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Comment by sammax | Hacker News Reader

> Any traffic incident here always involve two people who failed to comply with traffic laws.

Are you sure about that? It would mean that it's technically illegal to cross a road unless you're absolutely certain that there can't be a speeding driver around the next corner who's gonna get to you faster than you can react. Or that you aren't allowed to cross the street at a green light even when all the cars are waiting because you can't actually be certain that a car isn't gonna start driving suddenly and run you over. Or that someone tailgating you is somehow caused in part by you.

It's pretty ridiculous to claim that both sides failed to comply with the laws in every incident.

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Yes, 100%, it is illegal to cross the road unless you can be reasonable certain that doing so won't cause an accident.

Look at the perspective of the law maker. The goal is zero traffic accidents, the vision zero as it is called (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero). If pedestrian think that they have a given right to cross the road then there is a risk that people won't apply common sense but rather just step out on the road without looking or thinking.

Similarly, the driver of the car is always guilty of negligence, regardless if the pedestrian is at fault. This include if the pedestrian walk against red. Just because the other party is also at fault does not diminish the obligations of the driver to not hit a pedestrian. Regardless of traffic light, the driver is not allowed to drive over the crossing unless they are reasonable certain to not cause a traffic incident.

In the extreme, if both driver and pedestrian wanted to be 100% guarantied to not cause an accident then both would simply stand still. In practice both hopefully act with common sense and work together to avoid an accident, which happens to align with the goal of those who wrote the law.

>> Any traffic incident here always involve two people who failed to comply with traffic laws.

> Are you sure about that?

There are at least single vehicle incidents which do not involve two people. Over cooking a corner and spearing off into the scenery is just one person fucking up.

But I agree with the thrust of the GPs argument, in any two (or more) vehicle incident, there was probably one party who “caused” it, and another party who should have avoided it. Not _every_ incident, but I’d argue that it applies to the vast majority of multiple vehicle incidents.

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