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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times.

I was making a right turn on a 40mph road on a green light. There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road.

And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK.

There's a reason we have signs. Follow the signs. Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle.

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So you're driving at over 60km/h in the city (which is illegal in many countries and for a good reason) at night near a blind corner and narrowly avoid killing people and you think you did nothing wrong and it would be their own fault.

That's the exact attitude that criminalization of jaywalking is teaching drivers. And that's exactly why it's killing people every day.

It's just as absurd as making a law that forbids women to walk alone at night (for their own safety) and blaming them if they break that law and get raped.

For every instance a driver like you has with someone crossing like that, there are probably 100+ of someone walking and a driver nearly plowing over them.

I walk and bike around my town a lot, and I'm very cognizant of my surroundings.

I can not even count how many times I've had people driving see me start to go in to a crosswalk and just totally blast through it, back out of driveways where I was very visible on the driver's side and not even look (TWICE only getting attention in time to not get hit by bashing on the car), people driving at high speed in to parking lots inches away.

A month ago I was walking out of a nearby park on the only road in and out, that doesn't have a sidewalk for some idiotic reason, and I had some asshole try to sideswipe me and ended up clipping me with their mirror on purpose.

Think about this next time you bring up a single instance of someone walking in a dangerous way. The design of cities in the US and the contempt of many people driving is many, many times worse for pedestrians than the other way around.

> You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times.

You're being ridiculous here. Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for sensible road design and sensible rules.

> because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK.

That's shitty road design (if the crosswalk is 40ft from a blind blocked corner in either direction, someone might not see it travelling at speed), and arguably careless driving - blind corners could have a deer, pedestrian, broken down car, etc.

> Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle.

Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead.

> Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead.

This is disingenuous.

Say for instance a person wants to die by being hit by traffic: they can jump out from behind a parked car right as the car passes. So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone.

I'm not saying cars are never at fault (I walk, ride a bike, and ride a motorcycle, each more than I drive a car; I've got plenty of first hand experience with at-fault drivers) but framing it this way seems very dishonest to me.

> So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone.

Only a sith deals in absolutes. Just because you can't prevent someone who _wants_ to be hit from being hit doesn't mean you shouldn't be completely vigilant. As an example, it's not reasonable to expect an obstruction on highway/motorway traffic, but it _is_ on a 40mph road with crosswalks.

> Only a sith deals in absolutes.

So you agree with my position then.

The post I was responding to was the one dealing in absolutes. I was saying that vigilance, while important, is not the only factor.

I want to see drivers be more vigilant. What I don't want is for people to defend a position that I hold, but with an argument that is easy to debunk.

If you're driving along a road with parked cars, you slow to a speed where if someone (say a 4 year old child) jumps out you can stop within your reaction time. Anything else is dangerously reckless.

That's not a realistic goal. Even at 20 MPH, a well timed jump from between parked cars could leave someone closer then your reaction time.

Sure it is. Have people drive at 5MPH, or as slow as it takes for them to be safe. That it's inconvenient to you to drive safely is your problem

> If you're driving along a road with parked cars, you slow to a speed where if someone (say a 4 year old child) jumps out you can stop within your reaction time. Anything else is dangerously reckless.

Going substantially slower than the posted speed limit is a ticketable offense in most areas.

It also makes it more difficult for other drivers to judge your speed and position if you are not going either the posted or "accepted" speed for that stretch of road. This can and does cause accidents, particularly in retirement communities where older drivers slow down because they feel it will be safer.

My previous post was merely stating that driver vigilance is not the only factor in a collision with a pedestrian. Jumping out in front of the car is just one example because it's easy to visualize.

I am very much not stating that drivers are already vigilant enough. Only pushing back against a disingenuous statement. I don't want people to espouse a view I agree with (drivers should be more vigilant) with an argument that is easy to debunk.

You have a choice to not drive on that road.

>> You're being ridiculous here. Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for sensible road design and sensible rules.

Oh, you'd be surprised what "city activists" can devise in their stupid heads in my country. Their recent idea is: driver hiting pederastian should always be at fault, even if a drunk pederastian is suddenly jumping in front of their car, from behind the parked car or other obstacle.

If you can't see around the bend, you're required to slow down so that there is sufficient room for you to stop, should there be a vehicle, pedestrian, or obstruction in the road.

> There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees,

1.) If you cant see, you should not speed up.

2.) If you cant see, she cant see the crossroad either. Also, pedestrians dont are the ones with requirement to have driving license - drivers are the ones supposed to be in the know and in control.

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