LA Times: U.S. Love Affair With The Car Ending

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:04:51 -0600, Doug McDonald
wrote:

"Pedestrian safety is the responsibility of the pedestrian!
Cars are bigger than you ... YOU must watch out for yourself."

That may be good for pedestrian self-preservation, but it's not the
law, as I learned while being questioned for a jury in a lawsuit where
a child who ran into the middle of the street was hit by a car.
Drivers are responsible for avoiding pedestrians, regardless of how
stupid the pedestrians are. You might not be arrested for hitting
someone, but having to deal with being sued can really complicate your
life, even if you have good insurance.

--
Peter Schleifer
"Save me from the people who would save me from myself"

On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:21:13 -0600, Doug McDonald
wrote:

kkt wrote:

That's all there is to it.

"Pedestrian safety is the responsibility of the pedestrian!
Cars are bigger than you ... YOU must watch out for yourself."

That's not all there is to it.


Yes, it is. Absolutely.


There's the law, which in my state
(and most states, as far as I know) says pedestrians have the right of
way in crosswalks, and crosswalks are at all intersections whether
painted or not.

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.

That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.

--
Peter Schleifer
"Save me from the people who would save me from myself"

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...

"SMS" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"SMS" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:

In California, pedestrians have the right of way. Always! Insane
law.

Run over a pedestrian in the middle of the block and see who is held
responsible. Lots of case law holding the driver liable. A bike rider
that is riding down the street and gets in an accident is considered a
vehicle by the law, but if they are riding down the sidewalk and drive
though a red light, they are considered a pedestrian. Neat law's Eh?

I guess that means that there actually is no such law.

According to the teacher at Violators school there is law giving the
pedestrian priority.

Not a very reliable source, the ones I've been to tend towards hyperbole to
make an impression. I've heard quite a few exaggerations and untruths
circulated by Driving School instructors.

Bolwerk wrote:
Doug McDonald wrote:
kkt wrote:

If you want to spend less time behind the wheel, live closer to where
you work.

Where I live that does not help. That's because the intentional
traffic jams are exactly where I work. No matter where you live,
the problem is almost entirely where I work.

I rather doubt that those jams are "intentional." They're more likely
the result of moronic planning.


No, they are explicitly and unquestionably intentional. It is
not "improper planning" in the eyes of the planners. They
were told by the left-wing politicians to make traffic jams in
orfere to create a Pavlovian aversion response from drivers, to meake
them become nice little left wing correct socialist automata,
and ride the nice socialist slow, inefficient (from a personal
perspective) bus.

This is the explicit statement by both the traffic planners and
the politicians.

Doug McDonald

Peter Schleifer wrote:

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.

That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.


Its an argument AGAINST the usual "traffic calming" measures.
These require more aggression and more skill to keep up the
normal speed. In some cases, they mean going to different
vehicles, like ones that can go over speed bumps without
damage at 30 or 35 mph (the speed limit), or getting a Porsche
911 to navigate overly tight curves. This can require
extra skill on the part of the driver.

The best path to safety is to design roads that
are straight, have high speed limits, few stop signs
or stop lights, and excellent visibility. This of
course costs more because it requires lots of planning
and in some cases things like overpasses.

Doug McDonald

Don Freeman wrote:

Not a very reliable source, the ones I've been to tend towards hyperbole to
make an impression. I've heard quite a few exaggerations and untruths
circulated by Driving School instructors.

I agree, I've only been once, but the instructors exaggerate a lot, and
they aren't well-versed in the actual traffic laws. Though many cops
aren't well-versed either.

Peter Schleifer wrote:

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.

That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.

Precisely.

Major aterials should be straight, with timed lights, left and right
turn lanes at intersections, and even have overpasses/underpasses where
appropriate, including pedestrian/bicycle underpasses and overpasses.
Speed limits should be set as high as possible.

Neighborhood streets should be calmed as much as possible.

A good example near where I live is the City of Sunnyvale. While in
other cities, Central Expressway (Santa Clara County G6) has traffic
lights at most crossings, Sunnyvale paid the extra expense to the county
for overpasses/underpasses, to help speed traffic through the city, and
to encourage the use of the expressway--there are no traffic lights on
Sunnyvale's section of this road. On the other hand, they are very
aggressive with traffic calming on neighborhood streets, especially with
roundabouts, and creating dead end streets by blocking through traffic
with bollards. They also have very aggressive enforcement of speeding on
neighborhood streets.

Like most medium sized Silicon Valley Cities, other than San Jose, the
city politics of Sunnyvale are relatively conservative.

The problem with people that are blindly opposed to traffic calming, is
that they never are able to look at the big picture, and understand how
the road network is intended to work. They only think about themselves,
and are annoyed when traffic engineers properly design a road system
with a hierarchy of freeways, expressways, major arterials, minor
arterials, and neighborhood streets.

Doug McDonald writes:

Peter Schleifer wrote:

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.

That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.


Its an argument AGAINST the usual "traffic calming" measures.
These require more aggression and more skill to keep up the
normal speed. In some cases, they mean going to different
vehicles, like ones that can go over speed bumps without
damage at 30 or 35 mph (the speed limit), or getting a Porsche
911 to navigate overly tight curves. This can require
extra skill on the part of the driver.

The best path to safety is to design roads that
are straight, have high speed limits, few stop signs
or stop lights, and excellent visibility. This of
course costs more because it requires lots of planning
and in some cases things like overpasses.

You want every single road to be a freeway?

Mind-boggling.

-- Patrick

On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:14:28 -0600, Doug McDonald
wrote:

Peter Schleifer wrote:

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.

That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.


Its an argument AGAINST the usual "traffic calming" measures.
These require more aggression and more skill to keep up the
normal speed. In some cases, they mean going to different
vehicles, like ones that can go over speed bumps without
damage at 30 or 35 mph (the speed limit), or getting a Porsche
911 to navigate overly tight curves. This can require
extra skill on the part of the driver.

The best path to safety is to design roads that
are straight, have high speed limits, few stop signs
or stop lights, and excellent visibility. This of
course costs more because it requires lots of planning
and in some cases things like overpasses.

Right thru residential neighborhoods with driveways onto the street. I
hope your house is on this type of street.

Doug McDonald

Doug McDonald wrote:
Peter Schleifer wrote:

This is meaningless. Political laws cannot be guaranteed to protect
pedestrians. The laws of physics can.


That is one of the best arguments I have heard in favor of traffic
calming.


Its an argument AGAINST the usual "traffic calming" measures.
These require more aggression and more skill to keep up the
normal speed. In some cases, they mean going to different
vehicles, like ones that can go over speed bumps without
damage at 30 or 35 mph (the speed limit), or getting a Porsche
911 to navigate overly tight curves. This can require
extra skill on the part of the driver.

The best path to safety is to design roads that
are straight, have high speed limits, few stop signs
or stop lights, and excellent visibility. This of
course costs more because it requires lots of planning
and in some cases things like overpasses.

Doug McDonald

I have found that the best thing to do with speed bumps in the road is
to drive with one wheel almost at the curb. Then you can almost get up
to the speed limit. Traffic calming devices are often used to
improperly force folks to drive well under the speed limit.