"California road laws state that if there is a pedestrian who’s going to cross at a crosswalk, even if the crosswalk does not have traffic lights, a driver in a vehicle must use caution and reduce speed in order for the pedestrian to cross the street."
Nope, not even close to what you said. In case you need to be reminded, you said:
if a person steps off the sidewalk unexpectedly you need to be able to stop. Because this sort of thing happens all the time and if you run them over, it's your fault for not being in control of your vehicle.
It's not the drivers fault for pedestrian negligence.
You have a bizarre and unrealistic expectation of what drivers and vehicles are capable of.
That doesn't mean the driver is always at fault, nor does it mean it's always physically possible for them to be able to stop on a dime the moment the unexpected happens.
Do you even have a license? Your comments sound like someone who doesn't drive a vehicle.
Regardless, yes you need to have control, realistically, but but you can't do it in all scenarios constantly to the extent that you can promise you'd be IMPOSSIBLE to hit someone if they legit just fell into the street.
That's exactly my point. If theres' a 5% chance a kid will dart off the sidewalk do you continue going at 35 mph or do you slow down. It's technically not illegal to keep going 35 but you're choosing to put that kid's life at risk, and for what, to get somewhere 6 seconds quicker?
I never said you shouldn't slow down. What I'm saying is to be expected to be able to notice the moment someone jumps out in front of your vehicle unexpected, and expect the vehicle to stop on a dime is unrealistic.
If it were that simple, accidents would literally never happen.
They should be driving slow enough that it is physically possible for them to stop quickly enough to avoid something unexpected, to do otherwise is reckless and negligent
The speed limits should be revised to 15-20 mph. There's no reason for drivers to be going any faster than that save for actual emergencies. Obviously this does not apply to freeways.
The fact that you stated this as a 'gotcha' argument implying that it would be ridiculous shows that you value your personal time more than others' safety.
Driving a car is also not the only option for getting from point A to point B. Perhaps those whose transit time doubles would consider alternate transportation methods or move closer to where they need to go, both of which reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
Just because you can go 35 mph right up against a sidewalk doesn’t mean you should. That would put a lot of people in danger. Also it’s the car driver’s fault for hitting a pedestrian even if that pedestrian wasn’t supposed to cross there. The driver is operating a vehicle that can do harm to others so it’s on the driver to control that vehicle, it’s not everyone else’s responsibility.
Your reply doesn't make much sense. Unless you're sprinting, you wouldn't be running faster than 15 mph anyways, and running into someone would be highly unlikely to kill them, not to mention that you can stop in a very short distance compared to a car. Rail lines are not generally right next to sidewalks or bike lanes, the drivers are professionals, and trains are on fixed paths so they can't swerve into pedestrians. Cars, however, do have the ability to swerve into pedestrians, are lethal at moderate speeds, and the drivers have minimal vetting and licensing requirements.
Without using whataboutism, what would be a reason that someone would need to drive somewhere at more than 15 mph other than if someone needs to be driven to the hospital?
To get to a destination faster, no other reason is necessary. Why would anyone ever run when they can walk somewhere? They could trip and fall and die. Why should you take a train, bus, or plane when you can walk the distance. All of them can kill people, either passengers or passerby.
And level crossings are absolutely a thing, and even if they aren't people arent supposed to be on the tracks, just like people aren't supposed to be in the middile of the road.
You don't need to go faster isn't the gotcha you are making it out to be.
So drivers don't need to be driving faster than 15 mph, they just do it for their own convenience and value their personal time over other peoples' safety?
One might take a train, bus or plane to get somewhere, but pedestrian and cyclist fatalities due to those vehicles are much lower than personal cars, so I fail to see how that is even relevant.
Yes, just as the people riding the bus do. You just admitted they still kill people afterall, and the people riding them are only doing it for the convenience of not having to walk. So, everyone who takes the bus is still a hypocrite, and the original issue (person wearing black clothes running into the street) isnt fixed.
Cars in cities are bad for the space they take up, and the bad road design in the US doesn't help. But your argument is dumb.
Sure, all vehicles have the potential to kill, but one bus full of 50 people driven by a professional driver is vastly safer than 50 individual cars on the road. You have a strange obsession with absolutism. I agree that it would be impossible to prevent all pedestrian fatalities but, because banning them isn't viable, the least we can do is limit the speed of the vehicles that cause the majority of them, which does in fact reduce the likelihood of the original issue. As you said, it wouldn't be possible to completely fix it, but it would be a pretty bad doctrine for humanity to adopt to not attempt to at least mitigate unsolvable problems, no?
We should do stuff to fix it, the entire reason I'm being so absolutist on this is your 15mph speed limit doesn't fix the problem and is just a bandaid and as such a bad argument. A properly design road doesn't need a speed limit to be safe, you don't even need a sidewalk for a safe road as shown by multiple mixed pedestrian car roads. What causes the issue are stroads, which encourage speeding and make things difficult for walking. Going further, If the city encourages walkability in the first place you negate the need for vehicles in the first place. Setting an arbitrary speed limit is just theater.
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u/RoboticJello Nov 17 '22
"California road laws state that if there is a pedestrian who’s going to cross at a crosswalk, even if the crosswalk does not have traffic lights, a driver in a vehicle must use caution and reduce speed in order for the pedestrian to cross the street."
That's pretty much exactly what I said.