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Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors
(www.erininthemorning.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Have you never actually seen a crosswalk before? Because I'm having trouble figuring out which part of these rainbow flag colored crosswalks makes them look any less like a crosswalk or makes them less visible or recognizable in any way. Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk. Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I've heard this week.
I dont understand why you all are getting on this persons case. They brought up a pretty reasonable point, traffic markings are better when they are standardized. There are avenues where having a memorial doesnt detract from that standardization. They gave reasonable alternatives in addition. They arent sitting here praising the motivations behind the enforcement yet you all are acting like thats the commenters motivation.
So because people already have issues with standardization we should allow less of it? This doesnt improve the argument you are trying to make. Stop being reactionary because of the subject matter here and take a step back first.
Its honestly pretty sane in this context when you step back instead of getting reactionary. Is the paint being used reflective? Is it causing the crosswalks to be less reflective in low light conditions? Its not like all the painting being done is standardized. Not all places in the world have cross walks painted out and in night conditions where we constantly have headlights blinding people and some that arent bright enough to compensate for those differences those painted crosswalks could have an impact on safety if the decrease visibility of them in low light conditions.
In the case of the original crosswalk memorial that got defaced by the fascists I am assuming there was reflective paint used, so if people are using something with the same reflective properties as regular road paint I dont see an issue at all with a colorful crosswalk. But when you have people without that style of paint covering up crosswalks it can become a safety issue in night conditions and you arent going to see stats/studies for this as there is not enough sample data to even make that case. Not every rule or standard needs to be written in blood sometimes we can use common sense before allowing people to get injured enough to make a study and dataset to back a point.
Having a memorial that is off the road one would be more visible and also take away the hiding of motivation when the fascists try to deface it by acting like its just a safety thing. Which they recommended, paint walls, the faces of steps etc.
Like I get this is a sore topic due to the state of shit right now but we need to stop fighting with those who are trying to be helpful or offer other valid viewpoints. If we want to fight back against the rising fascism around the world we need more unity which comes from being open to dialog not just being reactionary. All being reactionary is going to do is push people away and make us more fractured and disorganized.
Don't bother, this place is becoming Reddit 2.0
You could have stopped at dumbest. I believe I'm making a civil and reasonable comment.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors. For example, my mother, in her 80's is a surprisingly safe driver for her age, but her visual acuity is just not the same as before, and at night she may have trouble with a rainbow.
the person speaking doesn't get to decide how their tone is perceived. repeating "civil and reasonable" in the face of people who say you're acting oppositely in some way is unlikely to change their opinion. even if it did, there is no way to phrase "painting a rainbow onto a sidewalk makes it less visible" in such a way that your tone makes up for the fact that the claim is absurd on its face. doubly so when you're not providing traffic data to support the claim. also, 'reasonable' suggests you subscribe to some reasoning, but the 'reasoning' provided is "it’s not far fetched to think that casualties may occur." okay well, color me skeptical. why do you believe that. i'll give you civil for whatever you think that's worth on its own though.
Have you read the comment? My reply does not allude to content, but to the insult. Part of my job is ergonomics. I'm stating a fact. That there has not been a casualty yet, does not invalidate my point.
you aren't stating a fact, you're speculating that colorful chalk on the crosswalk could contribute to an accident in some unspecified way. I've asked for what data could support your opinion (by way of observing its absence) and- you'll correct me if i'm wrong here- you've just agreed that in almost the decade since the pulse shooting there have been exactly no incidents that can be traced back to this potentially dangerous political statement that you 100% agree with. do i have this about right?
I assume the original memorial crosswalk had reflective paint used on its markings, if people are just using chalk or regular paint now it would end up reducing the reflective properties of crosswalks which would effect low light visibility. Im not sure if people have been doing this for other crosswalks but if that is the case the person you are responding to does actually have a bit of a point, we are better off just painting walls, steps, or making signs as they originally suggested, considering the state isnt just going to accept and standardize rainbow crosswalks under this administration. That also removes the hiding of motivation for the police from this being a safety act to being purely bigoted which is important. Don't allow the fascists some reasonable cover to do what they do, force them to do it with their motivation on clear display.
the crosswalk was painted at some point with highly the reflective white paint commonly found on american roads in the expected pattern for a crosswalk, but the paint has not been maintained for some time. it is dirty and not a very good reflector, even in places where chalk and standard-issue road grime has been washed off. I base this analysis exclusively on the image of the chalkwalk in the OP article. when you go back to review that image in the article, please observe the flooding overhead light directly illuminating the entire crosswalk. I would be willing to grant that, in the event of a power outage or service interruption on that light, the chalk would probably not be significantly more effective at catching a car's headlights than plain asphalt- or cracked, broken, flaking, dirty, generally neglected 'reflective' paint.
and yes you're absolutely right. there are plenty other crosswalks and walls for that matter in florida. They want that particular crosswalk to not be flamboyantly homosexual? well. there's more of us than there are of them, put it that way.
edit: and in looking up the government's line on this: ron desantis is plainly displeased with the fact that public property is being used for political speech. stop carrying the fascist's water for them. this argument is not made in good faith by the people actually carrying out the erasure.
https://x.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1958583393714667572
The possibility that a random person would go to the lengths of adding micro-beads, or go to the trouble of procuring reflective pavement paint of the colors used seems a bit far-fetched to me. Could be, but unlikely in my view.
Yeah, like your point was reasonable, which is why i wanted to step in. I dont think that its tuning into reddit per say but I do think people are just getting extremely tired of this administrations rhetoric, which is completely understandable, but if we have any chance of fighting it we all need to be able to take a step back and view others with out the bickering or they win out easily and allow us to be fractured to easily. Plus your point of using other means for memorials or painting is better as it removes the administration's ability to just act like this is being done for safety reasons and forces them to admit its out of bigotry. Eh I'm probably preaching to the choir by saying this to you. Hopefully we all can take the steps back when needed I know even I fall into the trap sometimes. Have a good day, though.
No, I'm sorry but no.
For any movement to cohere they have to fundamentally agree about the nature of reality. As long as you continue to insist that the artwork in this image displays some legitimate traffic risk, we're not living in the same reality. until the day that you understand why i can't pretend you didn't just say two incompatible things about the nature of this erasure: that it's an excuse to exercise bigotry and also a reasonable point about safety, we are not on the same side. it's past time to figure out which reality you're living in.
say what you will about conservatives, they struggle to see the world differently than how they are told to see it. They share a very firm consensus reality.
This has been described multiple times throughout this thread that describes why this can be a traffic risk. Without a reflective paint you impeed visibility in low light conditions, fog, night time, heavy rain, etc. Without the right paint you reduce friction in wet conditions that can cause accidents for those on motorcycles or bikes. Unfortunately this administration is clearly not going to repaint this memorial with the appropriate paint to facilitate that, which means its going to pose a risk unless those repainting it can use something appropriate. Its not the art itself that is a problem but the quality of paint used to make it. I have no problem with the memorial when its done right but to ignore that it does carry risk with its current implementation that people are using is being obtuse and means you are fundamentally ignoring parts of basic physics.
Like seriously no one is trying to applaud the conservatives efforts to erase this monument, we are only pointing out better ways to do this in the future. Like make your gripes make sense please because it seems you are to hung up to admit the reality that this memorial was implemented in a sub optimal way originally, there is no reason why we cant accept something wasnt done right the first time and strive for it to be done better next time. Like why continue to paint the crosswalk when people could be painting the sidewalk or using chalk on the sidewalk instead. that doesnt fuck with road safety and continues to keep a memorial in place. Like seriously, how is pointing something like that out incompatible with your reality?
oh, shit. I gave you a link to the article instead of an image of the actual chalk art. that's my bad. this was the image i had intended to link before that shows the actual conditions of the crosschalk before they were described as unsafe, coinciding with a change in leadership.
Alright this is good context, I didnt see the condition of the crosswalk from before all this was done. I still feel like there are better ways to create a memorial but in contrast to the shitty condition it was in yeah I can see how if anything the chalk was creating more visibility to that area. I still feel like a crosswalk is not the best place to put a memorial and I think thats the point i was trying to get at and where i thought the original comment in this chain had a decent point, like put it before the cross walk, further down the street on the side walk itself, the curbs, the walls near it make a billboard next to road. But yeah that crosswalk was in such a bad condition already this wasnt effecting much. I had seen some pictures else where in the thread were it looked like people were putting chalk over the white paint itself and that to me is such a bad idea when as you said in your other post you could at least put it in between the painted sections of the cross walk.
that's a fair opinion. thank you for hearing me out as far as you did, despite how hard I tend to make that for people...
Of course, and no, I'm sorry, I feel like I got a bit aggressive at points trying to explain my viewpoint which probably made it seem like my intentions were to be apologetic to the administration. I completely see where you were coming from, I should have taken some of my own advice and looked into your sources more instead of jumping to conclusions. I feel like everyone is getting so tired from this administration that we are all at a short fuse and my coping is to try and look for something good or actionable in everything so I dont completely loose my sanity during it all. I truly hope we are all able to get past this shit administration as quickly as possible and look forward to a world where everyone can be accepted, respected and live with dignity without having to hide or be scared of who they are. Stay safe out in this crazy world.
okay. i'm going to pretend for a moment that this is not the obvious bogus excuse for bigotry you've already described it as, and that there is some merit to the traffic claim on the grounds that its obstructing the reflection off the paint in a way that the neglect I referred to wasn't already doing, which I've already agreed would cause issues in certain rare but distincly possible conditions, like if that giant fucking overhead light turns off and also at the same time your headlights dont work and also at the same time it's night and/or foggy and also at the same time are driving too fast for those conditions all at the same time. i'm going to pretend that i can't take exception with any of that, and that I didn't hear out of ron desantis' mouth and see it on his twitter feed that he is taking this step to suppress politcal speech, and i'm going to pretend that there has been shown any data at all to support the conclusion that this chalk artwork has had any measurable effect on traffic incidents at that intersection.
how do I get from "you can make reflective paint non-reflective by coloring it with chalk," to "you're not allowed to put chalk in the spaces between the reflective paint?"
is it a basic physics lesson now? teach me. how does adding colors to the spaces between the reflective paint reduce visibility?
Listen i am sorry I did not see that this was getting painted in between the lines previously, I saw a preview for one of the articles you posted (I'll link it below and maybe you can see what im talking about it could just be how my lemmy client is showing it) which had people putting paint/chalk over the white portions of paint on a freshly painted crosswalk which would decrease the reflectiveness of the crosswalk and i saw the commenters point about trying to not mess with areas that help pedestrian safety. I dont like any of the messaging Ron DeSantis is spewing to justify his actions, but this thread opened a conversation about whether or not people should be messing with crosswalks and so I wanted to engage because it feels like a bad spot to be putting art in. Like people should drive for the conditions, not be going to fast when conditions are bad but the reality is there are a lot of people who dont so why should we not be more mindful of safety precautions surrounding where we display messaging or art. We can call out the heinous shit the Republicans are doing and try to point out there are better ways to display memorials or art i dont see how that is incompatible. If all we ever do is focus on the shit without trying to find the little nuggets scattered throughout that we can use to be more effective fighting oppression in the future, or be more safety minded for when we do, that sounds like a sure fire way to be burnt out on the doom and gloom right now and not realize we can still make change. Small things add up and even things that might seem insignificant help build momentum in people's minds that enable people to push for bigger change and support bigger movements. But if we always argue assuming negative intent from others we dont get to see that, i.e. I dont think the original commenter was trying to support DeSantis he was just trying to point out how people could be more safety minded and got shit on because people assumed he was justifying the Republicans messaging. It feels like discourse everywhere is losing nuance as people get burnt out from everything, which it probably the point to this barrage of shit from this administration. Anyways hopefully my comments are clarifying where I am coming from, I'm honestly not trying to be insensitive or support the trash in this world. Maybe I should have looked at those articles directly to gain more perspective so we weren't arguing in circles here, and im sorry I didn't thats on me.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/florida-paints-pulse-crosswalk-black-protesters-colored-rainbow-rcna227073
a. they don't need an excuse. they have power. if you are in doubt of that, please check the actual reasons ron desantis and co. are saying out loud with their words directly that they are doing this for.
b. the fact that the chalk was colored inside the lines of the crosswalk after this supposed safety issue was pointed out and the chalk still being removed is sufficient to give that lie its character.
with the notable exception of observing basically, 'you don't have to place the memorial directly on the spot where a tragedy occured,' yall are just carrying water for ron desantis.
The article says "Paint", a whole different ball game from chalk. Visibility aside, I'm a motorcyclist, and I can assure you that slick paint on the road is deadly. Pointing out that there hasn't been an accident yet, and declaring it safe is a textbook example of logical fallacy.
Want data? Ask google for "high contrast safety". Here is a result, in case your google-fu is not up to date
it's hard to be up-to-date with google fu these days. I tried looking for traffic data on that intersection (eg pulse nightclub traffic safety before:2025-01-01) only to find it either doesn't exist as such or is so obscure to me that it might as well not exist. visibility on the road is a very different thing than slickness i hadn't considered, granted full stop.
I still need to be convinced that whatever paint it is they're using is actually causing the road to be slick before i retract or make any edits to previous statements, but that's definitely a more serious point in my opinion and thanks for specifying. like i could see latex as an issue but i wouldn't agree spray paint is an issue. and then the problem would be how should we both allow these people to memorialize a tragedy in such a way as to safely allow for the passage of traffic, not unilateral denial of a precedented memorial on grounds that can not at this time be shown to be supported by evidence, whatever you may say about the fallacious nature of my skepticism.
and not for nothing, but i just actually checked and, only the headline could have its ambiguity be interpreted to suggest the memorialists were 'painting.' at least according to this article, the floridian state are the ones using paint and the pulse memorialists are using chalk, and despite the OP's headline referring to "repeainting," the images of the crosswalk show it 'painted' with chalk within that article, so actually, are you sure you didn't just read the headline and come to a 'reasonable' conclusion and 'civilly' express your '100%' support for the cause while actually thoughtlessly supporting the erasure of a tragedy's memorial for some reason?
then, from your source:
are you honestly suggesting a colorful pattern instead of black would tend to reduce visibility? this is the part i was saying is absurd on its face earlier. and i'm sure you'll forgive me as i return the accusation of "did you even read this?" i was not going to slap you with this earlier because it's such an obvious retort as to be insulting, but, how are you not constantly struggling with visibility on the road with all the different colors of car?
I'd like to hear what florida state law or traffic data or the people actually using the crosswalk have to say about the matter, not this unrecognizable messageworks public interest group on the first page of a "traffic visibility" google-fu session, or some ergonomical motorcyclist who i frankly suspect will never come across this intersection in their life.
I have probably not explained myself well enough, or maybe you have not read, or understood correctly.
Here you clearly have a problem with reading comprehension.
Stating that something is safe because another event hasn't happened yet, is a logical fallacy. It's like stating that smoking isn't harmful because your grampa smoked until his 80's and didn't die of cancer.
no, you have this backwards and i'm not taking time out of my day to explain how to you.
It sounds like you made a point without thinking a whole lot about it, and now you're just doubling down instead of just saying "yeah you're right, my bad."
I made a thoroughly well though out point, and I'm replying with what I consider reasonable effort and arguments, which are countered with insults. Please re-read the thread.
Objectively?
Based on what?
Based on you thinking that a specific series of white lines on a black background amongst a large series of white lines on a blackground is more distinct than a completely different rainbow pattern?
You spend much time working in UX, psychology, or vision analysis?
You come across as a “well ackchyually” dipshit. You might think you are making a point, but think this one through, is it a good one in this context? Is it even a good one at all?
I think you may have anger issues. If that is the case (I'm not trained to diagnose) you may want to explore professional attention.
I rest my case.
It's funny how they're only replying to comments with a somewhat "aggressive" tone, to complain about the tone while ignoring the actual point.
Which is? Please people, read.
I'm replying to many posts. The aggressive ones pretty much disqualify themselves. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" is very applicable here. People don't seem to read.
'people disagreeing with me on the internet is violence' -assic isamov
Why is your mom, at 80, driving around the part of town where there are nightclubs, alone, at night..?
I dunno? Freedom?
Aren't we a wee opinionated and with fascist tendencies? Surprising how you defend some groups freedom but deny others.
If you bothered to look at the way these are painted you would know this isn't a problem.
As someone who deals with ergonomics as part of his job I KNOW there is a problem.
As someone who deals with UX and the psychology of recognizing and distinguishing things, I can tell you that you know jack shit about the situation here, and working in a field close to ergonomics is evidently not the expertise you think it is.
I did not say I work in a field close to ergonomics, I said that my work INVOLVES ergonomics. Also, pretending that someone who "deals with UX" has any serious knowledge of ergonomics, is like a chiropractic saying they are an actual medical doctor, or that a software "engineer" is anything near a real engineer.
The problem we're talking about is a UX one. The ability to quickly distinguish a visual sign / interface.
And I'm both an actual electrical engineer and a software engineer, I understand the distinctions between the two very well.
But do please cite your ergonomic data showing that rainbow crosswalks are hard to see, or you can admit that you're just baselessly pearl clutching.
Yet you have not been able to back up that supposed knowledge with ANYTHING
One of the first results from googling "high contrast safety".
There are a bajillion more, and many actual research publications. You really could benefit from reading.
It looks like reading AND comprehending isn't really your thing, bless your heart.