this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Fuck Cars
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Your hub for collection of materials that contribute to a world with less car ownership. Including buses, motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, longboards, scooters, hoverboards, e-scooters, pedestrians, walking, running
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I've never really understood this type of thought when it comes to safety. Simple self preservation should lead you to the same conclusion. When it comes to safety, the squishiest one loses.
We don't blink an eye when told to not stand under something being lifted by a crane, so why balk at being told to be safe around the two ton travelling metal boxes?
Nobody is saying that you shouldn't act safely around cars. People are saying we shouldn't design transportation infrastructure that prioritizes driver convenience over pedestrian safety. Cranes are only allowed to operate in much more tightly controlled situations than drivers.
I take it you've never been on a job site, because there is a TON of infrastructure and protocol that cranes and crane operators have to follow to make sure everything is as safe as possible.
You need to have extensive training to be allowed to do overhead materials handling, the ground conditions need to be thoroughly checked, the job site needs to be planned and laid out, in general there are a ton of constraints and checks to make sure that there is virtually zero risk that a random person could accidentally walk into a danger zone and get hurt.
That's pretty much the exact opposite as with cars. Pretty much every parking lot I have ever been to is front-loading, which REQUIRES that pedestrians have to cross the main driving path to get to their destination and there is very little training and certification required of drivers compared to crane operators.
Do you have an alternative in mind? Because the only one I can think of is to move the whole sidewalk.
Don't be so quick to make assumptions.
Have you never been in a shop that uses bridge cranes? I can see a half dozen 200 ton versions from where I'm standing now. At best the operator might hit the warning buzzer. And no, there's no formal training requirements to use them.
The poster is alluding to other approaches to road safety. You can prevent fatal interactions through infrastructure and city design. Failing to do so and pinning it on everybody outside of a vehicle is absurd.
Of course, we all need to be mindful of dafety, no matter what form of transport. But our roads are designed and the dialog is set up so that all responsibility is focused on pedestrians and cyclists who aren't the ones in control of a potentially deadly machine.
Also, this is a dangerously devoid of any sense of responsibility. It sounds like what someone would say after blowing a red light and running someone over.
The dead don't care about responsibility, and hence I'm not really commenting on it. I'm just saying it's not in your own best interest to rely on others for your own safety, when it's entirely possible to handle it yourself.
I should be mindful of my own safety, yes, but also we should improve overall safety by having proper urbanism
Because the driver is it immediate and instant control of the vehicle and should be expected to stop on a dime when someone runs in front of them while starting at their phone or looking at some stray cat that's not on a leash.
Human is also operating that crane. You wouldn't trust the operator AND the machine to work flawlessly enough to walk under the load
The stationary crane comparison doesn't carry over to dangerous machines in the context of transport.
The only proven way to make cycling and walking safe is by separating motor traffic from other modes of transport, by way of cycleways along main roads, and filtering minor roads to restrict through-motor-traffic.
When you have no such safe infrastructure and the entire dialog is "be careful around those dangerous cars", then there is clearly a problem.
You're right in that there should be safe space for pedestrians and cyclists to travel, but it's exactly the same reason as the crane case: to keep them safe from dangerous cars and other heavy vehicles.
Repeating again, I do agree with your point but the reasoning you used was just wrong. You don't walk blind in front of a moving car because it's fucking dumb thing to do. There's an imperfect human driving a 2 ton imperfect vehicle traveling at high speed. You WILL always lose if anything goes wrong, were you right or wrong.
Who is saying it's OK to walk blind in front of a car? Nobody is claiming you shouldn't be wary around vehicles because we all know how dangerous they can be. The point is that telling pedestrians to be careful is often a substitute for a complete lack of action on safe infrastructure.