[sukuriant]

That's not entirely fair. Maybe in some of the cases; but, I've seen people do some really, really, REALLY unwise things as pedestrians that they're lucky someone was paying a huge amount of attention so they weren't hit.

The most pressing example in my mind is a woman cross the street in the middle of a rain shower, within 15 yards, probably much less (my mind's eye paints the memory as 'the edge of my car was here and the lady was RIGHT THERE!!!'), of me and crossing several lanes of traffic with her umbrella all out like she owned the place. She wasn't at a crosswalk, she was crossing the road a 100ish yards after a major turn, and I don't remember if I was the first car in a long line of cars or there were several cars passing and then she elected to walk in front of mine, but I'm very glad I was hyper-attentive so that I could brake in time and that my brakes were 100% up to spec, and my tires had enough tred on them.

She intentionally put herself into harms way and any number of minor failures, including me looking to where I needed to be, because it was RIGHT AFTER A TURN (think of where your eyes go when you're taking a turn, it's not to the far corner ahead, it's to where your wheel-edge is and where your lane is placed, so you don't hit someone more likely to be hit, like the car that's attempting the exact same manuever beside you), or having just that little bit less attention because I was adjusting a radio dial to not have her thumped up onto my roof.

It's not always the driver's fault. Some pedestrians need to realize that we, focused drivers, are still rocketing a couple tons of steel in a direction.

[kaliblack]

It's your responsibility as a driver to pay full attention and avoid crashes. Isn't that hour 1, day 1 of driver education?

[tzs]

A driver paying full attention will still have that attention divided among several tasks. He should be monitoring what is happening behind the car. He should be checking the instrument panel. Even looking forward has subtasks. His forward scan should spend some time on things nearby, and some time looking far down the road.

[moron4hire]

get back to me after you've been driving every day for ten years and we will see what your interpretation of "full attention"means. you can't be 100% vigilante 100% of the time.

[dreamdu5t]

Get back to me after you've been cycling around autos every day for 10 years and we will see what your interpretation of "full attention" means.

[sukuriant]

Probably what you're not experiencing 100% of the time. You have plenty of examples of cars being bad, but I'm sure you also have examples of cars not being bad. Of not trying to hit you and of giving you a wide berth when you're riding your bike.

But on the note of your bike, full attention includes things other than you. It includes the opposite lane, the speed limit, people behind them that might not stop if he hits his brakes and so on.

As a side note, there's a lot of sharp emotions directed at what people are saying and the verbage people are choosing is, I think, unnecessarily harsh and in some cases mocking. We need to tone that back.

[mikeash]

I'd love to see some numbers on how many deaths are due to bad pedestrian behavior like that.

Anecdotally, I've never encountered that sort of thing from a pedestrian while driving, but I've almost been run down several times by drivers not obeying the law while I was legally crossing the street with the right of way. All it would take is crossing the street at the wrong time with a walk signal without checking both ways and splat.

Certainly there are cases with fault on either side, but I'd love to know which one dominates (if either).

[mikestew]

> Anecdotally, I've never encountered that sort of thing from a pedestrian while driving,

You must not live anywhere near Seattle. Even after fourteen years of dealing with attention-not-paying pedestrians who believe it to be their deity-given right to walk into the street at any moment without even a sideways glance at traffic conditions, I'm still amazed that more of them don't bounce off of car hoods.

> All it would take is crossing the street at the wrong time with a walk signal without checking both ways and splat.

It's called "not assuming the other person is always going to do the right thing". Look both ways? Duh. The same brilliant pedestrians I reference above have been known to occasionally drive a car, of course I look both ways whether I'm on foot, in a car, on a motorcycle, or a bicycle.

[sukuriant]

My instance was in Bellevue, funny enough.

[DougWebb]

I live in a suburban town that's mostly single-family homes, with lots of children. I also work in the area and often drive home for lunch, so I'm driving around a lot when the children are out. I've had a bunch of close calls over the years with kids wandering out in front of me without looking to see if there's any traffic in the street.

The closest was a teenage girl who literally walked into the side of my car by the passenger-side front wheel just as I was about to make a right turn. I looked right, I was clear. I looked left, I was clear. I looked right again and took my foot off the brake to start my turn, and there she was with her hands on my hood and a surprised look on her face. We're both very lucky her feet weren't under my wheel.

[bunderbunder]

I don't know if this really answers your question, but supposedly about half the times when a pedestrian gets hit by a car, the pedestrian is intoxicated at the time.

Anecdotally, there are few situations I find more stressful as a motorist than driving in the vicinity of a university on a Friday night.