No. You were quite clear that you don’t check enough. You said “and I’m glancing right but predominantly I’m looking left”. If you don’t have time to look my direction, you don’t have time to drive.
You stir such wonderful dreams of how it would be worth it to be mowed down by your crazy ass, just so I could sue you till you bleed.
The least you could do is apologize for such an idiotic OP. Instead, you come back swinging when you’re so undeniably, unquestionably and indefensibly wrong.
It’s funny. I missed the part in the OP where she said she was a bloodthirsty psychopath looking for orphans and nuns to mow down. Jerk that knee any harder and your shin will fly off.
Seriously, ya’ll think that there is no possible way that a pedestrian can make a mistake?
The OP is clearly one of the reasons why the Netherlands changed the right-of-ways so that a driver is always in the wrong when he hits a pedestrian or a cyclist.
If I am on foot and cross the street at a red stoplight the driver will still be held responsible for hitting me.
People in cars really should learn to look.
I don’t know how many times I have almost been hit by people who just come crawling out of bed or from behind their desk.
You are driving a death-trap and therefore should take all possible precautions not to hit anything or anyone.
This means you have to be 100% alert at all times.
If you aren’t, don’t fucking drive !!!
By the way I drive a motor-scooter and have now for over 20 years and never ever had an accident, because I don’t ever assume people notice me.
I have had times where I am driving on a straight road, and some idiot ass-clown comes swerving in from the parallel road without looking.
I am still thinking about putting a big-ass canon on my scooter, so I can fire off some shrapnel at these idiots cars.
Oh, bullshit. I’m convalescing from a broken leg that I got when a guy hit me in a crosswalk and while it was entirely his fault for not seeing me and pulling out when the “Walk” sign gave me the right of way, it’s ignorant in the extreme to suggest that it still would have been his fault if I had run across the street when it said “Don’t Walk” and he had a green light.
While I’m sure everybody is well aware it’s the driver’s responsibility to avoid the pedestrian and not the other way around, some of the indignant responses in this thread nearly made me laugh out loud.
I especially liked the assumption that Anaamika is some sort of rolling hazard to the lives of pure-hearted, innocent pedestrians who would of course be in the crosswalks, and would never cross against a signal.
That’s not reality in Albany. Besides the fact that the crossing signals are a joke, especially downtown (no one can reasonably be expected to cross any street in four seconds, IMHO), nobody pays any attention to them anyway. Crosswalk? No thanks, I’ll just duck out from between these parked cars and cross in the middle of the block. I’m stopped in the middle of the street carrying on a conversation? So what? You’ll get to move in a few moments when I’m done.
“I’m walking here” is no excuse to behave in an unsafe manner, or abdicate responsibility for your personal safety to someone else. The pedestrian isn’t always right.
I’m with Anaamika, and not just because she’s funny and entertaining.
I almost did exactly the same thing - in a parking lot, trying to turn out onto a one way street… a very busy one way street, where every gap in traffic is precious… I saw my spot and started to nudge the gas, and some guy and exited a nearby bar just strolling along oblivously in front of me. Just barely reined that truck in in time. He could very well have legally walked around my vehicle - he wasn’t under a legal obligation to do so, but it would’ve been smarter.
In parts of Northern Virginia, a lot of intersections now have signs that say “No Turn On Red If Pedestrians Are Present.” Not even if they’re crossing - if they’re even there. T’would be a good rule for all intersections.
My wife is from San Francisco, and the first time i went there with her i saw this happen. It was just before Christmas and the area around Union Square was packed with both cars and pedestrians. We were walking north on Powell Street, and were trying to cross Geary. The “Walk” sign turned green, so we and about 100 other people started to cross. Well, some dickhead in an Audi decided that he didn’t want to wait for so many people to cross, so he just started pushing through the throng of people in his car, knocking into people and coming close to running over people’s feet. Suddenly, everyone was yelling and screaming at him, and there were about two dozen people bashing the crap out of his hood and trunk. Much to my amusement, my mild-mannered 5’3" wife was among them.
Yeah, this is another one that chaps my ass. Drivers who think that they have right of way when they’re crossing over the sidewalk between the road and a private establishment like a mall or a gas station. Sorry, fucker, that sidewalk was made for pedestrians, and just because they’ve provided a place for you to cross in your car doesn’t mean that you have right of way.
On the general topic of the OP:
Look, as a pedestrian, i realise that i am largely responsible for my own safety, and that if i want to live then i need to be conscious of where, when, and how i cross the road. I make a habit of looking very carefully for cars, and if i jaywalk (which i do quite often), then i make sure that i don’t get in the way of moving traffic and that no car has to brake or swerve for me.
And even in cases where i have the absolute and undeniable right-of-way, such as marked crosswalks and green walk signs, i still keep an eye out because Baltimore has well over its quota of homicidal drivers. I realise, as some have suggested, that being in the right is not much consolation if you’re dead.
But drivers need to wake the fuck up. If you’re turning right, the last place you look before you hit the gas shouldn’t be to your left, it should be to your right, so you don’t mow someone down. You need to make sure that the gap to your left is large enough for you to look to your right, make sure the way is clear, and then proceed. And if you have a green light, and the pedestrians walking parallel to you also have the green light, that means that you wait for them to cross the road before you make your turn. And if the road has a set of wide parallel white stripes, chances are good that it’s not an abstract artwork sponsored by the local gallery—it’s a crosswalk, at which you are required to stop for pedestrians.
Anaamika, the only putz around here is you. Sorry, but you need to pay more attention to your driving. There is no reasonable excuse for not knowing what is in front of your car when you press the gas. None.
That’s technically incorrect. “Walk” signs do not give anyone the right of way; rather, they mean vehicular traffic is to yield their right of way.
BTW: I’m with you, as long as the parking lot exit isn’t metered (i.e.: no stop sign or traffic signal). I work in a building with a metered garage exit on what is essentially a one way-street (two-way traffic ends at our building). Many drivers not only don’t bother to stop but they also pay little attention to pedestrians. I’ve been nearly hit while in the middle of the exit by left-turning drivers who evidently didn’t bother to consider that pedestrians might be coming from their right.
Ok, here’s a question, what if the pedestrian is blind? The Texas School for the Blind is here in Austin and we have a fair number of blind pedestrians. They cross when the crosswalk makes a beeping noise telling them it’s OK to cross. What about them?
Well, everyone knows that blind people have super hearing. Surely they can listen for the cars?
I have a friend who lives in Austin, about a 25 minute bus ride north of downtown, and i’ve seen TSBVI students on the buses quite a few times. I’ll never cease to admire and be amazed by how well blind people get around. For the most part, Austin drivers seem to be pretty conscious of their presence in the city, especially (for obvious reasons) around the school itself.
Yeah, and if that DRIVER posted a pit thread chewing out they guy he killed for not getting out of his way, he’d probably get a pretty negative response, just like the OP did here.
I didn’t see anyone saying that. A couple people said they wouldn’t walk behind a car that’s pulling out of a driveway, for other reasons, but I didn’t notice a lot of people disagreeing with the notion that one ought to exercise prudence as a pedestrian. I guess I missed all these posts where people are saying, “I do stupid things on purpose just because I have the right of way.”
Are we reading the same thread? The PEDESTRIAN was in the right; the DRIVER was in the wrong. A pedestrian can make a mistake, but that’s NOT WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.
oh, by the way, that pounding you hear coming from right side of your hood is me trying to get your attention. I never cross if the driver’s eyes are not on me. :wally
How the hell do you know? You have nowhere near enough information to make this statement.
I read the OP again, and saw no mention of traffic signals, crosswalks, crossing signals, or right-on-red turns. All of those things were added by later posters who were just wildly speculating. Have you seen the intersection? Do you really know if there was even a sidewalk there, let alone the other stuff?
I walk through this town every day, and every day I see some of my fellow pavement pounders do some incredibly stupid shit. Some of them are just begging to be hit. Around here if you see a “No Pedetrian Traffic” sign you can’t trust it. Where there’s no sidewalk you can be sure that some mope will be ambling along in the roadway.
Last year I was at an intersection where there were no sidewalks in any direction and some dipstick hopped over the fence and trotted across the road, and he sure as hell didn’t stop and look both ways.
