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Daylighting, which involves removing parked cars from around crosswalks in order to improve visibility and just wiped out about 14,000 street parking spaces, has proved especially controversial.

“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer,” Nina Geneson Otis wrote in an email to The Standard. The real estate broker said daylighting is the kind of policy that makes Democrats lose elections.

Others say the city’s actions remove responsibility from pedestrians to look out for their own safety. “A pedestrian can do anything, and be irresponsible, and no harm will come to them?” Brandi said, describing the policies as “idiot-proof.”

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[-] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 110 points 3 weeks ago

The idea that a pedestrian walking anywhere but on a limited access highway would ever be at fault for a collision with an automobile is a direct result of century-old propaganda by the moral equivalent of the NRA.

If i made a self-propelled battering ram with remote controlled steering I would rightly be held to strict liabily if anyone was hurt. But if we put a a chair in the same thing and call it a "vehicle", suddenly the rules change in our favor.

I like cars and driving, and can easily imagine a number of mitigating circumstances that would shift liability away from the driver, but the presumption that once-walkable city streets are for cars is the result of fierce industrial lobbying and not a reasoned public policy process.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 46 points 3 weeks ago

The origin of the word "jaywalking" is exactly that. Blame the victim.

[-] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 3 weeks ago

Always remember that "vehicular manslaughter" was created with lower penalties than manslaughter, because juries were consistently not finding motorists guilty of manslaughter.

It was too easy for jurors to identify with the driver, and think, what if it was me driving that car, killing that person by accident?

We need safer infrastructure in this world than one allowing anyone to be a killer just by being distracted.

[-] trufiassociation@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago

For all its faults, the NRA knows that guns are unsafe. It promotes "gun safety" not "shirt safety" – it doesn't blame people who get shot accidentally because they were wearing the wrong kind of shirt. Whereas cities around the world talk about "bike safety" when the unsafe element is not the bike at all.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 3 points 3 weeks ago

In my country its normal for pedestrians to walk in highways. The result is that drivers expect pedestrians everywhere, and collisions are rare

[-] rem26_art@fedia.io 89 points 3 weeks ago

“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer” is such a wild thing to say oh my god. Yeah, thats the point. Less people die because of it.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 3 weeks ago

“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer"

Man, I could not have done a better job of distilling the effects of the toxic "rugged individualism" ingrained in American culture down to a single sentence...

[-] rem26_art@fedia.io 7 points 3 weeks ago

absolutely. Individualism is gonna be the death of us all at this rate

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Especially after we all saw what they mean by the living "having to suffer," during COVID. The "suffering" of having to wear a mask. The "suffering" of maybe getting a perfectly safe vaccine in order to protect yourself and others (including people you don't know and will never meet, wow imagine that)...

But hey, it means that I don't have to pay for some homeless person's health care through my income tax, so worth it amirite?

[-] Amputret@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 weeks ago

She’s an estate agent. What do you expect?

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 34 points 3 weeks ago

“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer,” Nina Geneson Otis wrote in an email to The Standard. The real estate broker said daylighting is the kind of policy that makes Democrats lose elections.

The fuck? Is parking at the corners of intersections legal in the US then? Because where I live it isn't for that exact same reason of it blocking visibility. And I'm sure she's suffering deeply for lacking a few parking spots... Dumb entitled cunt.

[-] eRac 2 points 3 weeks ago

I don't think she's complaining. She is making the very good point that the benefit of the bill is invisible, while the downsides are visible. Making policy decisions based on what's right instead of what's marketable makes a party unpopular because the electorate is dumb and shortsighted.

FWIW, it's not allowed in Chicago but people tend to use the space for short-term parking and pulling over. The city has started blocking the road surface near corners to make this impossible, both with curb bump outs and simple flexible reflective posts.

[-] dodos@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

I think they recently passed a bill to make it illegal, but it won't be enforced till sometime next year.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

It's legal in many places. My city is just now starting to enforce corner parking.

[-] SpiceDealer@lemmy.world 31 points 3 weeks ago

Nina Geneson Otis wrote in an email to The Standard. The real estate broker said daylighting is the kind of policy that makes Democrats lose elections.

Urbaninsm, like climate change, shouldn't be a political issue but oddly is. I wonder who could be behind it all?

[-] Phegan@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Is this what we are going to do now, anything remotely good say "things like that is why Dems lose elections" as we watch people and our planet die.

Cool. This is great.

[-] paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works 25 points 3 weeks ago

This is funny because in the bay area as nowhere else I've ever lived, pedestrians actually take the right of way as they should. In Berkeley they don't even glance over their shoulder, it is completely up to the driver. Doesn't work where the driver can't see them, though, so I think peds and (most) drivers are more conscious of that as a bad situation. I don't believe real estate agents speak for residents.

I found it much more annoying as a driver elsewhere where people wait two feet from the curb and wave at you to come to a complete stop before they start crossing. Or while walking, after I've stepped off the curb drivers half a block away assume I must not have seen them so they honk at me. A lot of theatre and emotion for what is really just a normal part of driving (don't run into people even if it means you have to slow down).

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 32 points 3 weeks ago

Drivers don’t stop. I’m not stupid enough to step off the curb until it’s clear you’ve seen me and are stopping

[-] kurikai@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago

You might, I might, but Kids and some adults don't have the awareness. And it's not their fault they don't have the awareness either

[-] yonder@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. If I'm putting myself in front of a vehicle, I HAVE to know that it will not run me over. Especially since drivers in my area seem to be unable to stop in front of stop lines.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

So common to see the rear wheels past the stop line. I wish cops would at least give out warnings to reduce this habit. Its so normalized most don't even realize to stop before the line.

[-] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 2 points 3 weeks ago

One thing that I didn't realize, as an American, is that having traffic lights on the far side of the intersection isn't universal. If we only put them on the near side, drivers would have to stop behind the line, or else they'd be unable to see when the light turns green. Another example of better infrastructure being better than enforcement.

[-] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

Dude so many intersections around me don't even have the stop lines, because they were either never painted in the first place, or they've faded or been paved over

[-] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago

I like to go in front of a vehicle with the knowledge that either they will see me and stop, or I'll be ready to jump out of the way. I'm very stressed out when walking around.

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[-] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

I almost got nailed by a city bus on 5th and Market in SF after the green walk signal turned on. Somebody literally grabbed my jacket and pulled me back and maybe saved my life.

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[-] JustJack23@slrpnk.net 24 points 3 weeks ago

The most braindead article ever...

"People die from leopards attacks, leopards say people should be more careful"

[-] Sporkbomber@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago

I mean, there are plenty of warnings and advice on how to do things like hike through bear or cougar country. Someone who gets mauled trying to pet a bear cub isn't going to get much sympathy.

[-] Skunk@jlai.lu 22 points 3 weeks ago

Well, an argument that would fly over their heads is that this "daylighting" rule is in place in more than half of the world.

So maybe there’s a good reason ?

[-] MadBob@feddit.nl 6 points 3 weeks ago

It's such a common-sense rule that it'd never occurred to me that such a developped country wouldn't have it.

[-] Goodmorningsunshine@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

America's more of a developed company than it is a developed country, and the CEOs don't work for the employees.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Lmao. No. Where I live drivers have no problem going right though the crosswalks while people are in them.

I thought they were going to talk about the people who cross at random places, wearing dark clothing, at night. But no they chose to complain about the people crossing correctly who get harassed by cars.

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 14 points 3 weeks ago

The beating heart of American progressiveism: San Fransisco where the residents would rather kill the poor than inconvenience everyone else. If only you could patch a caved in skull with a pussy hat...

[-] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

This article is because san francisco is actually trying to address pedestrian fatalities instead of just writing them off as the cost of modernity. Most of the article is from reactionaries, who may not even live here, mad about progressive, at least by American standards, policies that the city is implementing like daylighting.

You could live in a socialist utopia and you could still find people to quote saying they liked it back when the poor knew there place.

San francisco isn't perfect but it's still miles ahead of almost every city in America. That may be a low bar but it's something.

[-] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago

I hear you, but the article is full of dissenting opinions and quotes from people that disagree with what should be a very common sense policy. Like, why even give a platform to someone who says stuff like “If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer"? Why disingenuously portray the issue of pedestrian deaths as some back and forth battle between two equal parties, instead of the incredibly one sided bullying it really is?

[-] oo1 3 points 3 weeks ago
[-] Naich 2 points 3 weeks ago

It sounds like satire, but it might just be 2024.

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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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