I can already hear the carbrainrotten screaming “But thats dangerous, what if i run into it” as if the danger wasnt their own fault for going too fast and not yielding.
They might get a few scratches from those flimsy flexible plastics but it’s not dangerous.
They’ll definitely compassion about the possibility for scratches screaming, “that could damage my property!” though.
Many drivers won’t stop unless they’re forced to by a physical barrier, and some still won’t stop. Ever seen those videos from Europe of bus lane bollards that retract when a bus approaches and pop back up again after the bus passes, and the cars wrecked on them? Those are much more solid barriers than these plastic things.
I remember a driver on Reddit losing their shit about bus-lane modal filters - the kind that will wreck the underside of your car if you ignore all the signs and drive over them anyway. They could not imagine the cruelty.
Those plastic things are just for show, as part of the campaign, which is why the drivers seem surprised that they’re there. They’re not actually installed on any roads. But having them pop up as the car approaches if there’s a pedestrian on the corner makes it obvious that the car needs to stop.
It’s cute but this is from the same province that would rather blame immigrant drivers for road fatalities than the failing, inconsistent infrastructure and terrible driver training.
In Montreal, the drivers are bad enough that turning right on red lights was banned because we couldn’t stop killing pedestrians.
Montréal never banned right on red.
No right on red was the default, then most of Canada enabled right on red in the 1970, but Québec did not. Québec later enabled right on red by default in 2003, but Montréal (island) retained no right on red.
And RToR is bad everywhere. We’veknow it for a long time, but have jsut collectivelydecoded the cost was worth it. Here’s an article from Victoira in 1981 talking about it https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107821508/times-colonist-victoria-may-5-1981/
it’s cute and all, but the real reason they don’t stop is because the authorities aren’t enforcing that law effectively. the places where people stop crosswalks do so because they’ll get a ticket if they don’t.
this may raise awareness, but won’t change behavior in the long run.
when i lived more in the city and didn’t own a car i would make hard eye contact with drivers when crossing. my logic was that if they kill me I’ll at least haunt their dreams with that look.
I’m not convinced it’s all about enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, there’s not much threat of enforcement but cars stop at the slightest hint of a pedestrian crossing anywhere. Not sure how they pulled it off but there it’s a culture thing, not enforcement.
That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.
Cyclists have a name for that and I think it’s something like “the life saving look”. Usually used when changing lanes or at an intersection.
Motorcyclists have a name for that, it’s “What the fuck you looked right at me!??”. Usually used when a car is taking a left turn directly infront of a bike.
If your traffic infrastructure requires a cop to stand there for it to work, it’s shit infrastructure that’s designed to fail.
