Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.
(www.forbes.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 06:00
https://lemmy.world/post/8591744
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 06:00
https://lemmy.world/post/8591744
Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.
threaded - newest
Anyone remember those Cadillacs that had thermal night vision?
Oh good, anything to help me kill more at night!
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This is so fucking stupid because you can apply it to literally any safety standard.
I do a lot of driving and have never needed a seatbelt.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed ABS.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed disc brakes.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed modern headlights.
I do a lot of driving and I’ve never needed a properly developed crash structure.
And of course it’s not just driving:
I don’t wear a hardhat or any other protective gear for my job. It’s never done me any harm.
Etc.
Pedestrians and cyclists in the dark can be almost impossible to see until you’re very close, if they’re wearing dark clothes. It’s not a bad thing to be able to see them better.
And then you write something exactly opposite.
OP writes about “drive to the conditions” which is like… Your responsibility as the driver. If you can’t react to people on the road, slow down.
And you write about being recless.
No I didn’t. What I proceeded to write lines up 100% with what I said prior.
Having no safety standards and leaving everything to “just do what you think is right” is a recipe for disaster.
I can’t even believe this needs to be explained.
It’s not about not using safety standards.
It’s about learning how to drive in a way that you won’t put anyone else in danger.
Safety fearures are only a tool, you are the person who controls a 2000 pound vehicles that can kill others, so drive responsibly.
It’s exactly about that.
Oh you’re saying I shouldn’t run people over???
Obviously you should drive responsibly. Where did I say otherwise?
Shitting on better safety protocols is idiotic. You can’t just rely on 100% of people to behave flawlessly at all times. That’s why we have seatbelts and crash structures and ABS, etc etc.
That’s a lot of room for improvement without new technology.
It’s the kind of thing you assume would have been empirically tested and have minimum safety regulations, instead of the wild variability we see from dimly lit up close to blinding pulsar from alpha centauri.
There is a minimum and regulations, in the US IIRC the legal range is between 500 and 3000 lumens. And it results in exactly what you describe.
Exactly.
We need to have regs targeting specific performance metrics based on testing.
Europe actually has incredible adaptive headlight technology that AFAIK was illegal in the US up until very recently. It’ll be great to see this rolled out here as it’s better for everyone.
Do we? I think they’re really annoying, blinding the shit outta me, then finally adjusting correctly just right before we pass each other.
We have the tech, what needs to improve are regulations based on performance instead of tech.
That would leave room for innovative design that achieves the performance requirements.
I’m curious what their “good” rating entails. Hopefully not just brighter lights, that just makes oncoming traffic blind. That could end up being more dangerous overall, even if it’s not the car with “good” headlights doing the killing. Realistically, if you’re going to walk at night somewhere there are cars, wear a light, high vis vest, reflectors, SOMETHING.
I know I am part of the problem, but the number of people walking around in dark colors and dark jackets at night baffles me. Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
Combine that with spending any time after sunset either partially blind from super bright LEDs or fully blind from high beams and yeah. Constantly having to drive defensively and try to spot potential hazards a mile ahead in the brief window of just being partially blinded.
So I am all for some thermals I can glance at
What does this even mean?
It means someone isn’t using a crosswalk but still has the right of way by virtue of being a pedestrian.
Yeah. Maybe it is different where others live but it is incredibly common for people to just say “fuck it” because they know others will stop or swerve. Happens in cars and on foot
It means he’s confused and has fallen for the automakers’ propaganda.
I know I am part of the problem, but the number of people walking around in dark colors and dark jackets at night baffles me. Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
Combine that with spending any time after sunset either partially blind from super bright LEDs or fully blind from high beams and yeah. Constantly having to drive defensively and try to spot potential hazards a mile ahead in the brief window of just being partially blinded.
So I am all for some thermals I can glance at
My genuine favorite is a motorcyclist who lives out near my ex. Lights off more often than not and he has jet black leathers and helmet and bike
If you cannot drive safely around pedestrians in normal street clothes, you should not be driving. You are the one bringing a lethal machine into the equation, they’re just out living.
Then please enlighten me as to how you manipulate the laws of physics to increase the reflectivity of clothing while your night vision is impaired by all the headlights at face level angles too far to the left?
Defensive driving is acknowledging problems and trying to mitigate them. Stupidity is pretending there isn’t one
The law says, regardless of the speed limit, you need to be driving slow enough to react to someone suddenly stepping on the road. If you can’t do that while driving at the speed limit, you’ll just have to drive slower.
Ah. So you don’t have a magic secret but will still smugly pretend you do.
That seems safe
Slow. Down. That’s all there is to it.
I guess people angrily speeding past and honking means they would hit the ninjas, so… kudos.
Unless they just get angry and blast high beams into my rear mirrors even more.
Don’t disrupt the flow of traffic
The speed limit isn’t a suggested speed, it’s an absolute maximum (excluding motorways with a minimum of 60km/h). If the road is frozen over you can’t drive the speed limit either, the same applies when it’s slippery due to rain or leaves or when the lights are off.
You always need to be able to react to sudden movement, no matter if it’s a pedestrian crossing the street, a motorist leaving their own driveway or even a trash can rolling into the road. It should be in your own best interest to avoid accidents.
The entitled attitude you ascribe to the overtaking drivers but also display yourself is just going to cause problems for everyone. Trying to shave a few seconds off of your commute by speeding in dark areas isn’t going to get you home any faster, all you’re doing is increasing your own stress level and risking someone’s life.
A little bit of respect on the road would go a long way to improve everyone’s experience on the road.
Ignoring the massive disruption that going below the speed limit causes and the increased aggression it instills in other drivers who understand how to follow the rules of the road:
A sedan is, on average, 1302 kg according to a random quora page. 45 miles per hour is approximately 20.116 meters per second. So about 26.191 newton seconds. People aren’t surviving that.
So unless you are battling entitlement by going thirty miles under the speed limit (which will probably still squish a person but I am too lazy to math it), all you are doing is antagonizing everyone around you while filling yourself with a false sense of security.
Seriously, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, take a defensive driving course. Defensive driving is about learning to anticipate the drivers around you and how to minimize the chance of a collision. Which is not the law you learned in driver’s Ed. It makes you a much safer driver and will probably lower your insurance premium.
That means driving in a way that doesn’t anger everyone around you and knowing when you actually need to slow down and when doing so won’t help
First off, city streets are by law limited to 50km/h (30mph) in Germany unless the road is physically blocked off from pedestrian access and is designated a motorway. And even that speed is only allowed for major thoroughfares, most city streets are limited to 30km/h (18mph), and many cities are currently arguing for banning 50km/h on city streets entirely.
Streets faster than that need to be physically separated, well-lit, need to have an additional lane or frequent additional locations to park broken down vehicles and need significant setbacks so you can see potential obstructions entering the road early enough to brake in time.
So what I’m taking from this is that the road design where you live is dangerous and substandard.
Now, to the personal appeal:
I did take a defensive driving course before I even started driver’s ed, and it was actually the reason I decided not to get a car. Nowadays I do everything — including weekly grocery runs — by bicycle instead.
The average speed in cities is 15-20km/h, primarily caused due to traffic jams and waiting times at stoplights. I can achieve or beat those speeds on a bicycle just as well, without the stakes being as high. If I make a mistake as a driver, it’s going to cost lives. If I make a mistake as a bicyclist, no one’s going to die. And considering the environmental footprint as well as the monetary costs in terms of road tax, fuel prices and maintenance, it’s definitely worth it.
Even if sometimes, people try to kill me by overtaking me far too close while speeding.
Ah. So you are uneducated, inexperienced, and live in a completely different environment but will still insist you are correct.
Is there an American milkman anywhere nearby? Because he totally knocked your Mom up. Like, I know people who traced their ancestry back to the American revolutionary war who are less American than you
“completely different environment”, ah, since when is Lemmy US-only?
This is a topic about safety features being considered for us cars because of us conditions.
I would make a snide comment about reading comprehension but I genuinely am concerned for you at this point.
Not how that shit works. At all.
First, throwing out generic legal advice is dumb. It’s not consistent in any way. Second, in most states and countries you’d have to prove negligence. You absolutely will not and should not be held responsible if some idiot runs out between two cars and gets hit while you are following the law.
Actually, in EU countries the law explicitly says you have to drive slow enough to react to unexpected changes on the road. If you as a driver hit something or someone, you are automatically at fault because you violated that law. There is an incredibly high burden of proof required to not be at fault as a driver.
But that’s usually not an issue, because road planners are only allowed to set speed limits that are low enough that drivers can actually react to unexpected changes. Which is why e.g. the Autobahn has a separate lane for broken down vehicles and significant setbacks and green areas to both sides of the road so you can see from a long distance away if something is in the road.
👌👍
Taken literally, that means that since you won’t be able to stop if someone steps just in front of your vehicle, you should never drive faster than ~10kmph. Which can be a valid interpretation, but I doubt it’s going to be a widely accepted one. For example at least where I live, if someone steps in front a vehicle within breaking distance driving at the speed of the road’s legal limit, both pedestrian and driver will share responsibility (the exact ratios being determined by the exact situation).
If you actually think about it, it’s absolutely makes sense. The Autobahn has additional stopping lanes for broken down cars and several meters of grass to each side, which means you can safely drive hundreds of kilometers an hour while still being able to see obstructions early enough to brake in time.
Slower motorways have smaller setbacks, but still enough to keep their speeds.
City streets where you can’t see people entering the road in time to brake usually have relatively low speed limits to reduce the braking distance as well as the damage caused by a collision.
But if the visibility or braking distance are affected due to weather or broken streetlamps, it’s up to you to slow down accordingly. But even for situations like that traffic planners usually add additional signs, it’s common to see roads with signs that say
to warn people to drive slower when the road is freezing or signs that say
to warn of crossing animals in the next 400m and set a lower speed limit.
The same obviously applies when it’s not crossing deer but crossing pedestrians.
Drive slower, or walk yourself if you can’t see well enough to drive.
Sure but people can be a little more sensible to think not to dress as a fucking ninja at night and expect to be seen?
You clearly have never driven at night.
Edit: Also, the idiot wearing dark clothes walking into a road at night will still be just as dead whether the driver is considered culpable or not.
As a motorcyclist of 30+ years, this is a rule you either learn early or pay the price.
A pedantic point from me here, but it’s not ‘jaywalking’ if you have the right of way. It’s only jaywalking if it’s against regulations.
Still endangering yourself to trust drivers to stop at night I agree, right of way or not.
“Jaywalking” is propaganda, not a legitimate thing.
Do people still get fined for jaywalking in the likes of NY?
Sure, but, as to be expected, it’s more of an avenue for racial profiling than anything else
nyc.streetsblog.org/…/jaywalking-while-black-fina…
It’s pretty real where I live. Pedestrians can get fined if they are being actively dangerous with it (eg stepping out from behind obstruction without making sure it’s safe to do so), and the fault can be actually theirs if they cross outside a “safe” location.
Just because its origin was from propaganda doesn’t make it not real. There are actual laws against Jay Walking, you can be charged and fined for it.
With good reason - predictability.
AFAIK the law here in Ontario is that pedestrians can cross mid-block on a non-controlled-access-highway (ie a regular road not expressway) as long as any oncoming vehicles have plentiful space to safely come to a complete stop. You only lose the right-of-way as a pedestrian if you’re doing something that forces drivers to make emergency manoeuvres.
I nearly killed a group of people one night.
Full on slamming of brakes and trying to not have another sort of accident.
Roughly 3am, a major major highway, and a group of people decides to dash across.
Dark clothing. Crossed between where any lights were.
Everyone involved was very lucky in that moment.
I wanted to bring this up, I’m glad others also see it. (Or rather don’t? :p)
I don’t know where you live, but over my way that is a dangerous, and factually wrong, assumption.
Anyone reading that, make absolutely sure it applies in your area; it doesn’t everywhere.
I understand I tend to forget people have different life experiences.
The legality doesn’t matter in the slightest. The cash settlement for suing the driver who paralyzed you isn’t really that large.
Look both ways for fuck’s sake
Legality is exactly what applies when you sue. For example, in California, USA, the law is written pedestrians do not have right of way in your scenario. No, it does not mean drivers can mow them down, but pedestrians assume the risk of their actions.
I’ve had a lot of puahback talking about this with local people in my city who have a “pedestrians are always right” mentality, and I understand the desire to wish that’s true, but it just isn’t the case. There are very clear places right of way is, and is not, protecting pedestrians.
As much as I like the anti-car think, this really shouldn’t be blamed completely on cars. Especially in the US, pedestrian infrastructure in general is lacking. This includes thinks like sidewalks, but also proper lighting at places where people could be (See the sample image of a petrol station in the article, why are there no lights there?).
Additionaly, a lot of people dress dark with no reflection surfaces whatsoever (And some ciclelysts are insane enough to go without light at night). Try wearing stuff with some build-in reflectors at night. It does not need to be an ugly big yellow patch for that. I own a backpack with nicely worked in reflectory surfaces which makes me highly visible at night.
Ofc there is also a component to the Cars and drivers here, but if thermal cameras are the first solution someone can come up with, maybe the start needs to be somewhere else.
Overall: If I can see someone jaywalking on the autobahn about 800m in front of me while going 180kph and can react to that, the cities and villages in the US should probably have something similar in lighting and overall road elsetup.
“Pedestrian infrastructure” is really car infrastructure, because it’s designed for the benefit of cars to get pedestrians out of the way.
By all rights, the entire street has been “pedestrian infrastructure” for thousands of years.
Clearly you’ve never met some assholes on bikes.
How is someone using the road to get to work, school or the grocery store automatically an asshole just because they use a bicycle instead of an SUV or a horse-drawn carriage? Don’t they have the same right to use a lane of the road as you do?
(Not talking about lycra-wearing racing-bike cyclists using the road as gym here)
The part that is shared with cars is, yes. Still doesn’t mean that it should be shit. This problem is there because it does suck. The US is a stand out in regards to non-car safety in a bad way. Trying to blame it on cars only is stupid. Demand better infrastructure, not even more bloat on cars.
Judging by the heading, most people driving at night must be blind and speeding. Just keeps your eyes open and drive responsibly!
This has been a thing for decades now at least in Mercedes (S & E) and BMW (5+).
And it’s not just the camera alone, car headlights have a special projector that selectively illuminates pedestrians (or just does a double flash at them). Works as intended, but few people opt for it … and gov are still not mandating it (like automatic breaking).
My parents gotba relatively new Merc and I’d to turn that auto braking off. Its far too sensitive and nearly had me rear ended driving around a bend. My guess is its picking up the retroreflective spots on the markings as there usually isn’t a car on that bend but the Merc is beeping at me like I’m about to be in a collision
ghost breaking
Only 344 days left till Halloween!!
xd
Something must be wrong then.
Or its just a (now) standard emergency braking feature (not meant as a substitute, but to lessen crash outcomes), not radar cruise control. If it is tho, look in the settings, maybe you can adjust something there. But radar breaking on all new-ish cars is smooth. But it does tend to sightly mimic the driving (accelerating and braking) style of the car in front, especially in cities as it tries to be polite & not make others impatient.
Also afaik radar braking/cruise control is something to turn on, can’t be on by default.
They didn’t get the car brand new but it wasn’t very old. Perhaps the previous owner turned on the setting
I have been in the settings and adjusted it but in the end it was just easier to turn the function off
Its probably awesome on the Autobahns but its a danger on windytight roads that I drive on. Probably 3 or 4 times it braked on me when there was no reason to do so. There’s one bit near my approaching a roundabout and it beeps like hell at me to slow down at least 50% of the time. Fortunately I’m back in my own car now as I don’t need the automatic (I injured my left leg)
Oh, I don’t have a comparative experience at all. But also once you touch the brakes all cruise control should turn off anyway so I’m not sure if we are talking about the same thing.
No, I’m not talking about having cruise control on in any of my comments. Just driving with the pedals myself
Oh, yeah, I see that now - I’m just in awe that issues like that are a thing (so I assumed the other system).
But I’m intrigued what makes for such difference (cars/tech, environments, legislation? - like adaptive lights were a legislation issue in US).
Yeah, you should take that to a dealer and have the system re-calibrated. It’s not supposed to act like that. If I had to guess, the previous owner got into a fender bender and had someone do the repair work on the cheap. Either that, or there’s something in the front grill area blocking the radar setup intermittently.
Every automated car I’ve driven behaves like this. I don’t buy it’s a calibration issue (there’s nothing to calibrate from what I’ve read on wiring diagrams, as that’s not how auto manufacturers roll - they build components for things like this to be replaced).
For example, I haven’t heard of headlight aiming in forever, though it’s something that used to be done with a relatively simple tool. And it’s way simpler to do than calibrate a complex radar system for a car.
This automation simply isn’t quite ready for the real world, and I’d bet manufacturers are collecting data from many of these cars (so many have a connection back to the manufacturer via cell).
I’m only trained to calibrate the camera systems that tell you when you’ve drifted out of the lane, but the tool I use is capable of calibrating radar systems if you buy the more expensive accessory package. I’m certain because I have to scroll past the instructions for radar when pulling up instructions/parameters for Lane watch.
Also, for what it’s worth the sensors CAN be replaced, but they still have to go through an initial calibration/programming once installed into the car.
It was a company vehicle and if it was crashed, we’d have known about it
Every newer car I’ve driven so far has had one installed and enabled by default. These things work fairly poorly, especially in snowier conditions (in my experience).
Yeah, iirc it became or about to become a requirement in EU. But I was not aware that it has false positives like that, that just makes ppl not use them.
However these are indeed two different things - one is emergency braking (on by default, breaking only, radar, camera of radio-wave sensors), the other one just for comfort that you can keep both pedals alone and it’s an extension of crouse control (radar based, accelerates as well, for regular situations). I thought we were talking about the second system being harsh.
I get why the first one would be tho, it’s designed to function only when the driver already falls to, but it’s useless or dangerous of it’s not working properly.
Auto-brake and auto-cruise likely rely on the same radar system. Mine seems to, as they both over-react to the same things. Really they’re just different applications of the same data.
Oh, yeah, they both really on radar in my case too, but you can also get my model w/o radar (and it still has that emergency braking feature).
I’m just baffled how come I never heard of it having so much issues, even irl I never heard about it being like that. The closest my system got to a “false” positive was on a narrow road (one car max) where a car coming towards me stopped on a slightly wider spot and went a bit offroad to allow me to pass by. As I accelerated directly towards the other car (to later turn to go a bit off-road only when already very close to it) my car beeped but didn’t brake.
Overall the system activates for me probably less than one time per year, and I have it set on the most sensitive option (all of such safety features). Previously it was in a situation where a car coming from a side road stopped (rapidly) only when already half on my side of the road, so that was valid, tho I saw it way before that & nothing happened.
They are a great example of how far away we are from automation in many spaces.
The auto-cruise control barely works right for me, the lane assist complains constantly because I don’t hang on the steering wheel like an ape as most people do. And don’t get me started about the auto-brake system that tries to stop when the lane next to me slows down, on an interstate.
People often don't help themselves either. I remember this time, I was driving on a country road in the fog. Suddenly I saw my foglights light up a dog walking in the road. So I drove around, then as I got closer I saw a man walking this dog, dressed all in black, on an unlit country road, walking away from traffic, in dense fog.
If he made it back home alive, it's purely down to luck (or his dog being seen before him again).
How about not driving while on dense fog?
I would love to never have somewhere I needed to be when weather made driving dangerous.
Unfortunately most people don’t have that kind of freedom to always be able to leave early enough before bad weather starts, or to stay where they’re at during bad weather until it ends.
Best most people can do is drive more carefully and slow down as appropriate for the visibilty.
Yes, I need more incentives to kill pedestrians.
LOL yes. Even the first sentence in this headline reads funny on its own.
Thermal imaging can help to shift those killings to daytime!
Well yea, more chances of witnesses during the day, so obviously night time is better for… oh wait, we’re talking about accidental deaths?
ITT: “What was the victim wearing at the time? Was the car acting in self-defense? Do cars have qualified immunity? Did the pedestrian pose a threat or instigate the car? Were they wearing their officially state-sanctioned Pedestrian uniform and helmet? Did the pedestrian have any pre-existing conditions?”
Remember when Biden said that pedestrian could use beacons to alert autonomous cars of their location?
No I don’t remember that. Any chance you have a link?
I remember Tesla fanboys crying when Biden appointed Cummings to the NHTSA, but I can’t think of anything else connecting Biden to self-driving cars.
forbes.com/…/bidens-12-trillion-infrastructure-bi…
Ah see this is the problem with political discussion. It turns out he never actually said that.
According to the article, one tiny piece of the $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill he signed committed two federal agencies to be conduct a study on that as a potential solution.
The Forbes article editorializes that significantly to say that beaconing has received the “federal stamp of approval”.
It’s like a kid asking their parents for McDonalds for hours and the parent says “I’ll think about it”.
Thermal imaging will definitely help spot those dirty walkers so I won’t miss as many. Those bastards can blend in sometimes and some of them are deceptively quick. The little ones especially are tough to take out. Of course, sometimes those guys just run right in front of you which are easy points but it takes the sport out of it.
Anyway, it’s about time someone put the right tools in the hands of us hunters. I can’t wait to have an evening cruise with my lights off and really get a good stalk on, you know?
What if we reduced the size of cars, reduced speed limits and created cities and towns that are safer to walk in
Also, increase public transit options & availability.
No thats communism
Yep! America: Of the Cars, By the Cars, For the Cars
I mean, long term that’s a fantastic solution. Pretty sure this change can be implemented a lot sooner and a LOT cheaper, and save lives tho.
It will help with pedestrian accidents but it will also be terrible for driving since you cannot reduce the distance between cities/commute length
I’d rather commuting take longer if less people die. But that’s just me.
I mean until recently more people used to die in car accidents than by gunfire. It was the leading cause for kids. I am not advocating for lack of concern. But making cars less useful it’s not a solution since people still have to commute long distances in some countries. You have to weigh the benefits against the costs. If you believe that pedestrians should always be prioritized then you should be advocating for a complete ban on cars
Welcome aboard, sailor.
Can you even afford a car? I somehow doubt it. you have that typical attitude of wanting to ban the things that are outside your reach.
I could afford buying multiple in cash each year.
Why would I ever do something so dumb, though?
That’s the usual sentiment in social media comments but in reality most people don’t behave this way. We need to live in the real world if we want to change it. Living a delusion and expecting others to support it is not going to help in reality.
Good.
Maybe we’ll start designing our cities and lives for shorter commutes, benefiting ourselves and our environment? Might just be me tho.
Absolutely. ignoring the issue is not going to help. not sure how we can pressure “city designers” (no clue how it actually works) to effect the change.
It’s less city engineers and moreso American/Canadian laws that make it illegal to build objectively better (measurably safer/more efficient/better for peoples’ health & stress/better for the economy/better for individuals’ finances) infrastructure.
Funfact! Can’t be bothered to look it up but I remember reading that lower speed limits actually make people more prone to speed. In most cases, if speed limit is low, people will try their best to hit it and even slightly go over it. In higher speed limits people tend to actually drive slower than speed limit dictates.
This does, however, only apply to express ways and similiar, not city’s limits…I mean, people are still gonna try to max their speed but I really don’t think we can put it high enough for this to not apply and be safe anyway.
Also, how the hell do americans have this problem when their cities spend 2/3 of the day being locked in slow moving traffic? .-.
Adjusting a speed limit is not enough, road engineers need to implement actual traffic calming measures to slow people down…
Fun fact, US pedestrian deaths went up during covid because there were fewer drivers and people could speed more easily.
In my country speeding cams work kinda well. People cry af about them but it’s almost funny seeing traffic suddenly slow down in certain points.
Speed cameras on Brazil have a lot of warnings before the camera is placed, so people slow down before the camera and reduces crashes.
Limit the speed of private vehicles mechanically, the same way they do with ebikes.
100%
Probably because people are tired or drunk. Thermal Imaging won’t fix that.
People could also wear something other than black clothes when they go outside at night.
Dude. For real. The number of jump scares I’ve had on a dark fuckin back road, and some bastard in all black seemingly materializes in front of me… Same thing with people who drove at dusk without lights on, MAKE YOURSELF VISIBLE
It is your responsibility as the operator of a car to see pedestrians even if they are wearing black
Sure is, but sometimes our brains don’t work perfectly.
Then we should make safer roads for everyone with better designs and lower speeds
This is not particularly controversial.
Said the non car driver.
No, it’s not. I’m the most responsible driver there is and even I draw the line here. When driving next to park cars I pay extra attention because someone may want to cross the road and walk out from behind a car even in places where it’s illegal but if someone hides behinds a bush and jumps out right in front of my car it’s not my fault. At night it’s my responsibility to drive below the speed limit and pay attention to the road but if some black ninja hides on the curb there’s not much I can do about it.
Uh, no, pretty sure it is legally your responsibility to be safe to everyone around you when driving. If you can’t do that, don’t drive a car.
Even to suicidal people that jump in front of cars on purpose? BS
Yes.
If you’re operating a piece of heavy machinery at high speeds, “But they ran into road!” is not an excuse.
Are you trolling? Absolutely no one would agree with that. You can’t simply absolve pedestrians of all responsibility. It’s so stupid I can’t even argue with that.
yeah I just murder people based on the color of their clothes. if they didn’t want to be murdered they wouldn’t have dressed like that
Fuck you, that is obviously not what I said. You people should really learn how to read, instead of just making shit up and then believing I actually said it.
I read it just fine, that’s your implication.The pedestrian is responsible for protecting themselves against the tyranny of the SUV. I guess if that’s the world you want then vroom vroom mf
Everyone has a responsibility for their own safety. We should do what is reasonable to reduce harm and risk to others, but there is only so much that can be reasonable. If a person wears dark clothing, doesn’t use crosswalks, doesn’t check for cars etc at what point does their safety become their responsibility?
Whew, I’m not alone.
Oh, nice! Victim blaming!
Anything but slowing down when it’s difficult to see ahead. We’ll just victim blame dead pedestrians, deer and raccoons for wearing dark colors at night.
Like the case with the paintball guy a few years ago. Someone was driving on a road in the woods at night when he suddenly hit a guy - dressed in dark camo, face blackened, etc, anything not to be seen - who came running out of the woods onto the road. He was a paintballer being persued by members of the opposite team. The car took him out of the game, though.
this is gonna be super bad for lizard people 😱
mark Zuckerberg is crying right now…
hmm thermal imaging in cars… or just more public transit and street lighting… give me the expensive capitalist hellcreating thing
I’m all for more public transport but I’m also all for improving safety features for pedestrians. Not sure why anyone would be against putting the cost on car owners.
That only works in more urban areas.
Its impossible to covered every road in lights and it can get very dark when you are far away from a city. Same with public transit. I am all for it, but it’s only reasonable in more densely populated areas. There just won’t be enough people using it in th middle of nowhere to just something like that much less staff it.
Meanwhile helping cars see people even in those less common and more difficult situations is a good thing. Why would you NOT want your car to be safer for others around you?
Awww shit bois the huge country with plenty of money cannot afford to do it
IMO, I don’t think it matters whether we can or can’t. I don’t think we should even if we could. Light pollution from cities is bad enough. Adding that many more lights would make it so much worse.
Conical shades on streetlights and yellow light to reduce interference with sleep.
Also: fewer fucking cars.
Imagine how much less light pollution there would be without all the cars…
80% of the US population, and about half of the world population, lives in urban areas.
By 2050, those figures will be 90% and 75%, respectively.
Planning better urban areas won’t help everyone, but it will help the supermajority.
Where do you think people lived during westward expansion when every town was connected by rail? There weren’t too many urban places out there.
It’s a myth that it only works for urban areas. Switzerland has their trains travel to basically every town on time and frequently, and those towns in the alps are sure as hell a lot harder to reach than whatever rural place you’re thinking of. Admittedly, getting from the station to your destination will be harder without a car until things are built or changed to replace car dependence, but car dependence was manufactured, not intrinsic.
Right. I can’t wait for the thermal camera on my ridiculously expensive car to break so it can become a lawn ornament until I spend thousands on a new camera.
As a pedestrian, this is why wearing high viz/lighted clothing at night is so important.
A high percentage of the people who are hit at night are on drunk, drugs, or mentally ill. Not exactly the type to heed this advice. Maybe homeless services could pass out reflective clothes.
I would absolutely love a source on that one, still not a great look to disregard safety and life so nonchalantly
Are you saying I’m disregarding their lives somehow? If so I think you are adding your own interpretation to my comment.
Regarding the data, I don’t recall where I first read that. But here’s what I found from google. Obviously the new numbers will vary greatly by location. And it doesn’t exactly support what I said because this just specifies homeless, not their mental state.
seattletimes.com/…/removal-of-portland-homeless-c….
A high percentage of drivers are drunk, on drugs, or mentally ill* especially those hitting people
Most drivers wouldn’t exactly take the advice of “pay attention to the fucking road so you dont kill people” and should have their licenses stripped from them. America’s dependence on cars had made the bar for getting permission to drive a 4000 lb death machine far too low
Sounds like your trying to have an argument but I agree with you.
www.simonandschuster.com/books/…/9781982129682
Cadillac and Mercedes have had thermal cameras on their cars since the early 2000s. There is probably enough data from their vehicles to see if this technology actually helps reduce collisions at night.