Please list the incidents where a jaywalking pedestrian (on a road they are normally allowed upon) has caused such pile-ups.
It can be inferred from the fact that the OP exists at all. If, before pulling away, she returned her attention to the direction of motion, she wouldn’t be so surprised to see the ‘obstruction’. But you’re ducking the point, anyway, when you earlier defended setting a car in motion without looking, purely because you wouldn’t expect there to be a pedestrian in the way.
The driver is not only in a climate controlled room-on-wheels, but one that will get them there three to five times faster than I can walk. Yet, when I have the right of way, I’m suppose to wait for the turning cars? SHEESH!
I was once crossing in the cross walk with a green light when some driver started pulling into the cross walk and damn near hit me. When I called her a stupid asshole, she responded “The sun got in my eyes. I couldn’t see the light. That doesn’t make me an asshole.”
Well this is great news! Do you know how much money municipal districts will save because we don’t need the ‘don’t walk’ lights anymore?
Ah, so those are there so that pedestrians do not kill drivers.
Here I thought they were in place so that there would be regular periods when the pedestrians could safely and legally cross streets. Nope! Turns out that death by pedestrian is the major concern!
Apparently my 170 lbs. frame is a nightmare to the poor folks wrapped in 2 tons of metal! Who knew they were so defenseless.
It is if your 170 lb frame suddenly and unlawfully crosses into traffic, causing the driver to veer in avoidence into the oncoming lane or into a telephone pole.
Why the insistance that pedestrians need not be penelized for obeying the law just as drivers are (or ought to be)? Or am I misunderstanding your point?
Stranger
I never said jaywalking was should not be finable, I objected to the idea that the pedestrian should be fined as much as a car that fails to yield to a pedestrian with the right of way. But I am certain some folks are enjoying sodomizing the strawman too much to care.
Its simple: Cars hit pedestrians. They kill them. Hence the $500 fine.
Pedestrians also get fined for jaywalking. The fine need not $500. Why? Because pedestrians can’t kill drivers by hitting the car with their body.
Size, and ability to kill are irrelevant in this case. What about respect for the law on both sides?
If a pedestrian has the go for the walk light, and a driver fails to yield, then yes, the driver should be fined.
If a pedestrian doesn’t have the go for the walk light, and takes it upon themselves to walk aimlessly in front of moving traffic, the pedestrian should get the same fine.
What if a pedestrian jaywalks, and a car hits him? If the pedestrian is lucky enough to get away with minimal injury, it still wastes time for everyone involved. Court costs, lawyers fees, ticket fines… It seems a $500 fine for a pedestrian crossing the walk while the walk light is red, seems justifiable.
AMEN!!
I mean, come ON, do you think that people on foot are just out for a casual little happy stroll? What makes some motorists assume that while THEY, the all importan motorist, is no doubt on an important errand, or on their way to work and such, that somehow those on foot couldn’t possibly being doing anything “real”.
You, the motorist, as bluesthree said so well above are nice and comfy in your car, not only are you warm or cool enough, but it’s going to take you 1/10th the time that it will take US to do our errands and get to work and so on.
Go the extra 15 steps indeed!!! Scuse me anni…, but we go WAY more than our fair share of steps in a day. And that’s totally aside from the issue that YOU and your ilk are required by law to yield to the little white man and the pedestrians using him to cross the street.
Sorry, based on your posts, you’ve always struck me as being really sweet, but on this one, you need to rethink it.
It can be inferred fromt the OP that Ana didn’t hit the pedestrian. That’s the likely result of proceeding without looking, yes?
One can return their attention to the direction of motion and still be surpised. That driver I crossed in front of was certainly surprised to see me!
Yes, depending on where the car is.
This, and Bluesthrees post have to be the dumbest thing I have read on the board in quite some time. You should be more respectful to pedestrians because you are more comfortable and will get to your destination faster?? Honestly, at least the people saying Ana should pay more attention have a point.
If that’s the best you can come up with, cram that fart of an argument back up your ass and don’t let it back out until it at least has a turd to bring with it.
In defense of my “not expecting pedestrians” argument, I offer this:
I was on my mountain bike, lost, and ended up on the shoulder of a multilane road, against traffic. At one point, I rode in front of this driver who was waiting to make a right turn onto the same multilane road from a side street. I probably wasn’t even aware that car was there and had crossed all the way across that street before she even knew I was there! She must have noticed me at some point because I heard her brake hard. Guess I shook her up a bit.
That road has no sidewalk, just a shoulder. No reason to expect anyone to be on the shoulder going against the flow of traffic.
Not to derail a promising trainwreck or anything, but trying to apportion blame to pedestrians is a fairly futile exercise. Sure, it’d be swell if people would use basic common sense but many don’t, walking or driving. The difference is, nobody needs a license to walk. The higher responsiblity is placed on drivers. Period. Though not beyond reason…
Of course pedestrians sometimes do completely brainless things. I once watched a teenager get hit. She got off a (city) bus, then darted across the front of the stopped bus, directly into the line of traffic. The driver didn’t have a prayer of avoiding her. She wasn’t badly injured, and the driver of the car wasn’t even ticketed. (Yeah, I pulled over to serve as witness.)
But the heaviset burden of responsiblity is on the driver. Pedestrians can be kids, doddery old folks and the just plain clueless. Picking over various scenarios, street markings and such are just variations on the basic theme: drivers carry the brunt of responsiblity because their capacity to do severe damage is much higher. Bicycles are a gray area. Arrogant drivers forget they have a right to share the road. Arrogant cyclists forget they are subject to rules of the road.
I’m not piling on Anaamika because it sounds like she was just venting over a routine driver’s frustration. Driving well sometimes feels like you need more eyes on stalks than a bizarrely mutated marine critter. Or possibly insect. Yuck. Anyway, in her specific instance, the pedestrian was in the right.
Veb
Yes, ana should pay more attention. However that’s not the part of her OP to which I was responding. Way to read the entire post. If you’ll notice neither of us addressed the paying attention/not paying attention portion of the argument. We were addressing a different part of her post. Folks CAN do that you know.
At any rate, she suggested, pert near demanded that the pedestrian should simply go around behind her, “it’s only a toyota, just go the extra 15 steps”.
Um, NO??? We have the right of way. I have never crossed without making 100% sure I have the driver’s undivided attention, even if I have the white walk man. If the driver has sunglasses on, I get their attention verbally, making sure they know I see them and vice versa.
I can’t speak for bluesthree, but MY irritation was mainly with her arrogant attitude that peds should just “walk the 15 steps” really a smug arrorgant and wrong minded attitude. Other posters ARE allowed to respond to a portion of another poster’s post without it meaning they’re arguing the whole thing.
And the “you should just walk the 15 steps” part of the post WAS accurately rebutted by both bluesthree’s and my post. That of “look, who do you think you are that you are supposedly doing something more important than a pedestrian that THEY can simply take the extra steps, but YOU shouldn’t be inconvenienced” etc.
Right Canvasshoes. I got that. I understood your post and Bluesthree.
It’s still friggin stupid. It’s fifteen friggin steps. How friggin long will that take you. Will you even notice them when you get to your destination?
Sorry I was late. I had to walk around a Honda.
Boy my feet sure are tired. If only I hadn’t walked around that Honda.
Yeah, they had to amputate my feet. It was frostbite. They might have been able to save them, but I had to walk around a Honda and it kept me out for just long enough.
It’s not an inconvenience. It’s fifteen steps.
You know, my truck has a broken window. It’s winter here and the bugger never really get’s warm. I’d suffer just as much waiting for you to cross in front as you would walking behind. Do I still have to suffer in silence, or can I flip you the bird? 
Dude, it’s just plain good manners to allow pedestrians to cross in front of you without expecting them to wait until you feel like letting them. If it’s a 110 F in the middle of the parking lot, on the street, etc., and you are sitting in a nice cushy car with AC while I’m crossing the street/in front of you into the store/whatever the fuck, the courteous thing to do is wait patiently for me to cross in front of you. Even more so if if it’s snowing, raining or just nose-hair-freezing cold. It’s nicer to let the poor slob who is actually out in the weather to go on his/her way without making him/her wait on the person in a climate-controlled box.
It’s also about assuming that the driver’s time is more valuable than mine as a pedestrian. Maybe I have somewhere to be also, and this is the 200th time I’ve been expected to walk those 15 extra steps because in reality the asshole driving the deadly weapon trumps my right to walk. It is an inconvenience for the pedestrian, albeit one that you find petty.
Nobody likes the crosswalk rules I guess; here in Washington drivers are supposed to wait until the crosswalk is CLEAR before you make your turn. That means if I’m still in the crosswalk, you can damn well just stay in your lane and wait. I know that drivers think this is impractical, but you never know who’s crossing in front of you.
And what if the person is disabled in some way? When the city of Yakima installed the audible walk signals for the blind, the signals were not set consistently resulting in some of the east/west crossings having the north/south sound effect and vice versa. Here’s your average blind person, pressing the north/south walk button while someone across the street pushes east/west. East/west makes the north/south sound and blind person starts to cross. The city was luring blind people to their potential deaths!
I both drive and walk. I try to be both a courteous and predictable driver. I try to survive as a pedestrian.
My pedestrian motto: Feet–the original mode of transportation. Those of you on wheels can back the fuck off. My driver motto: Go ahead walker–I have AC, heat, and a rocking stereo; I can wait the 30 seconds for you to cross.
I’ve already posted on this, but I just had to come back and say:
Look, part of being a good (non-pedestrian-hitting) driver is looking both ways dilligently before proceeding from a stop. Some people learn this, some don’t. I’ve come VERY close to hitting someone by not looking, and I’ve learned my lesson. I’m now in full Grandma-mode when I drive, as hitting someone would cause me to lose my frickin’ mind, I’d be so upset.
If the OP hasn’t learned this important lesson and instead chooses to blame the walkers for her mistakes, she needs to rethink her position. If she somehow doesn’t understand this, I feel sorry for any pedestrians anywhere she drives. Some people just cannnot grasp that they are the most important people on the road.
Well, of course, the last line should read “are NOT the most important people on the road.”
Respect for the law also inlcudes increasing penalties as the crime’s potential harm is taken into factor. This has been an element in law for quite some time.
A car can kill or maim. Hence the large fine.
I am amazed at your line of reasoning. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.
GorillaMan: I think I gave you the wrong impression re: proceeding without looking. Depending on the circumstances, proceeding without looking is understandable. That doesn’t mean I think it’s right.