This happens virtually every single day. Drivers in Chicago would rather commit vehicular manslaughter than wait 5 seconds for someone to cross.
I saw a guy get hit in a similar situation once. One car stopped for him in the right lane and he walked out into the street. Oncoming guy in the left lane didn’t know why the guy in the other lane stopped (It was dark and he likely couldn’t see the pedestrian). Dude got creamed, the car was probably doing ~35-40 mph. He went flying and landed on his neck. My wife who’s a nurse stopped to help him, and make sure he didn’t move until EMS got there because he could have broken his neck. The fucked up part is the car that hit him didn’t stop. We gave our contact info for the police report, and never heard about it again. I hope he made it out with no permanent injuries.
Wat? No pedestrian/car traffic lights for the crossing on a busy road!? As a European, only the shittiest undeveloped places would have something like that!
Welcome to the USA!
As a driver I know I’m supposed to stop at a zebra like this, but I’m probably also blocking visibility for other drivers at the same time. Yeah, they’re supposed to be more aware than this but we all have car insurance for a reason.
Is the better move, as a driver, to partially block the neighboring lane until they’re done crossing? I’m seriously wondering this now.
We really shouldn’t have to do it, but sometimes in sketchy crosswalks, I’ll put my arm out my window with an open palm faced back so cars on the left hopefully have some indication of pedestrians crossing from the blindspot on the right my car creates.
Does do anything? Probably not…
Amputating your arm is something.
Seriously though that’s a pretty good idea. It should at least make people think something unusual is happening.
This is usually when I arrive at a designated pedestrian crossing that has more then one lane without a center pedestrian island I stop back about 1 car length.
It allows pedestrians, and cars behind me to see each other, and should allow a little more reaction time for either to stop.
Also people in cars constantly forget kids are just as likely to run across a crosswalk. And at one point those kids might be their kids.
…chicago?
Bruh… this is common in EVERY single car-centric municipality. I walk in toronto, a whole different country , and THIS is a daily occurrence for me. Even when I get the license plates ofo the people who do it and report them… nothing happens…
And as far as Im concerned THIS is exactly what most people want, chicago or toronto, since there hasnt been a subtantial action substantiated by people to change this … so…
You’d be beaten to a fine pulp if you acted like this in Europe.
Meanwhile, in Asia where lots of countries have a different system/culture, the cars would not go that fast when passing by a pedestrian. The idea is basically that pedestrians just walk into the road and the cars adjust their speed to allow the pedestrians to pass.
When I’m a pedestrian, I pretty much ignore right of way and treat crossing more like frogger (unless it’s at a traffic light), though generally prefer taking moments where I can cross either fully or to a raised divider. It won’t really help me if some driver that hits me gets in legal trouble.
While driving, I actively try to avoid hitting pedestrians, using various tools at my disposal, such as my eyes (useful for seeing that there’s a pedestrian I shouldn’t hit), my feet (my car is equipped with a pedal that converts my momentum into heat, as well as another one that disengages the motor so that it doesn’t add more momentum back in, allowing me to slow down or even stop to avoid), and my arms (my car is also equipped with a device that allows me to convert the direction of my momentum to a different direction, which can work as a last line of defense when avoiding hitting pedestrians, though honestly it’s a pretty big fuck up to even need to do that because there aren’t many other options for directions on city streets). I also chose my car with “good visibility of things around me” as one of the features I wanted it to have.
Though it helps that the crosswalks here that aren’t at intersections have lights that flash rapidly only when someone presses the button to cross. It’s probably safer to cross at these than it is at an intersection due to varying levels of attention to pedestrians while turning, especially if it’s a left on a busy street that doesn’t offer many opportunities to make that turn.
Pedestrian bridges are nice whether I’m walking or driving. Assuming they don’t collapse, that is, in which case they aren’t very nice.
People are getting more and more anxious :/ people have no patience, wait a few seconds for someone to cross the street. People becoming increasingly decadent.
Armed self defense is the only way to deal with murderous ecocidal narcissists. That’s attempted murder, the victims should be able to defend themselves.
Are you suggesting he draw his pistol and starts firing as soon as the car goes by?
It’s the American way
Chicago is the most pedestrian-hostile place I’ve ever visited, it’s insane, and that counts Houston, which doesn’t even bother to have sidewalks at crosswalks at all in most of the city. In Chicago, they literally try to hit you, you’ll hear them hit the gas as you step into the crosswalk.
If we lived in a sane country, this person would have their license taken away.
This is called “the wave of death”.
When a road is two+ lanes, and the closer lane stops to wave a pedestrian through; the other lanes often cannot see that there’s a pedestrian at all because the car is blocking the view. They just see a car stopped for no reason.
If you’re a pedestrian, be extremely careful crossing the road in this highly specific scenario. My stomach dropped when I saw the person not watching where they’re going. Obviously the car is in the wrong for assuming there are no pedestrians at a pedestrian crossing… but this is an extremely common mistake when driving.
the other lanes often cannot see that there’s a pedestrian at all because the car is blocking the view. They just see a car stopped for no reason.
If other car stop at crosswalk, assume person walking cross. How hard can it be? One of the first things I learned in driving school is “if ball, then child!” and this is the same.
It’s not hard. But everybody makes mistakes which is why roads are so dangerous.
Being in the right morally won’t save your life when crossing the street. You still have to look both ways and wait to check that drivers see you.
Yes, easy solution if your brain is functioning at all.
A functioning brain should be a prerequisite for a drivers license.
The problem is that, while you are correct, in case of the driver’s mistakes is the pedestrian that pays the steepest price.
So while we can acknowledge that some drivers are indeed braindead, it’s important for pedestrians to use the brain for both of them
A car stopping for no reason at a crosswalk? Guess I should drive by fast
Get out of the danger zone quickly
What do they think an already stopped car is doing there? Straight to jail.
Around here? Delivering door dash approximately 1km away from the middle of this particular road.
Yeah that driver is clearly not paying attention to the road
Is that legal in the US? Here you have to stop if you see that another car has
It used to be common in Poland where pedestrians didn’t have priority when crossing the street, they had to wait for a car to stop and let them cross (of course they had priority once on the crosswalk). There were couple of attempts to change this but some politicians claimed that it will cause more accidents because it will be confusing, people will think they have priority, drivers will not stop… Finally, couple of years ago it passed and… it just worked, accidents were down.
Not giving pedestrians priority when crossing the street is beyond stupid.
Yes a lot ppl don’t care about bright glow in dark signs that say ppl are allowed to cross… it’s sad
“Surely this person is stopped for no reason and not because someone is in the marked crosswalk.”
