[InclinedPlane]

This is a good reminder to always be a defensive and aware pedestrian. Just because you have the light or the right-of-way doesn't mean you are guaranteed a safe crossing of the street. Whenever I cross an intersection as a pedestrian I always look both ways (even on one way streets) and I always keep an eye on cars that are still in motion, especially those that don't appear to be slowing down. It's good to make these sorts of things just an innate habit, it could safe your life one day.

[entropy_]

I've grown up in Lebanon -- a third world country still recovering from a 15 year civil war(1975-1990). Traffic lights and rules are merely suggestions to people around here. If something is physically possible, like a car being able to fit in an pedestrian-only paved road or two cars being able to fit in a one-way street you can be sure that people will do it. It becomes an innate habit to always check both ways and never assume that a car will stop or slow down or that the driver has even seen you when you're crossing the road. It's not "you might get hit" if you don't, it's "you will get hit" if you don't. It's sad, but it's true.

As an anecdote, there's a road that ends in an entrance/exit to a freeway that I use pretty frequently when driving from my home to Beirut. Two years ago, because the fact that the road was a 2-way road(people could use it to leave the freeway as well as enter it) was causing a lot of traffic they changed it into a 1-way road you could only use to enter the freeway, you had to leave from an exit further down the line. This reduced traffic jams immensely. However, before that could happen they had to go through several iterations on how to enforce this. First, a simple traffic sign was tried, this was largely ignored. Then they placed plastic barriers(those triangular things that can be filled with sand or water). Every night somebody would stop, get out of their car and move them to pass and things went back to how they were before the next day. Now they've closed it off with concrete barriers. It's working, but occasionally, especially at night, somebody will stop after the entrance, then back up into it and then use it as an exit. I once almost rear-ended someone doing that while I was going onto the freeway.

[JabavuAdams]

My Dad is often amazed at how pedestrians in Canada leave their own survival up to the whims of drivers. They'd be dead in the developing world.

[dhughes]

I live in Canada in a small town with a fairly large (per capita) Lebanese population (Tweel, Haddad, Rashed, Jabour).

We have bad drivers here but I am willing to bet we exported the behaviour to Lebanon not the other way around.

[entropy_]

I highly doubt it. The behaviour has nothing to do with bad drivers, it's mostly because of lack of enforcement. The only thing you can get a fine for is speeding, and even then most speed traps are easy to spot. Otherwise, just do whatever the fuck you want and you won't get a fine. I'm serious, anything goes.

I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it). I have a friend who got rear-ended by a police car and then verbally abused for being an idiot by stopping at a red light at night.

We didn't use to have speeding tickets a couple of year back. Then they started enforcing speed limits. Lo-and-behold people started paying attention and generally trying not to speed. But going the wrong way(even on a highway, I was once almost killed by a guy doing that because there was a traffic jam at the only exit and he didn't feel like waiting so he just U-turned and went the other way, but that's another story) will not get you fined.

I'm pretty sure that if traffic rules were enforced properly then people wouldn't so easily ignore them. But we don't have the necessary amount of police to even do a significant fraction of what's needed.

[dhughes]

You just described my town.

A lot of ex-hockey goons are police, three cars go through the red light, people don't signal turns not even police, lines on the road are ignored, people park anywhere, tailgaters everywhere, cars without license plates, road crews make the roads stupid because they can't drive so how would they know a road is wrong and on and on.

I feel your pain.

[graue]

> I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it).

As another commenter says, I've seen both of these things happen in New York City (especially the second).

[akgerber]

That sounds like New York City.

[tome]

What do you mean "you exported the behaviour to Lebanon"? How?

[ptaipale]

This might be something along the lines of "I inherited my bad behaviour from my father; my mother still has got hers."

[tracker1]

They could put those one-way ("severe tire damage") spikes in the freeway entrance.. that would at least reduce the ods of it happening.

[mtrimpe]

After being hit by a car when I was young, that's exactly how I navigate traffic as a bicyclist/pedestrian.

Traffic rules create a useful abstraction but, if you want to be safe, the only non-leaky abstraction is seeing traffic as a collection of objects moving at various speeds which can optionally change acceleration or direction based on things like traffic lights / your presence / cats running across the road after the required reaction time has elapsed.

It's a bit less relaxing of a way to travel, but it sure as hell beats waking up in the hospital with brain damage, a leg whose foot no longer points in the direction it should and an arm that's no longer moving or ... not waking up at all.

[SiVal]

After living outside the US for many years, I now play the "invisible man game" even in the US. I've taught it to my kids, too.

The rules are: you imagine that you are literally invisible and find a way to cross the road that doesn't rely on the drivers' cooperation with you or the law. The drivers don't know you exist, because you are invisible.

Playing that game allowed me, for example, to jump onto the hood of a car that stopped at a red light briefly then hit the gas just as I walked in front of it. I was playing invisible man, as always, and had imagined what I would do if that guy, who was stopping, decided to take off again just as I got in front of his car. I imagined jumping onto his hood, which I did so quickly when he hit the gas that I landed on his windshield staring in at him with a grin on my face (instead of ending up under his tires.)

You can't protect yourself from everything, but playing the invisible man game each time you cross a street with traffic is a good strategy. I should add that I can't really play it if I'm on the phone, so I pause my call ("oh, um, hold on a second, I'll be right back"), play the game, and resume the call on the other side.

[geoka9]

I haven't taken my pedestrian survival skills that far, but I've always felt that if I'd ever be hit, that would be at an intersection. I felt that there are too many moving objects to keep track of at a typical intersection to be able to control your fate.

So, when in developing countries, I prefer to cross the street in the middle of a block (with no alleys in sight). This way there are only two directions I need to be wary about.

Now, that I've taken up road cycling, I'm at the mercy of other drivers and I'm afraid there are no hacks I could use (except of being extra careful at intersections).

[jacquesm]

That's a super hack. Thanks for the tips, I'll be using them to apply and teach.

[JabavuAdams]

That's fantastic! I'll have to use that with my kids.

[fduran]

Excellent advice. Also especially if you are riding a motorcycle you have to pretend you are invisible.

[malandrew]

As someone who's been hit by a car twice (neither were my fault), it's also a good reminder that cars simply don't belong in urban areas with a sufficiently dense population. I still don't get why most American cities still don't reach a tipping point then go whole hog in making certain parts of cities pedestrian and bike only.

[grannyg00se]

Wikipedia has a list of car-free places

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car-free_places

Wish there were more.

[snogglethorpe]

Cars are still often used as a sign of conspicuous consumption, especially among older people who came of age back in the "car era" (the '50s/'60s, when there was an overwhelming sense of the automobile as the "glorious future" of transportation, and before the many problems of mass car usage were clear)—and older people tend to be richer/more influential.

So you get a disproportionate amount of car use by rich/influential people (including many politicians), and they have far more effect on public policy than the average person. Even if the right thing overall is to restrict automobile usage, any politician has to be very careful how he introduces such policies lest he quickly feel the wrath of the well-connected...

[cafard]

Cars are often still used as a method of transportation, especially among people whose life or work happens to fall outside a few dozen cities with dense population and work and stores one can walk to. That guy living in Leader Heights, Pennsylvania, isn't driving from sheer cussedness, he's driving because work is in York, or maybe Shrewsbury or Baltimore, and because the supermarket is five miles away.

If he were richer and more influential, he wouldn't be in Leader Heights, he'd be in Baltimore or Philadelphia.

[wavefunction]

There's also things like commercial deliveries, where putting a pallet on your back or trying to fit it on a bike is... unrealistic.

[malandrew]

You'd be amazed at how much can be delivered by bike. Go to Brazil and you'll see tons of things being delivered by bike in cities, things like 5-gallon water bottles, Propane tanks, supermarket shopping, etc.

[JabavuAdams]

Cars ar comfortable. There's an aspect of control of personal space that you don't get on public transportation.

I've used public transit almost my whole life, but recently I'm becoming seduced by those evil cars. If I take the subway during rush hour, I can barely get enough space to read an iPad. If I don't travel during rush hour, I don't have dinner with my family.

[Nux]

Agreed!

[xanadohnt]

A highly engineered network of lights, signs, warnings, and all other sorts of traffic guidance actually makes pedestrian and vehicle travel less safe. It's a psychological phenomenon - discussed here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html - where the actors stop using situational awareness and total rely on external devices to do their decision making. Safety takes a back seat to obeying the law. Upon removing most of the signage and guidance do humans become more situationally aware, cautious, and more personally responsible for their safety. Believe it or not, the car driving down the sidewalk ultimately makes everyone safer.

[oftenwrong]

I just watched this short video about a busy intersection that was successfully redesigned in this way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vzDDMzq7d0

[neilk]

There's a difference between a situation where boundaries are not respected (driving on the sidewalk), and a situation where we choose not to orchestrate people's actions (lack of traffic lights).

[e40]

My rule: if there are cars around, never cross (legally!) unless you have eye contact. That person making a right turn on a red light? They're likely looking left and will you over if you legally start to cross in front of them.

However, I will note: even if you follow this rule, be prepared to jump out of the way. I have to, and often. I walk 4 miles/day in city streets. The number of times I've had to jump out of the way when I had the right of way... ridiculous. Defensive walking or you won't be walking for long.

[dhughes]

When my friends and I discuss such things I like to emphasize that even if you as a pedestrian or cyclist have the right of way but you're hit and killed your objection is invalid since you're dead.

[coderzach]

Every time I get to an intersection I can hear my Grandma's voice telling me, "You can be right, dead right"

[fduran]

My family version is "The cemetery is full of people that were right"

[e40]

I can't tell if you agree or disagree with my statement. I, of course, agree with your statement, and it definitely follows from what I said. Legal right of way means nothing.

[dhughes]

I 100% agree with you, I just added my own interpretation how I explain it.

[gaius]

Eye contact is so important http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccadic_masking

[klenwell]

This is the only moral I've found in this story so far. It all seems so tragic and arbitrary.

I used to drive through the intersection Andrew Scott Reisse was hit almost every day (until major road construction re-routed me). It's part of what strikes me as so random about this event. Unless he lived in one of the homes in that area, it puzzles me why he was walking through that intersection at that particular time of day. Unless, that is, he just really liked to walk and covered a lot of ground. In which case, this reminder is especially poignant.

My partner and I have a short commute so whenever we're crossing a street (often its one of the same cross-streets Andrew was hit in), I remind her: crossing this street is probably the most dangerous thing you're going to do this week. Put away the smart phone and pay attention like your life depends on it.

[danielharan]

Much as I agree pedestrians should be looking both ways and keeping an eye out for cars...

Can we please stop blaming the victims?

The main way to stop the carnage is to change our infrastructure. It's a political issue.

[shabble]

I've seen one or two pedestrian crossings which included fast-reacting automatic bollards, similar to ones in [1]. They took maybe 4-5s to raise and lower, and afaik were highly effective at protecting the users. The initial capital costs, maintenance, and throughput disruption if they fail-up make them impractical as a general solution, at least for the time being.

[1] http://www.edsuk.com/item.php?id=260

[InclinedPlane]

I'm definitely not blaming the victims here. Certainly the fault lies with the drivers who were operating their vehicle recklessly and without regard for human life, I think a charge of negligent homicide or manslaughter is warranted in cases such as this and I think life in prison is likely not too harsh of a sentence. At worst Reisse is "guilty" of nothing other than inattention, which certainly nobody deserves death for.

That said, regardless of the assignment of culpability and wrongdoing I think it is fundamentally important for pedestrians (namely: all people) to understand that it is with in their power to dramatically reduce their risk of injury by developing defensive habits. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you died noble and innocent, dead is dead.

By the same token, it's not ok to blame children for sexual abuse, but it is smart to educate them about the dangers and to empower them with the skills to be able to avoid it.

[reader5000]

True but if your expectation is traffic travelling at 30, it's unclear if normal defensiveness will help you for a car going at 60+.

[InclinedPlane]

It's hard to say without knowing the exact circumstances. Personally I think it would help. If you see a car on the road headed your way as you're crossing the street it's pretty easy to tell how fast it's going, especially 5 mph vs 15 vs 30 vs 60. And if it's going fast your inclination should be to keep a sharp eye on it and maybe try to run out of the way if it appears as though it's not slowing down at a point when it should. But then again there are some intersections where you just can't see or keep track of all the traffic that could be dangerous to you, but on the whole I'd say it's smarter to do so than not, it takes little effort.

[dllthomas]

Wonder if he'd have heard the sirens...

[goodcanadian]

Indeed. I once saw a pedestrian step out in front of a moving police car with lights are sirens going. The walk light had just turned green. The police car had to slam on the brakes and lean on the horn to avoid hitting the idiot.

[dllthomas]

Maybe he was deaf? Otherwise, yeah, idiot...

[ryanmolden]

Heck, I would say the same for when you are driving, multi-ton pieces of steel in motion are unforgiving. I have never trusted people to, say, not blow a red light/stop sign, to turn, even if they have their blinkers on, to not try to cram in front of me at the last second on a packed exit even if there is no room, etc.. Obviously it is more important for pedestrians as they are unprotected, but people generally being more aware/defensive while driving would be a good thing.

[base698]

Same goes for train crossings and green lights. Don't delegate your life to a signal that can break when all you have to do is look both ways as a cross check.

[readme]

This. I am constantly asked when driving, sometimes walking, "why don't you go" -- the answer is "I'm waiting to see that everyone else has stopped first!" The same is true when crossing through an intersection in your car. Someone rolling up to the stop sign, don't go! Wait for complete stops, always.

[rocky1138]

Frustrating, but true.