Comment by potato3732842
4 days ago
>That's... not true? With light traffic a 4 way stop should have no cars at all at it most of the time, leaving pedestrians with the right of way, whereas with a traffic light there will always be a road with priority until a pedestrian hits the button. Requiring cars to pay attention to the condition of the intersection is the explicit design goal.
>This was laid out very clearly in the article we just read.
<facepalm>
This is what I mean about theory vs reality.
4-way stops don't look like the animation they show you in driver's ed. In practice what happens is that non conflicting traffic tends to parallelize so someone taking a left might start their left while the person across from them is finishing theirs (or one of any other bunch of combinations) so there's a car in motion basically all the time the situational awareness of every driver who's about to get their turn is mostly absorbed in monitoring who's turn it is and who's going where.
So when you're a pedestrian and you don't time it right you could find yourself starting to cross right before someone wants to drive where you're crossing. Usually this is because you started walking before it was their turn and they didn't notice you until it was their turn and they started moving (because they were accounting for the other traffic) until it was their turn at which point they started looking where they were going as well. Normally this results in absolutely nothing, you speed up a little, they don't gas it as hard, everyone goes on their merry way. But the potential for things to go badly if the conflicting driver is inattentive or further distracted is very much there.
Sure, theoretically the rules say they shouldn't do that but that's not how reality works.
There's just so much less potential for conflict if there is a scheduled time when all the cars stop and then the walking happens. Even without a dedicated walk time it's just so much easier to time it when there's a light because you can start walking when all the cars have red and only have to look out for right on red or potential red light runners, it's a much easier problem than the degree of swiveling your head around you need to do to at a busy 4-way.
I tend to agree with you. I regularly walk, sometimes up to 40 miles per month, in the suburban hellscape that is South Hill in Puyallup, WA. This is the land of major 4 lane arterials w/ turn-lanes and hundreds of unprotected two-way and four-way intersections. There’s almost no pedestrians, I’ll rarely meet other people on my way to work, and sometimes go the whole two miles without making eye contact with a single driver.
This article didn’t touch on it, but there’s another even scarier monster lurking out there. They’ve started to replace some of our larger intersections with these “Smart” traffic lights. Most drivers have a pretty well developed feel for the pattern traffic signals follow. These are pretty much random, adjusting the traffic flow based on some metrics. They use yield left turns with single direction flow and other tricks to try and control traffic. Since the light cycle doesn’t really follow any standard pattern, they’re also pretty much random when they’ll insert the protected pedestrian crossing into the cycle. It’s a death trap. There can be people waiting at a yield left turn which will be going to red, it will click on the pedestrian walk, and the opposing traffic will still be in full green, with drivers never coming to a stop. Add to that, if volume is heavy, you can stand there for 5 minutes or more waiting for a protected pedestrian crossing.
> ... the situational awareness of every driver who's about to get their turn is mostly absorbed in monitoring who's turn it is and who's going where.
Right, that's the intent. Drivers paying attention to their surroundings is the goal.
> So if you're a pedestrian and you don't time it right you could find yourself starting to cross right before someone wants to drive where you're crossing. Usually this is because you started walking before it was their turn...
You have the right of way!
> There's just so much less potential for conflict if there is a scheduled time when all the cars stop and then the walking happens.
How about a system where all cars are expected to stop all the time?
> You have the right of way!
Which, while true, in no way guarantees the driver sees you. If they miss seeing you for some reason, you very well may end up on the losing end of the physics of a collision between a 150lb object and a 3000lb object.
> Right, that's the intent. Drivers paying attention to their surroundings is the goal.
The drivers are paying attention to the cars, not the pedestrians
> You have the right of way!
Graveyards are full of people who had the right of way.
> Drivers paying attention to their surroundings is the goal.
In the real world, drivers don't pay attention to their surroundings; instead, they look for other cars to avoid being hit. Further down the list is avoiding static obstacles like street lights or bollards. Lastly, they may think of looking for pedestrians. In other words, they care about their safety, not their neighbor's.
Cyclists, if even noticed in the first place, are seen as nothing but a nuisance that should be overtaken at all cost, even when they are about to reach a stop light and there's no room to pass safely.
> You have the right of way!
A non insignificant number of drivers believe that "might is right" and will knowingly play chicken with you if they perceive that they are safer in the event of a collision. As a vulnerable road user, you don't know whether the driver you are interacting with will be one of the 95% of reasonable people or one of the 5% of insecure bullies.
If you treat that as a given, rather a thing for us to change with environmental design, the only ethical solution is banning private drivers entirely.
Encouraging anti-social people's deadly hobbies is terrible for the community.
1 reply →
> This is what I mean about theory vs reality
> Sure, theoretically the rules say they shouldn't do that but that's not how reality works.
Do you have any evidence for this or are you just making this up as you type? Because it's a bit rich to be harping about "reality" otherwise.
A large body of research supports traffic calming measures for pedestrian safety and to increase driver awareness. A four-way stop intersection surrounded by intersections that also have stop signs (as indicated by the article) would fit that bill.
are you so engrossed in the driver's POV that you can't imagine an intersection without cars in it?