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Comment by acchow | Hacker News Reader

There were 222 pedestrian urban-area deaths in Spain in 2025.

There is a risk of just being outside. Usually due to cars.

That's not really fair though. Almost all pedestrians who get hit by cars could have avoided the accident if they were observant and took responsibility for their own safety. People just walk out in front of cars, assuming they will stop, buried in their phone with earplugs in.

I'm not saying it's not the drivers' fault, of course it is and it should continue to be the driver's responsibility to avoid hitting pedestrians. But the roads are full of idiots, scrolling TikTok while driving, driving drunk, high, looking more at their passenger than the road etc. If you routinely put your safety in their hands then you're likely to end up in an accident eventually.

If you take responsibility for your own safety, look both ways before(and during) crossing a road, make sure the driver has seen you and is stopping before walking in front of a car etc then you are almost entirely safe from these kinds of accidents. Very few people get hit by cars without first walking out in front of a moving car.

You can't take responsibility for your own safety in a train. At least not beyond choosing the car you're in.

You’re making these claims and providing zero data to back them up

The claim that most people hit by cars were in the street?

Claim that pedestrians are more at fault than the drivers

I literally made the opposite claim:

> I'm not saying it's not the drivers' fault, of course it is and it should continue to be the driver's responsibility to avoid hitting pedestrians. But the roads are full of idiots, scrolling TikTok while driving, driving drunk, high, looking more at their passenger than the road etc. If you routinely put your safety in their hands then you're likely to end up in an accident eventually.

My claims are self-evident. Anyone with any common sense can tell this is just a description of reality.

Cars don't just appear out of nowhere. They are for the most part highly predictable.

I should add the caveat that I am specifically talking about Western countries where traffic is quite orderly. In Thailand we had to cross multi-lane roads by just walking into traffic while traffic weaved around us, they wouldn't stop for us even at crossings unless there were lights. In this situation you don't have much of a choice. Here in Norway, cars will stop for you so there is no need to walk out until you are sure the car is stopping. Some times if I'm crossing a multi-lane road I'll walk across one lane then stop and make sure the car coming in the next lane is also stopping for me. Some times they don't. I look both ways even on one way streets.

I've had many situations where drivers clearly don't notice me, and since I didn't walk in front of them I'm fine. Also had a few situations where someone I'm with walks out and I pull them back just in time to watch a car/bus pass right in front of them.

You are still arguing with anecdotal evidence. I’m not saying pedestrians aren’t at fault, I just don’t believe that they are more at fault.

Also cars are not highly predictable. Where I live you could have one driver that stops at every crossing, even when they don’t have a stop sign, which causes lots of confusion. There are also those drivers that will always stop for a pedestrian and others that will not. At the end of the day cars are an extension of their human, so if you are arguing that human without car is unpredictable, then it can also be argued that human with car is equally unpredictable.

You're just not understanding my point. I never said pedestrians are more at fault. I said they can avoid trusting their life to strangers in cars. It's still the driver's fault if they hit a pedestrian, but that does not change the fact that the pedestrian chose to walk out into the road in front of a moving car. You don't have to make that choice. You don't have to trust drivers.

You choose whether you trust a driver or not. Personally I choose to never trust them, and that's why I'm much less likely to be hit by a car. Because I do not put drivers in that position where they have to notice me and react in time in order to not hit me. I simply wait by the side of the road until I am sure that they have noticed me and are reacting in time.

When I said cars are predictable I meant cars are almost exclusively on the road. If you are not in the road you are generally safe from cars, if you walk into a road you need to watch out for cars. If a car is moving towards you at 30mph you can assume it will continue to do so, and so you should not walk in front of it until you see it slow down.

You can not assume it will always stop for you if you do walk in front of it. This is not unpredictability, this is you putting your trust in a stranger. It is predictable that the driver might not have seen you. It is predictable what happens if the driver does not see you.

You can't know whether a driver will see you and react in time. That's why I'm saying you should not trust that they will. You should assume that they're idiots and act accordingly, because a huge amount of drivers are idiots. Don't trust them. Make sure you are safe. Take responsibility for your own safety, don't put it in their hands.

And just for the record, even the best drivers may have accidents. Nobody's perfect. Shit happens.

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