The Pedestrian is King?

[Davidsw8]

In the UK a pedestrian has right of way if they are already crossing the road. So the pedestrian in this case should stop. But it looks a close run thing, and my belief is that one should anticipate, and be generous and polite, to pedestrians. Not least because they use the road space in the largest number yet are often the most neglected. On the first one with the pram, having had to wheel a pram around several years ago, I can attest to the fact that there are good reasons why taking to the road may be necessary. The pavement looks narrow and rubbish, and this can be a nightmare for people pushing prams. I frequently had to use the pavement simply because there wasn't room to push a pram (often due to poorly parked cars). The second one - well the driver should have found a proper place to park as opposed to wait in the middle of the road.

The pavement isnt great but you can see the road is even worse, i see trucks and bin lorries regularly go up and down this stretch so youd imagine a parent would take a little more care. Or maybe im mistaken?

Further up the road was another chap walking 3 feet out parallel to the road, dont know what his excuse was.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Three great examples of stupidity/selfishness in the space of 10 mins this evening, maybe it's a full moon?


View: http://youtu.be/qLh_bxyX96U

Ooh, I thought that was filmed in east London - it's got that Thameside flood basin feeling that's become so characteristic for me - but Alberta Street is in Southwark. I'll have cycled the other roads and they seem vaguely familiar but I can't place them right now.

Technically, if they're already crossing they have right of way and hitting peds is never right either. However, looking is also a very good idea for pedestrians, especially because of stealth bikes and very quiet electric vehicles.

 

[Kookas]

That 3rd encounter would have been illegal in Australia - for the cyclist. Over here, if a vehicle is doing a left/right turn and a pedestrian is crossing the road into which the vehicle is turning, then the pedestrian has the right of way.

Same in the UK, but only if the peds are there before you turn. Walking into you doesn't count.

 

[Recycle]

It does annoy me when I see people crossing the road just yards away from a proper crossing.

I really don't mind where they cross. I just wish they would look first.

 

[Davidsw8]

I really don't mind where they cross. I just wish they would look first.

I was cycling home through Kennington last week after work and just near the Dog House pub between Kennington Road and Kennington Lane, the whole section of road was blocked off by the police. I looked down the road to see the ominous site of a tent on the pavement, clearly to obscure a fatality from public view...

On Wednesday, I was cycling round the same area and saw some flowers tied to the lampost and a photo of the young lad (early teens) who'd been killed the week before. As I cycled up Kennington Lane going towards Elephant & Castle, I had 2 youngish men run through the moving traffic to cross the road. A little further up, 3 grown men ran in my direction (it felt like they were running AT me), again through moving traffic to cross the road.

There are plenty of light-controlled crossings round that area but it seems to be the case that a human life is worth less than spending an extra couple of minutes finding a safe way of crossing the road.

Then yesterday, I was on a bus through Elephant & Castle and saw a woman walking her big pram down the very narrow central island, the traffic there is horrific with tons of buses, lorries etc. all the time - what was going on in that woman's mind? Again, there were 2 crossings within a minute or two's walk.

Pedestrians have the right to cross where they like, and they make full use of that. But with so many people being killed, shouldn't there be some kind of curb on jay-walking?? And they don't just cause harm to themselves, they can cause physical and mental harm to the person that hits them.

 

[Dan B]

Or, though I acknowledge this may be a difficult concept to grasp, perhaps the traffic should be required to slow down in such places? If it's acceptable to make pedestrians walk for an extra two minutes under their own power to the next crossing, why is it so politically insane to expect drivers to back off the throttle a bit (costing them, in 98% of cases, much much less than two minutes on their journey times) in their headlong rush to the next red traffic light?

 

[Dan B]

I mean, if the prospect of causing physical and mental harm to yourself by driving two tonnes of car into someone is a sufficiently bad and sufficiently likely outcome that you feel there should be legislation to protect you from it, I have to point out that a much cheaper and easier remedy is not to drive towards them at speed in the first place.

 

[Davidsw8]

Or, though I acknowledge this may be a difficult concept to grasp, perhaps the traffic should be required to slow down in such places? If it's acceptable to make pedestrians walk for an extra two minutes under their own power to the next crossing, why is it so politically insane to expect drivers to back off the throttle a bit (costing them, in 98% of cases, much much less than two minutes on their journey times) in their headlong rush to the next red traffic light?

It'd be difficult to go much slower in these areas Dan, especially round Elephant. If the traffic stopped for every person that ran through the traffic round there, it would be pretty much stationary. And why provide all those crossings and under passes if few people use them?

Btw, I don't drive, I only cycle and I constantly have peds running out in front of me, on their phones, not looking at all where they're going. It doesn't seem right that the ped doesn't have any responsibilities whatsover.

I appreciate that the ped is the most vulnerable out of anything but my fear is that a ped will knock me off my bike under a lorry one day...

I only raised this point because I saw the photo of that young lad who got killed and I can only think that he took a chance and ran out in front of something and now he's dead. What a total waste just to save a minute or two.

 

[Dan B]

It'd be difficult to go much slower in these areas Dan, especially round Elephant.

I find that difficult to believe, unless someone has implanted bombs in all the cars that will explode when the speed drops below 10km/h. Pedestrians moving at a pedestrian pace seem to be able to negotiate without running into each other in much more complex situations (e.g. shopping malls) without the aid of traffic signals or even clear consensus on which side to pass each other on: if your car (for hypothetical "you" as you Davidsw8 have already said you don't drive) can't cope with that, maybe you (again, hypothericval "you") should avoid taking it into such situations instead of expecting everyone else to make allowances

 

[Davidsw8]

I find that difficult to believe, unless someone has implanted bombs in all the cars that will explode when the speed drops below 10km/h

Get a bus round the E&C one time, then try walking it - you'll probably get there quicker walking.

Seriously, the fact of the matter is that when you've got lots of tall, moving vehicles, with the best of intentions it's difficult to see peds appearing suddenly from behind something and darting in front of you. I feel like shouting at these mothers dragging their toddlers through that kind of traffic, if you don't care about yourself, doesn't the child deserve to have a life?

 

[snorri]

I can appreciate the concern of Davidsw8 regarding seeing and hearing of pedestrian death and injury, but feel much of the problem is due to the sheer numbers of motor vehicles in our towns and cities.
On a visit to one of our smaller cities yesterday, I had some time to spare and was observing the numbers of people trying to make their way along the crowded pavements as the motor traffic, much of which carried one person per vehicle, flowed smoothly in both directions. There was something far wrong with the space allocation for the different transport modes.

 

[Recycle]

I had some time to spare and was observing the numbers of people trying to make their way along the crowded pavements as the motor traffic, much of which carried one person per vehicle, flowed smoothly in both directions. There was something far wrong with the space allocation for the different transport modes.

The space allocation makes even less sense when the traffic is gridlocked and you see one person per vehicle occupying all that space and going nowhere.