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San Francisco Still Among Most Dangerous For Pedestrians
dkatana writes: The city of San Francisco averages 200 injuries per year and 30 deaths. This is almost double the number of Barcelona, Catalonia, which has about the same population. The city started a Vision Zero program, aimed at reducing and ultimately eliminate pedestrian deaths by 2024. But after a year-long Vision Zero education push called Safe Streets SF, whose key message is that pedestrians always have the right of way, the results have been modest. Now a series of banners on light poles in the South of Market neighborhood with the message: 'Slow down! We live here!' are trying to convince drivers to respect people on foot.
If only we force people to engage in a diverse, non-confrontational conversation that raised awareness of this community issue, it would solve the empathy-deficit problem practically overnight.
People per square foot in SF is pretty dang tight. Between 8 and 10 million people live in the Bay area, depending on who's estimates you enjoy. To make it in and out of the city, you need to use Public transportation, which means lots more pedestrians than other places I have been (including DC, NYC).
Finally, we have things like the Embarcadero where cars can be stuck for a really long time because the Pedestrians have the right of way and at lunch time thousands are crossing the streets. A system like a ramp which allowed both cars and people would make a big difference in those areas.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
whose key message is that pedestrians always have the right of way
What? Should that be "they always have the right of way if on a crosswalk"? Because otherwise I think I can explain your pedestrian death rate...
...But if it is anything like my home town, a concurrent campaign of 'hey, you there walking, actually exercise a little caution' would be probably a good idea too. A few too many people on both sides of this equation acting like they are the only thing moving out there.
They believe their right to walk into traffic overrules the basic laws of physics. I hate driving in the city, but have to do it on a regular basis.
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...the way pedestrians act in Boston and New York: total chaos. People wander across the street randomly, and drivers are very aware that this is going to happen, so they slow down. It made for a much more pedestrian-friendly environment there than on the west coast, where cars travel far too fast and pedestrians are timid and restrained.
Nearly got knocked over when crossing - legally - at a pedestrian crossing in Berkeley, and a driver refused to stop and I had to jump out of the way.
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Peds SHOULD NOT have the right of way. people can stop on a dime. cars cannot. you dont make the oil tanker yield to the dinghy.
There's a little road on the island of Tutuila, American Samoa, that has the sign "5 MPH or rocks". Made me slow down. :)
Indeed. I actually got into an argument with a former acquaintance regarding this point. He claimed that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way, anywhere, anytime, in any circumstance. I then asked why people can be ticketed for jaywalking. I asked who has legal liability if the pedestrian willfully jumps in front of a car.
His inane response went along these lines: jaywalkers still have the right of way but are ticketed so as to discourage people from getting injured. The driver is always at fault because they have a duty to always look out for potential road hazards. Failure to keep an adequate lookout and safe speed means the driver is liable.
Obviously, CVC does NOT agree with his interpretation of the law.
Every time I visit SF I am surprised by how readily the pedestrians casually cross the streets--they will cross at red lights; they will walk into cross traffic without regard to safety, expecting drivers to stop; and if they do bother to look before crossing, they take their sweet time. If you tried to pull that shit in Southern CA, especially in downtown or west LA, you'd be dead by lunchtime. I also found that drivers in SF are a lot more cautious and less aggressive than LA drivers. LA drivers are scary, especially in the westside. The aggression levels there are insane: drivers cutting each other off, running red lights, not stopping at intersections, and squeezing through narrow openings are extremely common occurrences. I suspect it is a combination of the traffic and culture there: it's a lot of local streets, with almost no relief from constant traffic gridlock; then add in a culture that rewards self-entitlement and conspicuous consumption, and the result is a lot of people behind the wheel with death wishes.
This. I was in SF a couple months ago and even coming from Portland I was pretty impressed by the sheer brazenness of the average SF pedestrian. The drivers were no better/worse as far as I could tell, but everyone was in a hustle, crossing illegally, ignoring pedestrian signals, etc. Combined with narrow downtown streets the real surprise is that it is not even worse.
See page 9:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/P...
SF is 1.7 deaths per 100k residents
Dallas, Detroit, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Albequerque, and Jacksonville are all over 3 deaths per 100k residents.
The organization asks that people default to "giving right-of-way" (yielding) to pedestrians. Pedestrians do not legally have permanent right-of-way. Right-of-way is determined by law, planning, and engineering.
The California Vehicle Code requires that all automobile drivers YIELD to pedestrians in the road, but as pedestrians do not have a permanent right-of-way, they can still be cited for jaywalking.
Why was this voted down? CA still has a very strong car culture. Just look at the traffic in San Francisco. There are a lot of people here that are very anti-pedestrian and anti-mass transit.
with very few exceptions every single comment in this thread blames pedestrians for jumping out in front of cars
in San Francsico, crossing a street, within the crosswalk, with the light, is a stupid act of faith that some idiot isn't going to
mow you down. bikers taking turns without looking, ubers shooting across the street looking only at their phones
some self important dickhead in a bmw blowing a red 20 seconds after its turned.
collectively - you're the worst. people who might actually want to walk 10 blocks instead of getting in their cars are effectively
disposable human trash who should really just be killed for forcing you to slow down for a few seconds.
A propaganda effort to change how safe drivers are can help a little bit, but what makes cities safer is physical world changes that make it easier to drive safely and harder to hit someone. In Seattle, for example, they redesigned 75th street after an accident and saw a major reduction in the number of collisions. (Things like removing parking, adding bike lanes, etc...)
http://www.seattle.gov/transpo...
Bike lanes are actually useful in that even if not used by bikes, they ensure you can nudge out into a road slightly for better visibility when turning into it if you need to. You also are less likely to intuitively drive as close to the center line as if you are avoiding parked cars.
Isn't this just part of their plan on eliminating the homeless?
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Getting rid of jaywalking laws so and reseting the attitudes and expectations of drivers so that they show more caution and slow down might be more effective. Allowing people on foot to reclaim their city from the motor car will make cities a better place. It would be better to lobby for better and more transportation alternatives than entrenching driving. In some congested places like London they've even talked about remove all signage and lane markings to create "naked streets", because actually this makes drivers slow down and pay more attention and care. As a visitor to San Francisco my observation is that drivers rush too much and drive too much like aresholes in their rush to get across the city.
Admittedly I've only been to SF a few times, but I've never gotten the feeling that it has a strong car-culture, and that most of the car-culture that exists comes from transplants that had a strong car-culture where they came from.
I've found the subway and bus system relatively good and the taxi fares cheaper than if I had to pay to park.
Flat-out, the city was not laid-out for daily car use by its inhabitants, and houses with soft-story first floors with garages have proven to be dangerous with the earthquakes. If I had to live there I would probably think really hard about living further south on the peninsula or on Treasure Island if I wanted to keep vehicles, as the city itself is not conducive to it.
As for pedestrian accidents, It doesn't really matter if a pedestrian has the right-of-way if the vehicle cannot stop in time to avoid hitting them. From the perspective of the action that led to the accident perspective, pedestrians are probably at-fault for a lot of the accidents, even if legally the driver is at-fault, especially for narrow streets with parked cars as obstructions. Simply put, don't cross where it isn't safe to cross.
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