this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
29 points (93.9% liked)
Vancouver
1430 readers
1 users here now
Community for the city of Vancouver, BC
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People can choose to stand on moral high ground and say pedestrians have the right of way, or just realize all it takes is one distracted driver to either end their life, or change their life permanently with a serious injury.
Never something I’d ever trust another human with when it comes to my life.
You can and should do both.
And when a collision happens, the blame should lie on the person operating the heavier vehicle unless proven otherwise.
Education campaigns should reflect this: they should primarily focus on reminding drivers that they are operating a vehicle that can easily maim and kill, so they must be in the lookout for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians.
I really feel like this is exactly what happened in the video. The driver was like "oh shit, I should have been paying attention", and the pedestrian was like "oh shit, I should have been paying attention"
Only one of them is putting other people in danger, though.
Literally nobody doesn't understand that.
The question at hand is if it appropriate to remind people that paying attention when you're crossing the street, because a driver may be distracted, is an appropriate thing to do.
Apparently, for some people the answer is a resounding "no", with a slight resonating harmonic of "and how dare you"
And yet we see drivers speeding on a daily basis in densely populated areas with tons of foot traffic. Several pedestrians have been killed in the past decade in an intersection next to where I live. No, they were not "jaywalking", in every instance the drivers were speeding and ran over people on the sidewalk.
Perhaps being part of the community of people who are being killed has something to do with it.
My brother:
Despite the saturation of polarized media, the world does not exist as a set of mutually exclusive options.
Saying "Pedestrians can use their eyes and ears to help them avoid danger"
DOES NOT MEAN
Drivers, therefore, have no responsibility.
It's like you're reading words, and conjuring all kinds of meaning that is not there.
If you read my comments in this thread you will see me explicitly saying that it is a good idea for pedestrians to look both ways, several times in fact.
My brother.
Then we agree, as you'll see that I also repeatedly state that drivers need to pay attention. I go so far as to say that ultimately, in an accident, the driver is at fault.
So when a pedestrian steps into traffic while messing around on the phone and there’s no evidence, of course they’ll deny doing anything wrong.
They’d be insane to do otherwise. So, we just blame the driver?
Take some responsibility people.
Have you looked at official municipal statistics for who is at fault in pedestrian fatalities? Because I did and the yearly reports consistently show the driver being at fault in 75%-80% of the cases.
Indeed, indeed.
You said unless proven otherwise. I was going with your hyperbole. Maybe you should’ve gone with facts first instead and said “where fault is proven, the driver should be blamed?” And infact that’s already the case. Shocking!
But that sounds too reasonable for online.
I was referring to the burden of proof in the law. In my opinion blame should be placed on the heavier vehicle by default unless proven otherwise. Some jurisdictions like the Netherlands do exactly that. It makes drivers more cautious and it protects vulnerable road users.
And given that statistically drivers tend to be found at fault in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities even in Canada, there is even more reason to put the blame on them by default, in the absence of data to the contrary.
The law should protect the vulnerable. Shocking, I know.
It’s up to the “vulnerable” to take some responsibility for taking care of themselves and not pretending the world cares about doing it all for them.
I say “vulnerable” because if they’re actually paying attention they’re not vulnerable at all, but that might mean taking their nose out of their phones for a portion of their lives.
Maybe distracted walking should be as much of a crime as distracted driving?
Not PC but that’s the way the world actually works, and it’s hard lesson to learn I’m sure.
I hope that whenever you find yourself in a vulnerable situation you will be met by people with empathy and care, rather than disdain.
In the meantime I also hope you don't run over anybody.
Thanks for the sentiment, however I take responsibility for my own safety. I don’t put that on others and live my life being a victim of other people’s choices.
If only life was that simple. Good luck.
It really is that simple if you take personal responsibility and don’t live life as a victim. It’s kind of an old fashioned idea though.
Tell that to the several people who were killed in an intersection close to where I live. Mowed down while they were walking in the sidewalk. Not even crossing, mind you.
If you think nothing bad will happen to you because you are responsible, think again. There is a lot that is not under our control, no matter how hard we would like it to be true.
You can keep trying to justify yourself to me but it won’t make a single difference you’re in some kind of strange fantasy world and now you’re just googling for stuff to support your point rather than listening to my facts. Whatever.
I don't need to Google to learn what happened in my neighborhood. I saw the ambulances and the flowers left by their loved ones in the days after the collisions. Yes, collisions because it's happened twice in the same intersection in the past few years.
"Personal responsibility" is the weapon used by those who feel safe to justify not helping others who aren't as fortunate.
Found the BMW driver.