• EatYouWell@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      11 months ago

      If you’re walking in the road at night wearing dark clothes, you’re not a victim, you’re a road hazard.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        11 months ago

        Closest I came to smoking a pedestrian was a black dude, like Wesley Snipes black, wearing all black, sauntering across a Chicagoland street at 10PM.

        His white shoes were the only thing that saved his life. Saw little white flashes moving low, puzzled me so I dropped down from 55. Motherfucker just looked at me like, “What? Fuck you.”, kept rolling. My heart was hammering out my chest.

        See assholes in my hood dressed dark all the time. You don’t gotta have reflectors on (I do have a strip on my pack), but FFS, wearing black at night?!

        (Old man rant; I did that shit when I was a young punker.)

        • Wahots@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          This happened to me recently, but with someone’s pale white ass. Same thing, saw something oddly white in the inky blackness, it was someone’s face crossing the road right in front of my car. (They were dressed in head to toe black with a black bag)

          We need a law that all black overcoats need red reflective material built into the sleeves, back, and front. Make it stylish, but make it visible. Will improve safety on bikes, scooters, ski slopes and hiking.

      • wieson@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        11 months ago

        Nope. Infrastructure problem. Why is the pedestrian walking in the road and not on a pedestrian path? There likely is none.

        • Dog@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          Because they refuse to walk further down (or up) to the crosswalk.

        • andrewta@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          11 months ago

          Here’s an idea. Walk alongside the road. With the exception of those that have disabilities and for some reason can’t be walking on grass, the rest of us can walk OFF of the road.

          • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            11 months ago

            This is a common vibe from urbanists (spoiler alert: I’m an urbanist, myself). The heart of the message is this: in the US, our streets and cities have been designed to prioritize the car above all else, at the expense of all else. In most of the US, if you try to go anywhere by any other means, bicycle, walking, bus, you name it, it’s downright hostile. In fact, it wasn’t always this way, and we only arrived here after decades of consistent lobbying, political fuck fuck games, and influence campaigns by car makers. So, this is, in part, an effort to reframe people’s thinking about streets from something that cars go on to something that cars share with others.

            • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              11 months ago

              Oh, so you’re one of those.

              Roads are made for cars, and people shouldn’t be walking on them at night with dark clothes on.

              They’re by definition a road hazard, no matter your personal beef with cars.

              • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                11 months ago

                My cousin in Buddha, I’ve got no beef with you. You asked, I answered. Drive your car if it makes you happy, hell, I don’t want to take it away from you even if I had a wish granting urbanism genie. But building our infrastructure to be car dependent, where the default state is cars, has been a disaster that’s going to haunt us for decades, ecologically, culturally, and fiscally. It’s the dependency part I’d like to change.

                • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Yeah, no one is arguing against that, but you have to realize that you’re no better than stoners 20 years ago talking about how weed should be legal.

                  Well, the stoners actually have a decent chance of their thing happening. There’s absolutely zero chance the modern world that we’re going to rip out millions of miles of road and dump trillions into infrastructure to make cars obsolete. Society would have to collapse first.

                  While yes, a car-less society would be good, bringing it up literally any time a car is mentioned does absolutely nothing to further the conversation, and is likely turning people against your position. Don’t be like an annoying vegan.

                  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    11 months ago

                    I’d argue that twenty years ago, weed legalization was still a pipe dream. It was only consistent advocacy and activism that has slowly bent legalization policies to where we are today. There’s a non-zero chance that we can change the way we do things, because car dependency has only been the policy for seventy years or so, and we only arrived here by changing what was. We can do it again. To the point about trillions of dollars: it costs about that much to replace our roads every twenty years or so (that’s about the lifespan for a residential road), and it’s getting more expensive because of shit like Amazon using the fuck out of our interstates and shortening up their lifespans (heavier vehicles increase road damage quadratically). All these infrastructure bills are so insanely expensive with seemingly so little to show for it because we haven’t been doing the required maintenance on our roads, and we’re still not seeing the full bill. So, to be completely straight with you about it, it costs as much as you’re describing just to keep what we have, because car infrastructure doesn’t last very long/hold up very well compared to other transport modes.

                    As for your annoying vegan point: maybe, maybe not, I guess we’ll see if it does turn people off. I do think it furthers the conversation, though, because this is more or less the arc of how marijuana advocacy progressed. This is a little like saying that protestors should only protest if it will inconvenience nobody at all; if you protest and nobody notices, it’s not really a protest, it’s digging a hole and screaming into it.

                    Anyway, you seem to be upset, so maybe it’s best to just let this conversation die off. Have a good day, stranger.

              • supamanc@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                11 months ago

                You should drive at a speed appropriate for the conditions. If you can’t see fsr enough ahead, or can’t stop fast enough to avoid a pedestrian, you are driving too fast. I shouldn’t have to wear day glow neon and flashing lights everywhere I go, because you can’t slow down a bit.

                • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Nice strawman, buddy. No one said anything about neon or flashing lights.

                  If you’re walking in the road at night wearing dark clothes, you’re an idiot and a road hazard.

                  • supamanc@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    If you’re driving too fast, you’re the hazard, not me.

          • ntzm [he/him]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            Ok, how many deaths per year are caused by people driving cars hitting people, and how many deaths per year are caused by people walking hitting people. This figure should help you figure out who the real problem is.

                • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  No, I definitely understand the discussion at hand. I don’t know where you got the bit about pedestrians slamming into other pedestrians from.

                  Although I might have misinterpreted what you meant due to various spelling and grammar mistakes.

              • ntzm [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                11 months ago

                We’re taught to drive to the conditions. If you’re going too fast to stop in an area with pedestrians, you’re driving dangerously

                • Dog@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  I mean that makes sense, but what happens if you are doing the speed limit and you still hit someone in dark clothing? While again, you have a point, but going the speed limit isn’t gonna make the problem of people just walking out in the middle of the street any better.

          • Djtecha@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            11 months ago

            Pedestrian running k to a pedestrian isn’t what’s leading to deaths. If you can’t drive safe then don’t drive. Of course there should probably be some compromise here.

            • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. I think a few words there got messed up.

    • Zorque@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      11 months ago

      It’d be victim blaming if people were intentionally running over people in dark clothing. When talking about victim blaming you’re generally talking about the intent of the perpetrator, not the general circumstances. “She was dressed all sexy like and made him rape her” and such. It’s an excuse for agency, rather than lack of agency.

      Wearing dark clothes in poorly lit high traffic areas makes you harder to see, and harder to avoid. Drivers can not act on information they do not have, so they have less agency to avoid those pedestrians.

      • ntzm [he/him]@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Lol, apart from the fact that the original comment literally is victim blaming? The rise in pedestrian deaths Is NOT because people are wearing darker clothes. If you think this is true you are a complete moron