On the reflective gear, such thinking only shifts the blame from the drivers to the pedestrians. It's the car that has the light, the driver that controls the speed and it's their responsibility to be able to stop their car quickly enough. After all distraction and speeding are the main causes for accidents here in Austria, reflective gear can't change that. The solution to reduce distraction and speeding is changing the road layout so drivers feel less comfortable to speed. Narrower roads, trees, speed bumps, even cobble stones will do the trick.

Blame is not always 100% on one side.

If it is difficult to see you, especially at night, it is dangerous for you and cars (obviously more for you as pedestrian) even if drivers are prudent. Help cars and help yourself by being visible.

I don't see why walking around town should need protective gear, maybe we should wear helmets too?

If a driver turns off all their lights and gets hit, you don’t think the driver shares some of the blame?

Pedestrians wearing dark clothes at night are almost invisible. Until we put sidewalks and bright crosswalks on every street in the country, wearing reflective clothes is common sense. Comparing that to a helmet mandate is absurd.

Ugh, talk about a false equivalence

No, someone who pops out to the shops should not have to think about putting on reflective gear, someone who goes out in a car a night should be the ** aware pedestrians exist and know to turn their lights on.

No because the default for all of human existence is that I wear my normal street clothing to walk from my home to my neighbors house, or the market.

The idea that innovations demand normal folks to change their way of life is absurd on the face. Very simple measures, like major consequences for all vehicle-pedestrian collisions would solve this better.

>”like major consequences for all vehicle-pedestrian collisions would solve this better.”

There are already major consequences for hitting a pedestrian.

Yes, for the pedestrian. A driver can pretty much commit murder behind the wheel and get by with token penalties.

A failure to yield citation, maybe with an additional citation for negligent or distracted driving is not a major consequence. Insurance tends to cover the monetary cost of the civil suit, and higher auto insurance bills aren't really a "major consequence" either.

To be charged with vehicular assault or manslaughter you have to prove intent, most of these collisions are a result of mild negligence or even poor roadway design. Many states don't have any kind of charge for negligent collision that results in jail time. And yes if you kill or injure someone while driving distracted I think 3-6 months in jail is still pretty minor, given that consequences can be permanent.

Sure, it does not hurt to wear such clothes. But those arguments aren't mutually exclusive, and by always repeating them, public discussions tend to shift towards the arguments that blame the weaker ones (i.e., cyclists, pedestrians), often neglecting the underlying issues at fault (reckless car drivers or unsafe infrastructure).

For instance, in many cases, when a car has injured a cyclist severely, there could have been infrastructure to prevent this (e.g. separate bike lanes, clear road layouts, …). A helmet would not have prevented the accident.

Similarly, unless someone's crossing a dark street at night without looking for oncoming traffic, why should pedestrians have to be wearing reflective gear all the time, when there could be well-illuminated crosswalks, slower driving speeds, speed bumps etc.?

(I'm not claiming there aren't cyclists ignoring red lights or pedestrians randomly crossing roads in unsafe situations … that's usually the next argument.)

I don't understand the problem and, seemingly, the outrage in some of the replies.

If it is dark and there's traffic it is safer and useful for everyone to be visible. Obviously this depends on how well the streets are lit, if they are very well lit it may not be a big issue.

As a pedestrian at night (which is pretty much any commute to/from work in winter in the UK) I know that sometimes cars don't see me or see me at the last moment if I wear dark clothes, or even any clothes that are not high-viz.

And as a driver I know that this is because pedestrians, or even cyclists at crossings, can be very difficult to see in low light conditions (good forbid there's fog as well!) even if you're driving carefully.

This is all common sense, really.

In my neighbourhood, which is residential and poorly lit as many are here in the UK, people also wear lights on themselves when they walk their dogs in the evening, and they usually also make the dogs wear lights.

When I go running in the evening I wear a high-viz jacket and one of those chest lights so that I can be seen and can see the potholes as well.

Again, common sense for safety in such conditions.

No matter who is to blame reflective elements on clothing increase visibility and safety. Of course nothing would help if a driver is distracted by a smartphone but this is another problem. As a pedestrian I wish I could wear only jackets with reflective stripes but in most cases there is no such option available.

Even when I cycle (which implies speed much lower than for a car) I sometimes notice pedestrians in dark garments (without reflective elements) at a small distance and have to brake hard (moving light beam up would help to see them further but it would blind both pedestrians and other drivers).

So dark colored cars are also dangerous then?

Cars have lights and reflectors

Where is it legal to operate a dark colored car in the dark without lights?

We require cars and bicycles to have lights on at night to make it easier for other drivers to be able to stop their car quickly enough.

I don’t see why we couldn’t require some reasonable action from pedestrians, too. I’m not suggesting pedestrians should become Christmas trees, but things like “don’t be dressed in Vantablack” seem reasonable to me.

Firstly, though, street designs should aim to have street lighting wherever car drivers and pedestrians are expected to interact.

"Being a pedestrian" is the default state of a human outdoors. What are you going to do to enforce a requirement someone fails to meet take away their going outside privileges?

The car has the light and is already contributing to being able to see and avoid the pedestrian.

The pedestrian now has an independent choice to wear clothing that helps make themself visible or clothing that makes them harder to see. Their own safety will be affected by their choice.

I wouldn’t pass a law requiring it, but I do choose light/visible clothes for myself and for my family when out at night.

The logic behind my thinking is more based on what we do as humans to be safe.

For example:

When it is cold, we wear protective gear to keep us warm.

When the UV index is high, we wear protective gear to protect our skin.

When it is dark, we wear reflective elements to be seen.

Obviously not everyone subscribed to that thinking, and it is not my intention to shift blame.

It doesn't shift blame because there is no blame. It's just the mechanics of human factors: reflective clothing adds visbility, which increases available response time of drivers, which reduces injury.

For some reason it's much easier to buy black or charcoal outerwear than something bright and reflective. I myself am baffled by this. As for the Prius-- something happened in the last few years and horrible, anti-social driving became much more prevalent. There were always a few... but now those folks seem to be everywhere, tailgating, aggressively ignoring crosswalks, damaging property and driving away. It's still not mainstream behavior, but it's very visible lately.

> For some reason it's much easier to buy black or charcoal outerwear than something bright and reflective. I myself am baffled by this.

That's the same thing in France especially for winter clothes, and given that night are longer in winter that's makes it even worse!

Now that I think about it, the same can be said about outerwear here in Norway, but I just realised that I’m used to seeing the reflective band or vest standout.

Bright colors are generally a lot more controversial than dark ones.

You can see it in business attire.

There are many people who lost their minds over the past two years and haven’t recovered.

It doesn’t help that many cities stopped routine traffic enforcement during the same period.

> the inconvenience of having to yield to a pedestrian was some kind of trigger

I've experienced this in the UK as well using a zebra crossing. A driver decided to accelerate at me and then slam on the brakes as late as possible, then lean out the window to swear and tell me to get out the way.

It definitely seems like extremely aggressive driving has become more common over the last few years. Not sure if it's just driving or the general attitude of people due to covid, inflation etc causing people to have shorter fuses.

The same thing happened to me recently! I had the walk indicator lit, crossing in a cross walk, someone comes speeding up to me and stopped and yelled at me to "get my ass out of the road." Someone else drove up on the sidewalk and almost hit me -- they were on their phone when it happened. People are nuts.

My pet theory is lot of people overextended themselves due to easy financing[0] and are perpetually frustrated when driving due to the insatisfaction of getting very little of what they imagined. They are just commuting like everyone else but with an additional big bad financial decision. Pedestrians, bicycles, other drivers, everything then become an instant scapegoat for their frustration.

[0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-14/new-car-p...

> Pedestrians, bicycles, other drivers, everything then become an instant scapegoat for their frustration

Yeah, but if you yell at other drivers, they don't hear you so you can do it safely.

If you yell (possibly with open window) to pedestrian/biker they hear you and "take harm" (however small it is).

Another "priviledge" od being in car. Total isolation, including isolation from consequences of your own dick moves.

The very social situation of being canned box is reason for so much frustration of drivers. When you're on bike/feet you behave much better usually.

It sounds like a variety of road rage which is an interesting psychological phenomena.

There is something about that act of driving and the environment of a drivers seat that breeds maladaptive emotional responses. I think it's partly being alone and disconnected from other road users that generates runaway sense of entitlement and cooking off emotionally without any regulating social factors.

I think that both driving and internet use have a common de-socialisation effect fuelling similar negative behaviours.

One time a guy had to brake real hard as he almost ran a red light as I was crossing, he beeped at my and i told him to f himself, he drove the car around the block and assaulted me.

I am sorry that happened to You.

That sucks. I've had sorta-similar experiences, but I've probably provoked them...

If I have the right-of-way,e.g., stop sign AND I'm in the street when the automobile is 3/4 of the block away and they still try blowing through the intersection with me being in front of them...

I either grab as high [front of the vehicle] as I can if I'm getting run-over, or, if a near-miss, I park one of my heavy boots into the side of their car (not recommended, I tend to dent it but I get tossed to the ground by their velocity).

I live in Seattle, Belltown specifically, for 20 years, and spend much time in Pike Place Market [0]. I've worn a long black coat for the past 40 years; and this stuff only happens during daylight.

The people who "circle around" to confront are rare.

In those situations I behave calmly, explain what is going on, and most of the the time, we walk away.

Now to atone... I do not put up with this in my neighborhood. I am lucky that I call an Attorney. Instead of seeing another "blah foo blah person...getting harassed by a "bum" I find either a compassionate human who figures-it-out or a dick-w that wants to punch me out.

Just massive sense of entitlement, either bred by spoiling children, or by abuse, breeding a "might is right" mentality.

Why should pedestrians wear protective gear? It's like telling non-smokers to wear respirators if they don't want to passively smoke. Going outside should be the normal default and shouldn't require suiting up like you're going into battle.

The difference you describe is more cultural. In Europe most people who are able to walk regularly. Cars are used for longer distances and perhaps a few super lazy people. But generally everyone knows what it's like to walk. Most people don't know what it's like to cycle, though. So people get angry at cyclists all the time. In the US people don't even walk. Walking is seen as a leisure pursuit, not as a way to get around. So basically pedestrians are treated the same way cyclists are here.

It essentially boils down to empathy. People who have only ever used a car can't relate to people outside of a car. They can't imagine what it's like being exposed to the elements or having to actually expend energy to move. You'll see people completely soak pedestrians or cyclists by driving through puddles. Or getting frustrated that cyclists aren't going above 20mph because they have no fossil fuel assistance.

I think if everyone was required to work their way up to having the responsibility of operating a car things would be much better. I think at least a year spent using a bicycle or other non-motorised vehicle should be required before being able to use a car. Pilots don't get straight into jumbo jets as soon as they've learnt to walk. Why do we let people get straight into cars?

Most areas don’t let you drive a car until 16 or even 18: but whether people are shuttled around before that or transport themselves.

If there are usable sidewalks and every crosswalk is illuminated by street lights, there's almost no need to wear reflective gear, especially if the speed limit in built-up areas is kept low for safety... it's all about the provided infrastructure..

Time the lights and the crosswalks to the lights.

Do not _artificially_ lower a speed limit (people will drive the speed that feels safe) nor _artificially_ make a roadway more dangerous (it will be more dangerous).

Or even better still, build a separated pedestrian way. Skybridges, underground shopping district tunnels, all sorts of engineering solutions exist for isolating pedestrian and vehicle traffic entirely which will maximize safety and in climates with adverse weather encourage year round walking.

You don't need to make the infrastructure more dangerous to lower speeds, it only needs to feel that way (narrower RoW with some plants around, more constant small curves, ...). If it would be more dangerous at higher speeds, but speeds are decreased due to this, it is often safer in the end.

Separate pedestrian ways mostly suck. Segragated infra in very bad weather is used, but in most conditions walking at ground level is preferred. In Germany, many Pedestrian Underpasses (often with shops), Overpasses, Skywalks were abandoned in favor of level-crossings, due to accessability concerns, pedestrian dislike, maintainance hassle and the general tendency of them to get unattractive very quickly.

The Netherlands seems to do pretty well with segregated infrastructure?

My understanding is that in dense towns and cities, the Dutch don't segregate infra very much. Though at some level of density/space they tend to drop car lanes entirely, like in the densest plazas of city centres.

In rural areas, segregated infra makes a ton of sense. Nobody wants to be near noisy, dangerous cars over 40mph. So they build separate bike and pedestrian paths in rural areas to connect the denser parts of the country without the need to get in a car in between.

It's a mix. On mid-size urban roads, the bike, ped, and auto lanes tend to be separated, but usually at the same grade. On smaller urban roads, bike and auto can be mixed, but speed limits are generally lower there than in the US. And in the suburbs/rural areas, there are definitely completely separate bike paths (in addition to mix of other layouts).

Typical urban road... https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XuBdf9jYj7o/maxresdefault.jpg https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/cyclelanes0...

Mixed on a slow neighborhood road (30kph is 18mph)... https://coordinates.ce.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/images...

Completely separate bike path... https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/cyclelanes0...

In the sense that they're not part of the road and may have their own RoW, yes. In the sense that non-ground level infrastructure is commonly used do replace level crossings and seperate cars and others, no.

> You don't need to make the infrastructure more dangerous to lower speeds, it only needs to feel that way (narrower RoW with some plants around, more constant small curves, ...).

That probably won't work long-term, see for example 55mph state highways that newcomers to the area tend to drive annoyingly slow on.

It's pretty setteled that people tend to drive slower on eg. narrow/twisty roads or with more stuff near the road (e.g. trees in an alleyway), even after acclimating to them.

Underground passages are so welcoming at night. Bridges need accessibility, lifts etc, all these are very costly too. Better still, make cars drive slower around pedestrians, increase penalties for cars that hit pedestrians and let them stop thinking that speeding is just something everyone does.

If I'm reading it right, the advice in your comment is basically "Bad Infrastructure Planning 101" in 2023.

The right way to do it is what the Dutch do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAxRYrpbnuA

It's called "traffic calming".

Oh, and underground pedestrian walkways, skybridges, etc are absolutely horrible long term solutions. If you'd use one of them for extended periods of time, you'd know. They're generally under maintained over the decades, they tend to get dirty and attract homeless people as shelter (I don't want to get into the debate of why homeless people need to use them as shelter), they're for various reason a top target for muggings, they inconvenience the people you should be encouraging (pedestrians) by greatly increasing the distances they have to walk, which means that people will just stop walking when their 500m straight line walk becomes a 1.2km runaround, etc.

Why not put the drivers underground? Raise gas taxes to pay for it.

Portland street lights are hilariously dim and its nearly always cloudy and hence extra dark by 5:30pm in the winter, I am terrified of hitting someone here.

> I suspect that also has a negative effect on drivers as it can be extremely difficult to see pedestrians.

It seems the best efforts in reducing pedestrian casualties have been in making the road more complicated to drivers.

A sister comment mentions making street narrower with more obstacles. I’ve also seen straight street transformed into multicurves ones. Fake pedestrian statues set at crossing points. Fake painting on the road that force the driver to focus etc.

And all of these (unfortunately for drivers?) seem to have had a positive effect in the towns that implemented them (at least while the driver doesn’t get used to them in the case of non obstructive setups).

The first part -- narrower lanes and less straight ways (also centerline islands in straight roads, and at intersections) -- are part of Vision Zero approach. The approach is directed at subconscious level and aims to make driver more attentive, not to complicate or irritate. I drove at such roads, it dosen't feel wrong or irritating. No problem to make a left turn behind a centerline island, rather than cut the turn. I feel much unsafer at big "runway" roads.

Fake pedestrian statues and painting are the opposite and strogly discouraged, because they distract driver from real pedestrians and numb attention. These are just fantasies of police departments.

> Another observation was that very few pedestrians wear reflective gear

I don't think this is so prevalent everywhere, among cyclists maybe, and maybe if you're planning on walking down some dark country roads with no pavement.

Honestly, this one struck me as maybe a step too far, walking around town should not really require protective gear

I think the reflective thing is a red herring and can simply be explained by latitude. It gets dark in northern England at about 3pm in winter, so even earlier in Oslo, whereas Portland is on the same latitude as southern France.

There’s also a difference in areas seen in how pedestrians walk - some cities you will NEVER see a pedestrian enter the road except at a marked crosswalk, others they just walk across at any place.

And it’s not 100% clear which is overall safer - the latter can result in drivers always looking but a moment inattentiveness can result in disaster. (The main advantage of slower speeds is the driver can react in time; a pedestrian hit even at 10 mph is not going to do well.)

> In Norway, pedestrians are expected to wear reflective gear and drivers

The fuck they are.

Pedestrians, viz. anyone walking, is not expected to wear anything but clothes.

> come together to try and improve the safety in the states -- significantly safer walking in Oslo, Norway than in Portland, OR.

Portland person here. I drive, and I have some competence at it, no tickets in about 50 years of driving, but it is growing very difficult to drive safely. I am a retired guy who drives at whatever speed I consider safe according to conditions, and I try to follow the rules. But so many drivers are in such a rush, so many bicylists drive like stunt men, and the time pressures of modern life and road systems overloaded with cars probably damage safety seriously by raising everyone's stress and pulse rate.

The traffic engineers (or the bureaucrats) who control the traffic controls know that the fewer people who drive, the safer we all will be, but that relationship only holds when other factors are constant. We have road and traffic systems now that seem to be designed purely to discourage driving. Like everyone other than the driver (buses, trolleys, bicycles, roller-skaters, skateboarders, pedal-powered delivery trucks, ...) has the right-of-way and the driver is presumed wrong if any encounter, however illogical and incomprehensible, with the other modes of transportation should occur. Too many creative, novel, and unfathomable patterns of paint on the pavement that mostly are supposed to create safe zones for the other modes without any safety-preserving and unambiguous physical barriers; too many directions to look (like six at many intersections) from which people may be getting into a driver's path in less than a second. Did I mention that about zero percent of the municipal experts who come up with all this chaos are within 20 years of my demographic, so they have no idea of what percentage of the population has to have a very very good day as a driver to not raise anyone else's eyebrows or scare themselves to death.

This situation is just another obvious sign that the auto-centric economy is not benign. I rarely drive more than twice in a week, but those trips would cost around 20 percent of my Social Security and 20 percent of my time if I tried to do them without a personal vehicle. It seems like the most likely shot we have at de-fanging the horrible auto is that the huge number of drivers will clog the roads and foul the air so much that no one will want to drive any more, so we'll have to find a better way.

Portland OR is a funny example. We recently moved here from TX and by far the biggest thing that stood out to us is how frequently people stop to let us cross the road. Something I would occasionally see in TX, you see literally constantly here -- it's generally expected to yield to pedestrians. I'm unsure if it's law or culture, but it is very different than other places I have visited.

And yet, the in regards to pedestrian safety it _feels_ less safe for pedestrians here. The visibility is simply much lower in the winter, the roads are smaller, the lights dimmer, and the walkers more abundant. It's a very interesting difference from TX and a few other places I've been.

In other countries pedestrians don’t have the right of way and the US has a lot more immigrants than Norway so it may just be that driver didn’t learn the laws here

> US has a lot more immigrants than Norway so it may just be that driver didn’t learn the laws here

In absolute numbers, yes.

Percentage-wise? No.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...

Norway ........... 852,238 ............. 15.72%

United States ... 50,632,836 ........ 15.28%

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