The article seems to indicate that pedestrian collisions are common during this maneuver, even if deaths are unlikely. Given that collisions are costly (injuries, insurance) and damaging (make people afraid of streets, make neighborhoods less safe for people to inhabit), it doesn't seem irrational to try to reduce them, deadly or not.
There are negative impacts other than death - especially in the United States where medical care is triple the cost of the rest of the world and we have very limited provisions for long term care or disability support. Drivers routinely make a right turn on red at 20+mph in most American cities and while trauma care is efficient enough that you probably won’t die, there’s a good chance it’ll have life-altering consequences.
Another thing to consider is that 20 years ago, you’d be more likely to go up on a cars hood. Nowadays with the average height of vehicles, I’d imagine that more likely than not people will be going under vehicles that don’t stop right away.
Oh! One of my favorite soap boxes! How about instead of making laws more restrictive for drivers, we change car regulations so that everyone isn’t driving a tank. Pedestrian deaths are on the rise because windows are smaller, cars are heavier, grills are larger, etc. Just start taxing tanks more heavily. Or, even easier, scale back subsidies for trucks
Why not also make traffic laws stricter where vehicles and pedestrians intersect? It’s not like the right on red rule came from on high, or represents some innate personal freedom. It’s just added competition between vehicles and pedestrians for right of way, and even the tiniest, safest vehicles “win” that competition in the worst way.
There's no competition here, the pedestrian has the right of way. Just start actually enforcing it. Use those red light cameras and send a ticket to anyone who cuts off a pedestrian or fails to come to a complete stop before turning.
Um. I think you’ve misunderstood my point. By the time any ticket is issued, the driver has already either hit a pedestrian or used the vehicle’s superior weight and velocity to threaten same (“won” the “competition”). Sure, they’re breaking the rule which already exists, but it’s far less likely to happen if both vehicles and pedestrians aren’t expected to share the same space in the same traffic phase.
No, you've misunderstood my point. If you enforce the laws then people are more incentivized to follow them, and in this case more people following the law would likely reduce the number of car-pedestrian collisions. Nobody really wants to hit a pedestrian, if they slow down and pay attention most people will avoid it.
If you don't enforce the laws then making them more comprehensive is unlikely to fix anything.
You are still misunderstanding my point. A driver doesn’t have to want to hit a pedestrian for right on red to be dangerous. They just have to want to move their dangerous vehicle through an intersection in a dangerous way (ie when pedestrians may also be entering it). A want which right-on-red inherently promotes.
It’s not like traffic cops are just watching drivers run rights-on-red. It’s not like red light cameras aren’t in use, and tickets aren’t being issued for violators that get caught, no matter how they enter or exit an intersection on red. The law isn’t unenforced.
The law, where it exists, is inherently dangerous. And it incentivizes dangerous behavior that makes being a pedestrian disproportionately less safe than being a driver. A ticket is far less risk to a driver than getting hit is to a pedestrian.
There is no good reason to continue to allow an inherently dangerous traffic maneuver, full stop.
Do the cameras ticket you for rolling right on red? Because I've never heard of it and I see people doing this all the time. I've definitely seen it happen in the presence of cops who did nothing.
The cameras don’t ticket anyone for anything, they just take photos. I don’t know what determines whether a ticket is issued for any red light photo.
I’ve seen cops ignore all manner of traffic violations, yes including running a right on red. I’ve also seen it enforced, and know people who’ve been on the enforcement end.
If you’re moving the goal posts to “enforcement must be total before stricter laws”, you’ve basically eliminated the basis for any traffic law besides vehicular manslaughter. Which is perhaps a logically consistent position, albeit one I can’t take seriously.
Do you have any interest in engaging the actual point I’m making? Which, again, is that right on red is inherently dangerous and unnecessary.
Here, I’ll even throw your preoccupation with enforcement a bone: prohibition of right on red is significantly more enforceable in the first place. To the earlier point about red light cameras, I imagine photographic evidence of a right-on-red violation is among the more worthless bases for automated enforcement. For actual traffic cops on duty, a no-stop violation is likely much easier to miss than a prohibition of the maneuver altogether.
And I’ll ask you this: what is your actual motivation here? Are you focused on enforcement of existing law on some principle? Or just a blanket reluctance to expansion of law in general? Do you specifically prefer allowing right on red, for any particular reason? Something else I haven’t considered?
Requiring vehicles to be safer is a good idea, but it will take many years before unsafe vehicles are off the road. In the meantime, we should try to make changes that can have an impact on a shorter timeframe. Changing traffic laws can be done relatively quickly and have an immediate effect.
Why every time when there is a problem , some socialist dude will jump out to propose tax as a remedy? This particular insane in this case where bunch of infrastructure improvements can be made to reduce such issues and taxing is not even relevant.
In Australia the registration for private road vehicles is based on the weight of the vehicle (weight class based), which in my mind makes sense as the heavier the vehicle the more wear and tear, and impact to the shared roads.
So yes, I agree with the sentiment that larger vehicles should cost more. They’re literally using more road than others.
The taxes already exist. They are suggesting a process of rationally evaluating the incentives that the current taxes create and then from there considering replacement taxes that lead to different incentives.
The the in that sentence was doing more work that you gave it credit for. Vehicle taxes already exist, it's reactionary and weird to say that changing them is proposing a new tax.
Too funny you use “reactionary “, do you even know what it means?
BTW, not sure where that proposing “new” tax comes from, but obviously you want defined the idea of using taxation as the first solution to deal with an infrastructure issue.
OK you will need to buy a dictionary first before using term you have no idea of. Also this is not a US word to begin with. Read some history.
BTW, I oppose solving this problem through taxation. It just makes you mad since other people prefer different changes, and makes you seeking help from commie vocabularies.
The Prius has better visibility, and thus is unlikely to run into a pedestrian.
A large truck/SUV can’t see anything shorter than like 4 feet that is right in front of it… so it is more likely to kill someone just because it can’t see them.
It depends. At like 80kph, you're pretty screwed from the impact alone regardless of the vehicle. At 15kph, both are pretty survivable from an impact perspective. But if your survive the impact, the next question is where do you go? For big, raised, boxy vehicles, the answer is more often "under the car" than for cars with ramping low fronts. Having the weight of the car on you is dangerous by itself, even at 1kph.
Then of course there's the impact of the design on driver visibility and therefore accident frequency, especially if the pedestrian is a child, short, in a wheelchair, etc.
We have to do both, and also something about phone usage since a lot of drivers are roughly in DUI territory now.
The problem is that driving instead of walking/cycling/transit and especially big vehicles have been a status symbol for many decades and so most of the political class and DOT leaders identify as drivers, and are loathe to make changes which might personally slow themselves down.
The gold standard would be green fully regulated right turns (no right on red or normal green, instead right on a green arrow that excludes pedestrians crossing). I lived in Lausanne which had this, it worked well.
I notice all the time how dangerous the shared right turn/pedestrian GO green light is. Both as a driver and as a pedestrian. Would be interesting to see stats on these accidents too.
Well, texting falls into the same broad category. The real cause is driver inattention. Banning right turn on red is a good way to ensure that distracted drivers endanger pedestrians less.
We should make it much rarer: part of why we have so many people killed or seriously injured by drivers is that we’ve been unwilling to enforce laws or take away licenses, and every bad driver knows that. If there was a high chance that, say, being seen texting, blowing a light, etc. meant your car would be impounded for 6 months it’d magically turn out that Tik Tok can wait until you’re out of the car.
Exactly. But instead, we steal from ALL drivers to inexplicably pander to the unredeemable. People who can't or refuse to drive properly should be removed from the road, period.
This is a toddler argument. Driving is a time-consuming chore in most cases, so people zone out, get distracted, don't pay attention to things that are harder to notice and are much more vulnerable than the vehicle itself. We depend on driving for better or worse, doesn't mean we can't make roads safer for pedestrians.
When compared to the EU (no right turn on red), US stands out as an extremely unsafe country for pedestrians, with pedestrian deaths actually increasing year-over-year. Sure, it's not all attributed to the right turn on red law, multiple new regulations are needed.
And that's a pandering-to-the-toddlers argument. Don't want to pay attention on the road? Then we will remove you from it and let the grown-ups go about their business unimpeded.
That's... what this suggested legislation is about. Not banning driving, but making it illegal to turn right on red, presumably punishing drivers who do. Maybe I am misunderstanding your argument.
You're misunderstanding it intentionally. There's nothing wrong with turning right on red. Turning right WITHOUT PAYING ATTENTION is wrong, as is ANY driving without paying attention.
Again: Take inattentive drivers off the road; don't punish everyone all the time with more piecemeal bullshit.
By this argument there is nothing wrong with texting while driving. Or drinking. Why did we make it illegal for all people to drive under influence instead of just punishing those who become inattentive?
You are talking about attention as if we can detect inattentive drivers by measuring their chakra energy from a mile away. No. There are inherently more dangerous situations on the road, right turn on red being one of those. We have the data to prove it, no need to sacrifice pedestrians in order to make the road—eventually—safer. Why do we need traffic lights at all? Let’s just all pay attention and punish drivers who are inattentive.
The suggestion to punish drivers who hit pedestrians is great. Oh wait, we are already doing that.
While we’re at it, kill the green circle left turn light which still seem to tempt weary drivers into colliding with oncoming traffic. I recently was in Virginia who changed a lot of those into flashing yellow arrows.
Wow that seems confusing. I know I would have been scratching my head at what a green left arrow with a circle around it meant different that a regular green left arrow. Would not have thought that it was equivalent of flashing yellow.
Parent comment is describing a solid green light (which is/was equivalent to flashing yellow). Never seen a green circle around a green arrow - lived in VA 20+ years
Flashing yellow left arrows remove the ambiguity that creates 'yellow trap' and also reduce cycle waste by permitting left turns when opposing traffic has extended green.
Just so I understand ( I’m not from the US) : the traffic light says red, pedestrian light says green, and car is allowed to turn ? If so, this is an obvious recipe for disaster.
> the traffic light says red, pedestrian light says green, and car is allowed to turn
turn right, yes.
> If so, this is an obvious recipe for disaster.
i've driven quite a bit in the US (not from around there), but from what i've seen it depends on population density, walking infrastructure, traffic etc. i would say that for most places this isn't an issue (most places don't even have sidewalks), but in cities with higher density you will encounter a situation where the car that is turning also needs to wait for the pedestrian to cross.
on a side note, i've noticed the same thing in certain countries in Europe, but it felt a lot more dangerous: entering an intersection where you need to turn left: you first need to yield to oncoming cars, and then surprise, you immediately need to yield again to pedestrians that also have a green light. so you need to accelerate to turn left, and then immediately stop for pedestrians.
i prefer the UK way: when the intersection has traffic lights either pedestrians or cars can move. there's no overlap, there's no intersecting pathways. it leads to longer wait times for everyone, but much improved safety. as a driver i won't have to look out for pedestrians, and vice-versa when i'm walking.
I don't think you can say this in general. In Germany we also have this but only when indicated with a metal green arrow. You still need to stop and turn red. Of course nobody does it. But this is only sparingly allowed where almost no pedestrians are. So using this selectively might help.
In impacts below 20mph, pedestrian deaths are rare. Right on red is a 0-10mph maneuver and that's being generous.
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