Wha-a-aat?
Acknowledging that motorists should stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk is asinine and dangerous? 
No.
They.
Won’t.
The “fool” would be the one that steps out into moving traffic because the law is on their side.
Shit I’m lost now, this is turning into Bizarro World SDMB. **Kltpzyxm **
Glad I’m not the only one. I say that motorists should not mow down pedestrians in the street, and I get insulted?
I agree with Czarcasm that it is unwise to step in the path of a moving vehicle; even when you have a crosswalk and a “Walk” sign, it would still behoove you to make sure that traffic is actually going to stop before venturing out. But I fail to see how I’m out of my mind to assert that most drivers will do their utmost to stop for pedestrians in their path, regardless of who thinks who has the “right of way.” Sure, there will be the occasional sociopath or idiot, but I would hope they’re the exception.
Waaaait a minute…I think maybe I see what’s happening here. When I said “any fool” would stop for a pedestrian in his path, did you think I meant that someone who stops for a pedestrian is a fool? I thought that was a commonly understood figure of speech, meaning anyone/everyone would stop.
We had a horrible trajedy here in town several months ago. The mentally handicapped couple who established their role in our local society by delivering the local newspaper early in the morning (promptly and reliably) were cut down and killed as they attempted to cross the street. The motorist was not declared at fault. It certainly would have been preferable in this case had the motorist come to a full stop.
After getting hit by vehicles three times in the last two years(though not seriously, thank ghod), forgive me if I’m a little nervous about your approach to pedestrian crossings. Yes, most vehicles will stop-but for me to cross safely, all vehicles have to stop. You narrow the list of people who might hit a pedestrian to a very rare “occasional sociopath or idiot”, but to the list you must add people who are looking in their rear-view mirrors for some reason or another, people who are distracted by others yakking at them either personally or over the cell phone, arrogant people who feel that it is my job to hurry across the street lest they have to actually touch the brakes, new drivers who cannot yet accurately judge braking distances, people with bad reaction times and/or piss-poor vision(thanks, Florida!) and many others.
This is a daily issue in Calgary, where some drivers feel it is their duty to stop at any time when there is a pedestrian who may cross at any point of any road at any time in the future, regardless of whether there’s a cross walk or not. (although it’s not just limited to pedestrians - drivers in this city just don’t seem to understand right-of-way) All this does is slow everyone down. You’re faster, just go through!
Two particularly crazy ones I saw:
I was behind a driver stopped at a green light – a green light! – to let a woman cross a four lane street. She, much to her intelligence, refused to cross seeing as how there was three other lanes that would have mowed her down.
Another driver I was behind stopped on a six lane divided freeway to let someone run across, probably equidistant from two overpasses. Again, the person in question had the good sense not to run across simply because one guy thought it was safe (though what he was hoping to accomplish, I have no idea).
Czarcasm, I think you’re grossly misunderstanding the point of the post you were replying to. I think it is this… the argument at hand is questioning issues about whether cars should stop for pedestrians who haven’t entered the street, and there has been some confusion, so Licentious Ectomorph was clarifying that the law plus common sense obviously say that if you see a person already crossing the street, you should stop. He/she (sorry) was making that point to contrast it as being different from what was being discussed. There was NO implication at all that pedestrians should just charge off into traffic or anything even close to that. Simply the statement that most people realize that they’re not supposed to run over human beings in the street and will do what they can do avoid doing so. The sociopaths/idiots were mentioned as the ones who do not realize/care that you shouldn’t run over people–the fact that some people don’t pay attention when driving isn’t even a factor in what is being discussed–yes it is a factor in actual traffic situations but it had nothing to do with the point being made.
My contribution to the thread… I also hate it when cars do not behave as you expect them to (i.e. following the established rules of traffic). I hate it when I arrive second at a four way stop and the other car waves me to cross before them. Come on, you got there first, it is only going to take you a second to cross, JUST GO IN THE TURN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO. It just makes it more confusing for everyone when you start making shit up.
I was at an intersection once, waiting to turn left. On the corner ahead and to my left, there were some women wanting to cross the road. They didn’t have the green light, but the oncoming traffic (oncoming to me, coming from the left to them) stopped to let them cross. They start across the street (which was at least two lanes in each direction plus a turn lane, and I think each direction also had a third right-turn-only lane… this was a fairly wide street). They get halfway across and a big-ass pickup truck coming from the direction I’d come from gets almost all the way across the intersection and realizes there are people there, so it stops. the women cross in front of the big truck. The vehicle in the next lane over has no view of the women in the road, since its view is obstructed by said big-ass truck, which has inexplicably stopped in the road. The vehicle, not realizing there are pedestrians unexpectedly in the middle of the road, doesn’t slow down or stop.
I see a woman go flying through the air. The woman’s shoes come flying off. She tumbles across the pavement and I’m freaking out figuring she’s dead, since the car that hit her was probably going 45mph and didn’t even try to slow down. Turns out she was ok.
Now me, if I am driving and a car is mysteriously stopped in the next lane over, I’d slow down and approach cautiously to see why they were stopped, in case it was something that I should stop for as well, such as people crossing the road. But you can’t just expect that. The driver of that car may have thought the truck was in the left-turn lane, stopped waiting to turn, for example. They had no reason to expect that women would be crossing the street at an intersection when they had the red light. The stupid-ass cars that let these women start crossing are, in my opinion, largely to blame for the accident. Of course, the women themselves are irredeemably stupid for crossing at that time, as well. But personally, having been there, I think that the car that actually hit them doesn’t bear as much responsibility as the cars coming the other way who stopped to let the women cross.
I am saying that it is infinitely safer for traffic to stop before I start across the street as opposed to hoping that traffic will stop after I start across. The cars that stop, IMO, are not to blame if someone swerves around them and hits a pedestrian. If I am driving and a vehicle ahead of me stops at an intersection, I don’t have a right to make the assumption that inconveniences me the least, I have a duty to be prepared for that which might inconvenience me the most.
Nobody is refuting that. L.E. was simply saying that virtually everyone realizes that once a person is in the road, you aren’t supposed to run over them.
And virtually everyone realizes that you are supposed to stop at red lights and stop signs, and yet…
He/she was making this point because there was confusion about the actual topic. You seem to be trying to make this into something it isn’t. The point was being made because people seemed to be setting up a sort of strawman, and this was an attempt to shut that down in the early stages. I have no idea what “point” you are trying to make; it’s completely irrelevant to the actual discussion that was in progress.
I’m failing to follow you because I don’t know what you expect pedestrians/bicyclists to do after coming to a stop sign.
IMHO, a stop sign on a bike trail means that people have to stop, survey traffic, and then proceed in the crosswalk when safe. Are we on the same page here?
If I’m following you (and others) correctly, the main reason that the OP had to jam on his brakes to avoid hitting the bicyclist is because the biker allegedly did not stop at the stop sign. If the bicyclist had already crossed the southbound lanes (going west to east) and the OP, driving north, had to apply the brakes to avoid hitting him, either one of two things happened: first, the bicyclist ignored the stop sign, rocketed out into the street, and nearly got into two accidents (in both southbound and northbound traffic). Second, the bicyclist was yielded right of way by southbound traffic, was crossing the street lawfully, and the OP just didn’t notice that someone was lawfully crossing the street until the last minute, and blames it on the biker.
In the first case, the bicyclist would be wrong. In the second case, the OP would be wrong. Are we agreed on this?
With respect to “traffic shouldn’t stop for people who are just hanging around the general vicinity of the crosswalk,” let’s just review what the OP actually said:
My bolding. It does take people to task for “pedestrians who are loitering near the crosswalk.” That idea only seems to have come up later, after the OP started getting some flak.
In my book, drivers stopping for people who want to cross the road, in my book, is being courteous. Otherwise we’re back in the catch 22 in which pedestrians can’t step into the crosswalk when traffic is present because they’d be jaywalkers, nor can traffic stop for pedestrians not in the crosswalk because they don’t have to.
I agree with Opal re: everyone in traffic should abide by the same rules. But I have the feeling that the OP has not really acknowledged that the law requires cars to yield to pedestrians (not simply for the practical reason of avoid accidents, but in fact because the law gives pedestrians in crosswalks the right of way over cross traffic), and therefore has invented his own set of rules that is more convenient for him and other impatient drivers. Therefore, the way I understand the OP, urging cars to no longer stop for pedestrians waiting to cross the street because it inconveniences other drivers who will also be forced to stop for people who can’t cross quickly enough to suit the OP’s impatience. See part about catch 22 again.
Yes, we are. This is my position exactly. It is incumbent upon the pedestrians to assess the traffic and proceed when safe, not expect said traffic to stop to accommodate their wishes. Pedestrians are not a privileged class with the right to walk whenever and wherever they want to; drivers have just as much right to get where they’re going unimpeded. Laws, signs, and sometimes electronic signal devices, are in place to allow everyone fair, equitable, and safe passage. As I said in my very first post – when the system is followed, it usually works.
Cars and pedestrians are NOT equal. When it comes to a crosswalk, the law says that pedestrians (who are not being reckless, of course) have right of way. Cars do NOT have right of way.
Depending on how you want to read it, that means that pedestrians are MORE important than cars. Pedestrians are entitled to make cars stop for them at crosswalks so long as they are not being reckless. That’s quite simply all there is to it.
Bolding mine. I’ll reiterate one more time: if a person is already in the crosswalk, then by all means, stop your vehicle. I realize pedestrians have to make their crossing eventually (though, IMO, the courteous and/or safety-conscious ones wait until there’s enough of a gap that the next driver to come along won’t have to slam on his brakes or swerve into a tree).
Well, I think this has pretty much run its course. Were I to ever see you poised on the sidewalk waiting to cross a busy street, I’d stop for you, L.E., and laugh as traffic piled up behind me. 
Funny you should mention that. As it happens, I occasionally rollerblade on the trail in question, and I hate being put in that position because I just know some of the drivers are irritated with me, when I would have been perfectly happy to wait.
Yes.
The cyclist is wrong in both cases. Since traffic was stopped* in only one direction,* and for no good reason, (Coming to a dead stop is impeding the flow of traffic. A driver does not get to decide when and why the flow of traffic must stop,) it was not safe to cross. It is up to the cyclist (or pedestrian, or skater) to determine that both lanes of traffic are clear. Just because someone has unlawfully (or otherwise) stopped traffic in one direction, there is no requirement for traffic in the other direction to stop. Do you stop every time someone in the on coming lane is turning across your path? If not, why not?
It’s not courteous. It is dangerous, unlawful, and, if followed as a practice generally, would bring the flow of traffic to a halt. That is the reason that there are designated areas where traffic must stop for cross traffic, both vehicular and otherwise.
Please read the OP again. In the situation he describes, the law requires the pedestrian not to cross until it is safe to do so. Stepping into a crosswalk when only one lane has stopped is a violation of that law.
The pedestrian is forbidden to cross until is is safe to do so. There is no Catch-22.
There are many roads in my city where traffic can legally drive 45 mph. in four lanes, two in each direction. They are major arteries for moving large volumes of traffic. Are they to come to a screeching halt every time someone using a walker decides he wants to cross the road?