The article seems to paint the automakers as a cabal of villains for convincing people to not walk in front of a moving vehicle. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of it.
You have to admit, that it pretty terrible.
This is also evil, though I'm not sure who is to blame for it.
Surely the perfect murder would look like an act of complete provenance, with no apparent ties to anyone else or suspicions as to the cause.
The Canadian Supreme Court actually stated this principle in a decision where they weighed the "social value" of driving against the responsibility of the driver. If we were to make drivers strictly responsible for their actions we would make the value of the automobile less.
Ref: R v Roy
Also, I think the tide is shifting. Many cities are moving towards more pedestrian friendly corridors, replacing some streets with parks etc.
But that's orthogonal -- the cities are saying "no cars here". They're not saying "hey, peds get (more) preference on the car-shared roads now". They still enforce the very same car/foot traffic separation that the auto industry (and anyone concerned with safety) wanted.
If you and I are walking on the sidewalk, we're equals. It's as much your responsibility not to run into me as it is my responsibility to run into you. According to the article, before cars the situation was the same in the street. Everyone was equal. With the advent of jaywalking laws, suddenly cars are prioritized above all other traffic. If a car hits someone who wasn't in the street at a designated spot, the car has no responsibility for the accident.
Go run over a pedestrian (even one who technically shouldn't have been there) and let us know how that works out.
[1] http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...
Usually it's considered an "accident". The one thing you can't do is "hit and run", you must stop. The police aggressively investigate hit-and-run accidents.
There is no liability unless you are "negligent". So if you've been drinking and driving you could face both civil and criminal penalty.
And certainly you can be sued by whoever you hit. And maybe your insurance company will pay the pedestrian, but that's usually because it's cheaper to pay a few medical bills than to pay lawyers to continue to litigate. Cost-benefit analysis.
There have been three pedestrians killed by trams in the UK in the last 20 years[1]. Every accident/incident gets a 30+ page independent report (linked from [1]). Railway safety has reached the point where the greatest danger to passengers is falling down stairs, or tripping over when running. The last fatality to someone on a train was on 23 February 2007.
How different things would be if a fatal road accident led to a 30-page report concluding with a set of recommendations and an expectation that they'd all be implemented.
[1] https://aib-cms.co.uk/sites/raib/publications/reports_by_typ...
There have been 34 deaths in just one portion of the light rail, in less than 30 years. A few are classified as suicide.[3]
There are some barriers and crossing gates, but MAX mostly runs alongside pedestrians and vehicles. It's up to the pedestrians to pay attention.
Edit: BTW I think that what we call "light rail" may be larger than what you consider a tram and what we call a "streetcar". A MAX car is about 28 meters long, a streetcar is about 20 meters long.[4]
[1] http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2014/08/max_tr...
[2] http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/12/man_str...
[3]http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/06/man_kil...
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Streetcar#Compatibilit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV2rdGX4JYc
Funny thing is, despite its relatively small size, it's one of the most heavily used rails in the country (last I checked).
It's not always sufficient to just "look out for people". It is quite possible that the driver, at the speed they're driving at, does not have the reflexes or braking distance to safely stop when encountering a "jaywalker".
The alternative that many people propose is to reduce driving speed to "safe" values, which I always thought naive. Even if you make everyone drive at 20MPH inside cities, you'll still have people exceeding that limit and getting into accidents. IMHO, it's just safer to keep pedestrians away from cars.
>It's not always sufficient to just "look out for people"....
Is it reasonable to say "... well I can't be looking out for a police car working a traffic accident, it's really more their fault than mine..."
That seems to be the implication if the collision is vehicle/person vs. vehicle/vehicle.
At some point it's not unreasonable for drivers have to pull their heads out of their asses and "look out for people" as they drive.
The point is, and this is the real crux of the issue, when you're traveling at the speeds that the automobile was invented, purchased, licensed, taxed, and the road was paved to support, you don't always have the ability to react to obstructions that come up suddenly, such as a pedestrian stepping off of a crowded sidewalk.
So what most people here seem to be arguing is, cars are inherently bad. Streets should always be crowded with people walking on foot, no matter the weather, because it is the only mode of transportation ordained by God and Steve Jobs, and to hell with peoples' want of freedom to travel in comfort on their own schedule.
Cars are a great tool for travelling from one city to another, but they kind of suck for getting around a crowded city center. Yet, the streets in the city center are still giving the highest priority to cars, at least partly because car manufacturers lobbied for it to be that way.
Cars shouldn't be driving at high speeds along sidewalks. It's extremely dangerous and unplesant.
if you're driving to fast to stop for a pedestrian from a crowded sidewalk, you shouldnt have a license.
The key is how you make everyone drive 20mph. It's been pretty well established that speed limits do a horrible job of forcing drivers to slow down and are even counter productive since a small minority of drivers will actually follow them. This creates a delta between them and the majority of drivers and deltas between drivers, more so than absolute speed, contribute to an increase in accidents.
However you can actually slow drivers down by making the lanes narrower. Drivers may complain, object and lobby to revert back to wider lanes, but they'll actually slow down until that happens.
Horses have priority over hikers and mountain bikers on trails because horses spook, and around here hikers defer to mountain bikers because a hiker can quickly stop and step off the trail, while the biker cannot.
Also, it's not true that the vehicle automatically bears no responsibility if they strike a jaywalker.
I suppose there's some room for debate about whether it's the "right" thing, as the goal of the article seems to be "hey, roads used to be for PEOPLE", apparently forgetting that there's people in the cars as well whose want and right to unobstructed travel is just as valid as those outside the car.
Beyond simple use of space, cars moving at high speeds preclude a safe and pleasant experience for those outside of cars. The driver's desire to travel at high speeds is perfectly reasonable, but when we as a society attempt to meet that desire in a dense urban area, the result is unpleasant at best and deadly at worst.
The automobile industry didn't just push for equal rights for cars. They already had that. They wanted exclusive rights, and they used the problem of pedestrian deaths as leverage.
On a more on topic note, I'm trying to imagine a world where personal cars didn't take off. What would be the difference (at least in the US)? More cities, less suburbans comes to mind. Will it be better?
25-30% of commuters in the NYC metro area drive solo, the rest take subway/bus/commuter rail, walk, or some other form (ferry, carpool).
And, of course, the number of pedestrians is far more vast than the number of cars.
…and if that were the definition of "jaywalking", you might be on to something. :\
Underlying your comment is the assumption that it is the walker's responsibility to not be injured, not the driver's responsibility not to cause injury. It begs the question.
If one crosses into the territory of the other without following a prescribed rule of law, who do you think should take responsibility?
In order for me to "drive into a pedestrian" I'd have to swing my car onto a crowded sidewalk, and unless a swarm of bees exits the car with me I'd have a hard time maintaining my innocence after that.
Everything else is just a dirt path, and I know people that have to drive on those if they want to go anywhere, too.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2013/apr/16...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_the_United_S...
> Easily 99% of roads were built for the operation of cars.
Which is what I was disputing.
The automobile is a deep incursion into our lives, for the benefit of some, and great risk and cost to others. The automobile has no inalienable right of way across the entirety of our communities.