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While the dude who pressed the button witnessed 100 able, adult people sitting in a polluting metal box instead of walking, cycling or taking public transport.
A polluting metal death machine. I’ve had 3 acquaintances die from being hit by some driver, and in at least 2 of those cases, the driver was younger than 25 (which is the age when your brain finishes maturing and you get better impulse control).
That 25 number is just the age they stopped that study at, not some magical number where everyone is now officially mature. The human brain continues developing through your life.
Your entire body continues developing throughout your life, but there’s a point where you quit getting taller.
You’re really crushing my dreams of one day growing into a 6’8" behemoth here dude.
I would love to do those instead of driving to work. Walking would take 14 hours, biking 4 hours, and the closest public transport I can get on is the same distance drive to work.
Got a new job and my bike commute went from 2.5 hours (tried once and it sucked) to 25 minutes. Work-life balance is 100% better, even if the bike path here bites the big one.
Just for you, Jeff, I’m pushing every single walk button I see, especially when I’m not crossing the road.
Thank you kind stranger. It makes me smile every time i arrive at a crosswalk, nobody around, and the light is already green.
It’s a pedestrian version of drivers parking on the side walks as a courtesy to other drivers as to not block the road.
Oh hey I recognize that street and that guy. He’s a free-stater nutjob who has at least one criminal investigation against him
Racist, violent, libertarian tool.
Is this Concord? I feel like I’ve driven through here a million times but can’t place it.
must be because no one pushed the button and DESTROYED 30 seconds of your life.
I mean, it looks like any one intersection in suburban North America a few years after it was built.
Its the corner of granite and commercial street in manchester. I drive through Manchester on my way to work every day
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GLJaEktQwrcWeR3y7?g_st=ac It’s the corner of South commercial and granite in Manchester
Making ~100 cars drive 30 minutes to work every day is the destruction of 50 hour of human life, 100 hours both ways, almost every single day, but apparently cars are freedom so 🤷
The confusion I feel as a European about this post.
Despite seeing drivers enraged by road safety and basic courtesy frequently while walking, this remains confusing AND infuriating as an American.
I have no idea what is the supposed message of the “author”. Don’t cross the street?
Their logic: people in cars = captains of industry who cannot be delayed as they go to their power lunches
People on foot = slovenly, slackjawed peasants who are obviously wasting time
Only the poors walk. Don’t be poor.
Maybe I shouldn’t tell you guys this, but sometimes I press the button even if I don’t have to cross the street. Also sometimes I cross the street really slowly, drivers get especially mad about that. Obviously I’m not from the US, since I’m still alive.
Crossing suuuper slowly when there’s a suv waiting is my fav, especially when the driver didn’t want me to cross
I never cross the street slowly… but I never hurry, either, and even that annoys some car drivers 😭😂
Also sometimes I cross the street really slowly, drivers get especially mad about that
Perhaps you’ll change your mind next time a side mirror hits you because you thought you were on a catwalk.
Lol wut. If a car doesn’t let me cross even though I have the priority as a pedestrian, I usually hit the side mirror or the car. They can go fuck themselves with their overpriced rolling boxes. People get so mad when you touch their cars. I like it.
I often walk or cycle past a school and a daycare, and here they have recently “upgraded roads” which means that they have scraped away a few pedestrian crossings. I 100% do shitty tricks to cars driving too fast or not giving enough space, especially if I am moving around the time kids are active. (Around here kids are still allowed to walk/cycle from school and often play around the town.)
I have made air kicks, always do when necessary, but sadly so far they have missed…
I usually hit the side mirror or the car.
Until someday you’ll get a well deserved surprise.
Lol, if touching a side mirror gets you that angry you need to look in a mirror and think about whats wrong with you. Also I’m a carpenter, I most often have my tools with me, I could do way worse than “hitting” a side mirror if you really need something to get upset about. I bet you get half hard looking at your rolling box ^^
Unpopular opinion: Cars are expensive. Vandalizing them in response to an inconvenience seems like an overreaction.
It’s symmetrical though. Sort of like a pedestrian risking death if they inconvenience car drivers
Sure, attempting to murder a pedestrian over an inconvenience is also bad.
Not sure I’d consider them “symmetrical” though… Maybe I’m being pedantic, but murder seems a lot worse.
Regardless, both are overreactions, and varying degrees of crazy.
Cutting the priority to pedestrian isn’t an inconvenience tho. It’s straight up code violation. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be a priority for the police 🤷🏻
Oh, I see. It still seems like an overreaction to a code violation though.
True. However given that they’re the largest “lifestyle” contributor to climate change (as opposed to things in the agricultural sector), vandalizing one in response to it simply existing seems like a slight under reaction, if anything.
A medal for meritorious public service and right of first refusal to carry out the sentence against the ecocidal narcissists? That’d be a well deserved surprise for any non-carhole who’s been making carholes angry.
Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Carbrained psychopaths look a people crossing the street and think: How dare they make me wait a few seconds longer. I’ll fucking hit them with my car.
And they think that’s a proportinal response. It’s just deeply sick and twisted.
How dare they make me wait a few seconds longer.
…on purpose, just to cause a reaction. You missed that bit.
When i’m driving vehicles i have to qualms waiting for elderly or disabled people to cross the street, regardless of whether or not the crosswalk has a light.
Dipshits intentionally walking slow just to piss me off deserve to piss off someone who gets out of the car and demonstrates their discontent in a more direct manner.
If you want to label dislike for lack of civility as being a psychopath so you can feel better about yourself be my guest.
I’m going to walk slowly in front of three cars just because you made this post. It’s the only reasonable response to your lack of civility.
Seriously, you’re advocating getting physical with someone because of a perceived lack of civility — literally walking too slow. I drive almost everywhere, have done so for decades, and this is not a problem I’ve had, even once in my life. If “people walking too slowly in front of your car” is a regular problem for you, you may need to cultivate more patience. You have lost the plot. You sound like you are the problem in this social interaction.
You don’t get to hit them though.
Thanks for adding more evidence to support my central thesis: good people don’t drive cars.
Fucking drivers thinking they can assualt people with their cars becase they’ve been inconvenienced
When I’m filtering, I let my mirror scrape cars that didn’t leave enough room for bikes.
Why though, people have places to go and public transport might not be available to them. You’re punishing people for their lack of choices
Nah, you got it all wrong. I don’t punish them, I do them a favor. They mabe don’t know it, but it’s good for them if they stop occasionally.
On the other hand, they punish me, every day of every week. They punish me with pollution and noise and concrete and traffic accidents and oil consumption and heat radiation.
Deciding what is good for random strangers and then forcing them to enjoy whatever it is you came up with doesn’t sound like very good idea.
And how is this helping your situation? Breaking and accelerating increases noise and pollution. If cars have to spend more time on the street instead of being at their destination, they either need more road space or they spend more time in traffic jams that, again, increase noise and pollution. Cars are the least likely to be involved in accidents when they are cruising, so you are also making your city less safe.
Just to be clear: I’m absolutely in favour of banning cars in cities, but you are making the already bad situation worse for everyone.
Yeah, I guess I’m a litte bit accelerationist(1) with my take here. But the situation will not change if drivers have it more comfortable.
There is so much violence in driving a car, and you argue against me because I make them stop for 20 seconds. (Inner)Cities should not be build for cruising. They should be build for pedestrians. If you want to cruise, drive on the Autobahn or some Umfahrungsstraße.
Spoiler
(1) DuckDuckGo translated accelerationist with beschlagnaderungsorientiert. Since you german speaking I thought you might enjoy this.
You misunderstand me. I agree that being a pedestrian or cyclist should be more convenient and safer, and I don’t care if that means car drivers are inconvenienced by whatever it is that needs to be done to achieve that goal.
But you are inconveniencing car drivers while also making the situation worse for pedestrians, cyclists and everyone else. What you are doing has no positive effects for anyone, except maybe you feeling righteous for a moment.
Spoiler
“beschlagnaderungsorientiert” sounds like a dangerous words from the funniest joke in the world.
Are drivers not deciding and then forcing people to “enjoy” their cars ? ^^
No, they don’t drive their cars because they think it’s good for you, they drive them because they think it’s good for them.
Depends on the context I think, if you use even though you don’t need to then it’s a choice for you and people around you
But you are still driving your car because it benefits you. Nobody thinks they are helping others by driving through a busy city center.
Deciding what is good for random strangers and then forcing them to enjoy whatever it is you came up with doesn’t sound like very good idea.
The birth of an authoritarian.
I don’t understand, isn’t this the button you press if you want to cross? Are you not supposed to press the button?
In America pressing that button is considered a government handout. You’re supposed to cross the street using common sense and determination. Real men don’t even look to check when they cross the street because they have God on their side.
If you’re a true alpha, the drivers can sense it and they will stop for you.
Isn’t America the country where it’s also illegal to cross the street without a dedicated pedestrian crossing thing
Yes, it’s a crime to cross without a crossing signal
It wasn’t, and maybe still isn’t in a lot of places, but auto manufacturers didn’t want to slow their customers down after all the pedestrian injuries/deaths so they invented jay-walking as more of a propaganda thing. It’s so ubiquitous though that law or not, it’s treated like it’s a high crime anyway.
It was also instituted as an excuse to arrest colored people. Same as vagrancy.
Also illegal to eat vegetable side dishes in a steakhouse.
Frogger was training for real life
The last part sounds like UK.
They’re saying the one person walking is being selfish because of how many more people in cars are being inconvenienced. The argument only makes sense if you ignore how we got here. It ignores how inconvenient cars have made getting around for people who actually live in the places they’re passing through and how the number of pedestrians is thus artificially low; it ignores that the only reason signals are necessary is because of how absolutely shitty and inconsiderate drivers are compared to pedestrians and cyclists; it’s only counting one person per car which is lower than the actual U.S. average of 1.5 people, but it’s unsurprising that this person considers a 5 passenger vehicle a perfectly reasonable mode of transportation for 100 individuals to be driving all by their lonesome, and unsurprising they don’t think about people who are using them differently.
In short, you’re looking at an asshole who has never even thought about their own opinion, let alone anyone else’s.
I’m pretty confident pushing the button actually doesn’t do anything. You press the button and wait forever and eventually the lights change but they were gonna do that anyway.
It depends on the intersection. Yes, some are a placebo, too many are token, but some actually work.
I know for my nearby intersections, when the button is not pressed, even when the lights change, the walk signal will never illuminate.
I’ve started walking around my town a lot more since Covid, and see all three regulalrly
In college, I lived close to my university’s campus near an intersection that would get very busy during sporting events and other occasions where there would be many people in town.
The intersection would set all the lights to red if it had detected no activity for a good while (such as at night when it was rarely used) and would also immediately change the green light for cross traffic to red if you pressed the crosswalk button so long as there wasn’t any cross traffic for a few minutes.
It was surprisingly sophisticated traffic control considering that most of the other intersections were just on simple timers.
Yeah, a lot of the time they’re just there because people look for them if they’re not and then they fidget, don’t wait for the signal and dash into traffic.
The town I grew up in, the vast majority didn’t do anything but they gently beeped, and if you pushed the button it would tell you the sign status until it completed the cycle. Helpful for vision impaired people.
There were a few that shifted the traffic lights to a different cycle and otherwise it never did a pedestrian cycle.There was one though, where pushing the button nearly immediately started a pedestrian cycle.
There was a wide block with an apartment building in the middle on one side, and a grocery store directly across from it. Not long enough that people complained, but enough so that people still trotted across the otherwise busy street a lot. After trying nearly everything else they eventually put a traffic light in the middle of the block that was nearly entirely on demand for the crosswalk button, because almost any delay and the (college student) residents would just dash across.Watching confused drivers was fun.
Does the US not have traffic light controlled crossings at all then? In the UK we have multiple types of light controlled crossings for pedestrians and others e.g. bikes and horse riders (Pegasus crossing). These are always on demand from the button.
It’s less common to have a light or crosswalk away from a junction. Usually when you push the button it changes the lights to the crossing sequence on the next cycle so everything keeps flowing, so a pedestrian might hit the button, then wait for traffic to stop, then cross traffic, then a dedicated turn cycle. It can be a bit of time.
The light in question would turn yellow the moment you pushed the button, without integration with the nearby lights. Driver’s usually don’t expect to get stopped after being allowed to pass a red light after only about 100 meters.In general, there’s too much variation to say the US as a whole doesn’t do some traffic thing. If it exists odd are someone tried using it on a road somewhere.
In terms of animals, pelican can be quite common in urban environments, zebra in suburban. I haven’t quite seen a toucan other than separate signal fixtures in downtown Seattle (my memory is a bit hazy though). I have yet to see pegasus or puffin.
Ok good. I was worried for a moment there when the commenter I was replying to painted a picture of US drivers totally confused by traffic signals that weren’t part of a junction for road vehicles.
I also had never seen a Pegasus crossing in the UK until one appeared close to where I live, it’s between a suburban area and a national park crossing a 60mph road so it makes sense for horse riders to cross there. They probably appreciate it.
You might be a little far south for the Pacific Puffin.
The one near my work extends the red light for long enough you can cross on foot & makes the walking signal & countdown appear.
It does not stop left turning cars from running us over though.
I know at least some of them work, because sometimes I’ll be waiting there for the walk signal and it never appears, and I go “Oh, I forgot to push the button.”
Where I live the major cross streets’ buttons are just placebo. They aren’t even connected. It just makes people feel better to push them.
The smaller streets, however, they are critical. You will not get the walk indicator without it.
One hour commute to the office for a job that could be done from home is the real destruction of time in a human life.
At 800k impressions, assuming 10 seconds per view, this guy wasted about 90 days with his dogshit take
Making ~100 cars wait ~30 secs
bud ask me if i give a fuck.
What’s with the assumption that the pedestrian getting to their destination is less important than all the drivers? If a bunch of people get held up a long time for a smaller number of people, blame the city planners.
Oh you mean like a bus full of people sitting behind a 1995 camary?
Yeah, if the busses are used a lot they should get their own lanes and other special considerations.
As long as I’m adding another comment, I should mention that it’s usually not the city planners fault. It’s interest groups leaning on elected officials to lean on the city planners, who would design safe and efficient cities if left to their own devices.
You’ve got it backwards. Give them their own lane and priority at signals etc. Then they will get used a lot.
More realistically they have to work in parallel. The NIMBYs will easily destroy a bus service that inconveniences all the drivers if nobody is riding it yet.
as they should, the government needs to not discriminate again their existing infrastructure unless they have a real replacement (as far as I am aware no place actually has public transit that replaces cars properly)
Not to mention the fact that to cross to the opposite corner, a pedestrian often has to press two buttons and wait for two sets of light changes. Drivers only have to wait more than one when there are too many cars.
While also sitting on cushioned seats in a closed off, air-conditioned space. The lazy bastards can fucking wait for me to mozy on by.
I’ve always found that really stupid. Just have two buttons, one for the diagonal and one for the crossing. And if you press the button for the diagonal, it stops all lanes of traffic so you can cross diagonally. Like, you can’t tell me it would take less time having to stop the lights twice for you to cross one way and then cross the other, then it would be to just stop all the lanes of traffic momentarily while you cross diagonally.
Class warfare
They’ll just arrive 30 seconds later at the next red light where they still have to wait for the same 5 phases
I don’t understand what he wants the pedestrian to do. Not cross at all? Wait until there’s no traffic?
IRL Frogger
Clearly, the pedestrian should get a car, and OP just happens to work at a used car lot.
And when everybody’s driving they’ll complain there is too much traffic and the roads are now clogged.
Well he’s a blockchain guy so maybe he wants everyone to rent or lease used cars via some DeFi car lending app.
Jaywalk.
But if they move in a J formation, they won’t successfully cross the street
Frogger.
I see people press the button and wait when there’s clearly no traffic.
Well, if there’s a pedestrian traffic light, that’s the legal thing to do
Yes, because you have a red light, you stop, press button and wait for green. At least that’s what I’ve been teaching to my kid, maybe I’m wrong?
Press button, stay in the lines, if worried about success of your personal injury suit :)
You don’t get hit if you don’t expect cars to stop. It’s safer to go on the red.
I think he just wants pedestrians to just not exist at all or maybe die trying to cross while traffic is flowing.
I’m guessing he wanted the person to wait until it changes for the cars or something
These idiots exist
The type who fetishise “the grind” and all that other toxic bullshit
Not exclusive to 'Murica, but over-represented in their “society”
It did come across like a wannabe LinkedIn post.
