Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.
I know I am part of the problem, but the number of people walking around in dark colors and dark jackets at night baffles me. Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
Combine that with spending any time after sunset either partially blind from super bright LEDs or fully blind from high beams and yeah. Constantly having to drive defensively and try to spot potential hazards a mile ahead in the brief window of just being partially blinded.
So I am all for some thermals I can glance at
My genuine favorite is a motorcyclist who lives out near my ex. Lights off more often than not and he has jet black leathers and helmet and bike
If you cannot drive safely around pedestrians in normal street clothes, you should not be driving. You are the one bringing a lethal machine into the equation, they’re just out living.
Then please enlighten me as to how you manipulate the laws of physics to increase the reflectivity of clothing while your night vision is impaired by all the headlights at face level angles too far to the left?
Defensive driving is acknowledging problems and trying to mitigate them. Stupidity is pretending there isn’t one
The law says, regardless of the speed limit, you need to be driving slow enough to react to someone suddenly stepping on the road. If you can’t do that while driving at the speed limit, you’ll just have to drive slower.
You clearly have never driven at night.
Edit: Also, the idiot wearing dark clothes walking into a road at night will still be just as dead whether the driver is considered culpable or not.
As a motorcyclist of 30+ years, this is a rule you either learn early or pay the price.
A pedantic point from me here, but it’s not ‘jaywalking’ if you have the right of way. It’s only jaywalking if it’s against regulations.
Still endangering yourself to trust drivers to stop at night I agree, right of way or not.
“Jaywalking” is propaganda, not a legitimate thing.
Just because its origin was from propaganda doesn’t make it not real. There are actual laws against Jay Walking, you can be charged and fined for it.
AFAIK the law here in Ontario is that pedestrians can cross mid-block on a non-controlled-access-highway (ie a regular road not expressway) as long as any oncoming vehicles have plentiful space to safely come to a complete stop. You only lose the right-of-way as a pedestrian if you’re doing something that forces drivers to make emergency manoeuvres.
I nearly killed a group of people one night.
Full on slamming of brakes and trying to not have another sort of accident.
Roughly 3am, a major major highway, and a group of people decides to dash across.
Dark clothing. Crossed between where any lights were.
Everyone involved was very lucky in that moment.
Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
I don’t know where you live, but over my way that is a dangerous, and factually wrong, assumption.
Anyone reading that, make absolutely sure it applies in your area; it doesn’t everywhere.
I understand I tend to forget people have different life experiences.
The legality doesn’t matter in the slightest. The cash settlement for suing the driver who paralyzed you isn’t really that large.
Look both ways for fuck’s sake
Legality is exactly what applies when you sue. For example, in California, USA, the law is written pedestrians do not have right of way in your scenario. No, it does not mean drivers can mow them down, but pedestrians assume the risk of their actions.
I’ve had a lot of puahback talking about this with local people in my city who have a “pedestrians are always right” mentality, and I understand the desire to wish that’s true, but it just isn’t the case. There are very clear places right of way is, and is not, protecting pedestrians.
People could also wear something other than black clothes when they go outside at night.
yeah I just murder people based on the color of their clothes. if they didn’t want to be murdered they wouldn’t have dressed like that
Fuck you, that is obviously not what I said. You people should really learn how to read, instead of just making shit up and then believing I actually said it.
I read it just fine, that’s your implication.The pedestrian is responsible for protecting themselves against the tyranny of the SUV. I guess if that’s the world you want then vroom vroom mf
It is your responsibility as the operator of a car to see pedestrians even if they are wearing black
No, it’s not. I’m the most responsible driver there is and even I draw the line here. When driving next to park cars I pay extra attention because someone may want to cross the road and walk out from behind a car even in places where it’s illegal but if someone hides behinds a bush and jumps out right in front of my car it’s not my fault. At night it’s my responsibility to drive below the speed limit and pay attention to the road but if some black ninja hides on the curb there’s not much I can do about it.
Uh, no, pretty sure it is legally your responsibility to be safe to everyone around you when driving. If you can’t do that, don’t drive a car.
Then we should make safer roads for everyone with better designs and lower speeds
As much as I like the anti-car think, this really shouldn’t be blamed completely on cars. Especially in the US, pedestrian infrastructure in general is lacking. This includes thinks like sidewalks, but also proper lighting at places where people could be (See the sample image of a petrol station in the article, why are there no lights there?).
Additionaly, a lot of people dress dark with no reflection surfaces whatsoever (And some ciclelysts are insane enough to go without light at night). Try wearing stuff with some build-in reflectors at night. It does not need to be an ugly big yellow patch for that. I own a backpack with nicely worked in reflectory surfaces which makes me highly visible at night.
Ofc there is also a component to the Cars and drivers here, but if thermal cameras are the first solution someone can come up with, maybe the start needs to be somewhere else.
Overall: If I can see someone jaywalking on the autobahn about 800m in front of me while going 180kph and can react to that, the cities and villages in the US should probably have something similar in lighting and overall road elsetup.
Especially in the US, pedestrian infrastructure in general is lacking.
“Pedestrian infrastructure” is really car infrastructure, because it’s designed for the benefit of cars to get pedestrians out of the way.
By all rights, the entire street has been “pedestrian infrastructure” for thousands of years.
The part that is shared with cars is, yes. Still doesn’t mean that it should be shit. This problem is there because it does suck. The US is a stand out in regards to non-car safety in a bad way. Trying to blame it on cars only is stupid. Demand better infrastructure, not even more bloat on cars.
How is someone using the road to get to work, school or the grocery store automatically an asshole just because they use a bicycle instead of an SUV or a horse-drawn carriage? Don’t they have the same right to use a lane of the road as you do?
(Not talking about lycra-wearing racing-bike cyclists using the road as gym here)
What if we reduced the size of cars, reduced speed limits and created cities and towns that are safer to walk in
Funfact! Can’t be bothered to look it up but I remember reading that lower speed limits actually make people more prone to speed. In most cases, if speed limit is low, people will try their best to hit it and even slightly go over it. In higher speed limits people tend to actually drive slower than speed limit dictates.
This does, however, only apply to express ways and similiar, not city’s limits…I mean, people are still gonna try to max their speed but I really don’t think we can put it high enough for this to not apply and be safe anyway.
Also, how the hell do americans have this problem when their cities spend 2/3 of the day being locked in slow moving traffic? .-.
Adjusting a speed limit is not enough, road engineers need to implement actual traffic calming measures to slow people down…
Fun fact, US pedestrian deaths went up during covid because there were fewer drivers and people could speed more easily.
In my country speeding cams work kinda well. People cry af about them but it’s almost funny seeing traffic suddenly slow down in certain points.
It will help with pedestrian accidents but it will also be terrible for driving since you cannot reduce the distance between cities/commute length
I mean until recently more people used to die in car accidents than by gunfire. It was the leading cause for kids. I am not advocating for lack of concern. But making cars less useful it’s not a solution since people still have to commute long distances in some countries. You have to weigh the benefits against the costs. If you believe that pedestrians should always be prioritized then you should be advocating for a complete ban on cars
Good.
Maybe we’ll start designing our cities and lives for shorter commutes, benefiting ourselves and our environment? Might just be me tho.
Absolutely. ignoring the issue is not going to help. not sure how we can pressure “city designers” (no clue how it actually works) to effect the change.
Limit the speed of private vehicles mechanically, the same way they do with ebikes.
ITT: “What was the victim wearing at the time? Was the car acting in self-defense? Do cars have qualified immunity? Did the pedestrian pose a threat or instigate the car? Were they wearing their officially state-sanctioned Pedestrian uniform and helmet? Did the pedestrian have any pre-existing conditions?”
Remember when Biden said that pedestrian could use beacons to alert autonomous cars of their location?
No I don’t remember that. Any chance you have a link?
I remember Tesla fanboys crying when Biden appointed Cummings to the NHTSA, but I can’t think of anything else connecting Biden to self-driving cars.
