Accidents are rare, sure, and fatalities are rare because the relatively low speed impact. We can nevertheless aspire to create more inclusive infrastructure where pedestrians and cyclists can feel a sense of belonging. The car-centric roads we have in the US today could be better for everyone.
And banning right in red ain’t it. It’ll be ineffective, piss off drivers, and have little to no meaningful effect. If you want to blow political capital in this worthless shit more power to us but I’ll prefer a pragmatic approach that has a chance of being effective.
If making people feel safer walking and biking in cities = “worthless shit” to you then why are you even here? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been honked at or yelled at or nearly run over while walking or on my bike by drivers who refuse to stop at red lights at all because of the right on red rule.
Cars don’t belong in cities at all, with the possible exception of delivery/commercial vehicles and vehicles for disabled people. Banning right on red is just one part of a multi-pronged approach to get us there, together with better bicycle infrastructure and public transit, etc.
piss off drivers,
oh no their precious feelings, once again taking precedence over human life
Yes. Guess what, you have to live with those people and you have to convince them to vote on your policies.
If you’re going to sit there nagging them over stupid rare occurrence shit and piss them off you don’t get your policies. So go ahead and waste political capital pissing off voters with inconsequential shit that pisses them off.
Pragmatic politics is dead replaced by whiney absolutism.
Edit: the best part is even if you go ahead and get to piss everyone off is it’ll never ever be enforced except in certain high traffic intersections.
You missed the salient point in your knee jerk reaction about ‘carbrain feels’
if you want to spend political capital Is this fight worth it more than getting cycle lanes or pedestrian zones?
Or phrased differently, unless you’re the road dictator who defines policy in a vacuum, you will have to get buy-in or agreement from the primary roads users - drivers. Which will involve compromise on your goals.
Right on red does provide (limited) ecological and congestion benefit by limiting idling at otherwise clear intersections. Inattentive drivers are not a new problem, but I would much rather have cycle lanes physically segregated from vehicles as a priority for road reform
I think the general point people are making to you is that, in many municipalities where right on red would be bad, there are enough voters in the pedestrian base alone that nobody has to “appeal to drivers” in order to win a majority. The issue itself has validity on the basis that the health of the pedestrians should be a higher priority than the feeling that drivers are being impacted negatively by not being able to perform this maneuver. You could maybe make a counterargument comprised of economic impacts, as a couple people have tried to do, or a counterargument about how it saves emissions, but I’m sort of inclined to think that caving and giving it over to cars is sort of an approach that has diminishing returns in both of those directions, compared to the alternative.
You absolutely do not have numbers and do need to consider what hills to die on. Otherwise you’d have basic crap like bike infrastructure in those cities.
piss off drivers
you need to have your licence taken and put into anger management. That is not how you formulate laws and it should never be the motivation. Own your own fee-fees.
