Hacker News

Disclaimer to this rant, I also drive a car around, i'm not in 100% 'fuck cars' camp, but i'm getting there. I've almost been hit by a car as a pedestrian 3 times, legally crossing the road, at an intersection with a crosswalk, with a walk light telling me to walk, and the reason? People making lefts onto the street I'm trying to cross, while cutting in front of oncoming traffic. They're either paying attention to the cars coming at them, and what speed they're traveling and trying to cut in front of them, or blowing through a yellow to red turning signal, or they can't see me because I'm in the path of the support beam in their car. Either way, I've mostly stopped crossing legally. I cross when there's a safe break in traffic and I cross when i believe its safe.

It's not that difficult, but bad drivers make it difficult for everyone else. Coming to a complete stop should be instinct, it's a red light after all. But some still treat it like a green because of right on red. They'll turn up to 24 kph so long as they don't see obstacles at a glance. This is the danger for pedestrians and oncoming traffic, everything is secondary to the bad driver's intention. Add the popularity of bigger vehicles which increase the likelihood of fatal crashes and reduce curb visibility, it can be pretty dicey.

Ideally I'd like to see stronger enforcement for full stop on red. But if we can't get bad drivers to change I'll take sitting at the red over an accident any day.