Comment by isoprophlex
4 months ago
It's the urban planning, but I'll point out that it's the requirements and responibilities put on the drivers as well.
Driving lessons for me consisted for 80% of learning how to ALWAYS ALWAYS track all the cyclists and pedestrians in urban environments, how to approach an intersection and have complete visual on whatever the weaker parties might be doing. A very defensive "assume weird shit can happen any time, and don't assume you can just take your right of way" attitude, and I think our cities are better for it.
In America, it seems that a pedestrian is a second rate cititzen. Conversely, here if you hit the "weaker" party as a driver and it's almost always on you in terms of liability.
It also helps that "the car driver is to blame until proven otherwise" is the actual law in the Netherlands, which is motivated precisely because of that power dynamic. Essentially, the responsibility defaults the more dangerous vehicle.
(for some reason this always is controversial with a lot of Americans whenever it is brought up in on-line discussions)
Having recently read "Amerikanen Lopen Niet" (Americans Don't Walk), the power dynamic you describe seems to be entirely real.
Because a car is essential for economic survival in the USA, it's probably difficult for some to accept alternate realities from the status quo.
Americans will never walk.
Where I live, today's high temperature is lower than the low temperature in Amsterdam.
In August the average low temperature is higher than the average high temperature in Amsterdam.
Nobody, not even the hardiest Dutchman is going to walk or cycle when it is 27C at midnight in the summer and 0C at the warmest in the winter with four months of "Amsterdam weather" sprinkled between summer and winter.
Plus there's geography. My house is 21m above sea level, 3m higher than the highest point in Amsterdam, and I live 500m from the sea at the very beginning of the rollercoaster of hills and valleys the glaciers carved into the landscape here.
To walk or cycle to a store would require several Col du Tourmalet-class hill climbs (that's only a slight exaggeration) along the route.
Everywhere south of me is hotter, everywhere north of me is hillier.
https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-8pl51/Amsterdam/
Compare Amsterdam to DC a well-known "swamp" in the US that most people would consider one of its flatter cities.
https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-kfds8/Washington/
Don't be thrown off by the scale: yellow in Amsterdam (of which there is none) is 25m and yellow in DC (of which there is much) is 78m.
14 replies →
The reason: lobbying from auto manufacturers!
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
Except for trams. They never seem to get the blame, however with their braking distance, I suppose it makes sense.
On top of that, I like to think that on some subconscious level the idea of getting mad at trams and buses feels like getting mad at the elderly who depend on it, and just considered Not Done as a result unless very clearly justified. That is probably not true, but I like to think people reason that way nonetheless
It's very hard for a tram to unexpectedly do anything. They accelerate slowly, they decelerate slowly. It's entirely obvious when you can come across a tram and when you can't.
Seeing as a tram (nearly) always has right of way, if you get hit by one you clearly weren't paying attention.
Makes sense to me.
In the greater united states, the first people to get cars were also those who had various forms of power. Those people (moneyed european americans who believed in the myth of industrialization, supremacists) used power to shape the legal regime of cities to claim more space for themselves.
"Jaywalking" is a pejorative slur popularized by some people in the USA to justify their road supremacy.
I've lost friendships with my american friends (and a canadian, living in america) because of how evident their dangerous driving is, with regard to non-drivers is.
I can stomach approximately one mean thing to be said about someone walking on a street before I am unable to be in friendship with the person who says that mean thing.
Pedestrians in america are not "second rate citizens", they are seen as _not having dignity or humanity_. the kinds of people in america likely to be walking around certain roads have generally been of the groups of people some Americans have pointed ethnic cleansing energies at, which obviously requires lots of dehumanization already.
I have such beef with the various powers and authorities that influence american mobility networks.
American traffic planners are functional flat-earthers. not great.
As a Dutch person living in the US, a big difference is also that almost every driver in the Netherlands is also a cyclist themselves. In the US there is this almost cultural divide between drivers and cyclists where it becomes part of people's identity. In the Netherlands most people will just choose their mode of transportation depending on the specifics of the trip.
In practice this means drivers tend to do a much better job anticipating cyclists, e.g. by checking for cyclists before making a turn.
Driving lessons in NL also teach you to open your door with your _right_ hand (left is right side drive), that way you turn your shoulder a bit and get in perfect position for controlling blind spot and mirror for eventual bike incoming (or whatever vehicle you missed).
Ive heard this repeated on the BBC before, but it isn't true, at least not for my driving lessons 2 decades ago. I just got told everytime to look over my shoulder for cyclists before opening the door. But never have I heard of anyone being taught to specifically open their door with their right hand
I had driving lessons last year and I was taught this. My teacher said the CBR examinator will watch how you open your door when after you drive back to the CBR location. It's not just for checking your blindspot, but also to have more control over the door when there are strong winds.
To be fair, the BBC is institutionally anti-cyclist, so they may have mis-represented the "Dutch Reach".
I can't see why it's not taught and used everywhere as it encourages and facilitates the checking behind you when opening a car door. Rather than focussing on "left" or "right" hand, I find it more useful to just always use the furthest hand from the door so the same idea applies if you're driving or a passenger.
1 reply →
Having taken my driving lessons and test more recently, a couple years ago: I've been told by my instructor that not doing the dutch reach is one of the few items that can result in an instant fail. I think opening the door that way only got formalized somewhat recently.
Driver's ed in the US in any state with much urbanization to speak of is like that too (there's 50 states with 50 different curriculums with differing levels of specificity so generalizing is ill advised unless you're looking to intentionally mislead) unless perhaps one took it long ago or in somewhere so rural that other traffic wasn't relevant.
I took my driving test in Palo Alto in 2008. It was a total joke. We drove around the block; drove onto the freeway; took the first exit and immediately back to the DMV and that was it. Took ~5 minutes. My driving test in Germany was 45 minutes. We drove all over town through all kind of street types. I had to perform several different parking maneuvers, stop and start on a steep hill.
The CA DMV test is 20 minutes. Whatever it was in 2008 I sincerely doubt it was five minutes.
I live in NL close to a border. Guess where tourists tend to stop their car, when coming in from the left in situation of the fine article?
People have little situational awareness anyway, but perhaps a bit moreso when they are Dutch.