In NYC you’ll get a ticket if you stop for pedestrian crossings. I got a ticket for stoping and letting a pedestrian cross the road.
In Illinois pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way. So not stopping for a crosswalk is a good way to see if there’s a cop lurking nearby.
Good idea to have one fall guy do that before commending a drug deal.
Good idea, but cops here travel in groups of 2 or more cars.
Which law does that break?
“Gotta fill my quota”
In France, these days, you lose your license. Period. I don’t know what the results have been though, but I think it’s a fairly good approach.
Man I remember when they used to take away peoples licenses in the USA. Good times. It’s like the only way you can get people to recognize that it’s a privilege and not a divine right is by taking it away.
They still do, after multiple DUI’s.
If you arent wealthy.
Sadly my youtube algorithm suggests that people with multiple DUIs have few moral qualms about driving without a license.
I was expecting this to be the “carry a brick”-trick.
Am i the only one that finds this terrifying as a pedestrian? All the people in the video had to stop when they arrived at the intersection and wait for a car to allow them to cross. If someone were crossing here unaware and started crossing immediately, this thing could hit them anywhere up to the face. And that is if it doesn’t have enough force to make one loose their balance or straight up catapult them. I refuse to believe this thing is actually just active and without supervision. I think they just deployed this thing for an afternoon to get the shots and coached the pedestrians. I find this anything but brilliant
The pedestrians also walk across the actual crosswalk area, over the mechanism, showing no concern that those magic stripes could come back down and smush them at any moment. There are a handful of things that take this out of the realm of realism but for me it was mainly that—especially the lady carrying her baby under them
Yeah obviously this is a film set. That’s what PSAs are, little government adverts. They didn’t deploy this on the street and they’re not suggesting this as a solution to a problem. It’s a fun little sort of advertisement that has been created to try and make a point.
It’s like the Swedish advert from the other day.
in Turkey, we pedestrians always yield to cars.
It’s a controlled film set…Every single face you see is a unionized actor, any “candid” feelings are purely manufactured for effect.
Sort of unrelated but what is Quebec like to live in? I ask because my wife and I may take refuge there in couple of months with the way things are going here in the states. I don’t speak French and the only language that I speak, besides English, is Spanish.
I’m Finnish and I lived in Montréal for a short while, absolutely loved it. Didn’t speak any French when I moved there, but I took a language course meant for immigrants (I think it was the municipality that offered those courses? Didn’t cost anything as far as I can remember, but it’s been a while) and it didn’t take me all that long until I could get by with just French in most “simple” situations like stores, restaurants, what have you.
Like others have been saying Montréal is pretty much bilingual so it’s easy to get by even if you don’t speak French, but I’d definitely recommend studying French
Québec is very Nice to live in. We expect immigrants to learn french, and keep religions to themselves. All religions. Catholics have it easier because of our history, but still priests dont go proletyzing un school anymore. Se are largely socialist democrats. Way left of wathever is left un thé usa. The indépendant mouvement is currently gaining ground but i dont expect it to win indépendance while Trump ils un power.
Wild you type with an accent.
I like it
I have not yet installed the english dictionnary on my phone, so it tries to auto-corrrect everything to french. I guess someone liking it, make it a little less annoying. :)
I love the French Canadian accent!
Quebec is notoriously difficult for immigrants to Canada. Highly recommend heading toward Toronto or Ottawa instead
It’s also difficult for other Canadians visiting from other providences.
Hell, it’s difficult for other Canadians when they visit us. One of my rudest interactions in the service industry was interacting with a Quebecker couple in Ontario. They were outraged that I didn’t understand French.
What about Montréal?
Given it is a city in Quebec, this goes for Montreal as well
Try to learn French and don’t shove religious beliefs in our face. That’s about it.
Though our current government is trying to scapegoat immigrants for their own incompetence. I’ll give you that. We’re kicking them out next term however, we promise!
Yah, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the people, I’m talking specifically about the Quebeçois govt being super strict with immigrants they allow in. I am Quebeçois through heritage so this is not coming from any place of judgment, just how things are to get in these days sadly
Ç makes an “s” sound, like in garçon. C before o makes a “k” sound.
Depends where. Most places around Montreal and Laval are pretty bilingual. The further you get away and eastward (3 rivières, Quebec City, etc. ) the more French it gets, even as close as 30 minutes out you might find there’s no English speaking folks at all, you will still be alright at most tourist destinations though. Not sure how it gets more westward towards Ontario.
Here in Denmark I can basically just jump in front of a moving car on a crosswalk (one without traffic lights) and if the car so much as touches me they risk losing their driver’s licence.
I know The Netherlands is the same like that. Not sure about other EU countries.
The French will try to run you over, and the Italians actively speed up when they see a pedestrian.
In the UK you actually do have to stop and people do even Audi drivers stop sometimes.
even Audi drivers stop sometimes.
This sounds outlandish, I’m not sure I believe you. What about BMW drivers? Don’t tell me even they stop for pedestrians?
Outlandish is the idea of them using their turn signal.
“Using the turn signal is giving information to the enemy”, every Audi and BMW driver ever.
In SEA, the vehicles don’t stop, but they will try to go around you. So the key is to walk at a constant pace.
The graveyard is filled with people who had the right of way.
Only in countries that lack sever consequence.
In the US, you can only get them to stop if you get hit. And that’s only a maybe.
Pedestrians and bicycles aren’t even second class citizens in the states.
It’s the same where I live, and yet i have been almost run over twice in the last two weeks alone
Carry a brick.
They need proper bollards.
My goodness do we ever need this in BC
3-2-1, random quebec bashing.
Québec is awesome and I’m glad the québécois stuck up for their culture so hardcore otherwise the English would have turned it into Canada’s Louisiana, a pale shadow of the French culture that once was
In America, everyone would just start carrying a hammer, and any car that didn’t stop would get a window or body panel smashed. They’d learn to stop real quick.
lol if you smash somebody’s window with a hammer in America you will get shot
Yesterday, driving on a 55mph road in America, I’m the last car in line of cars, nobody behind me.
A truck with two young guys in it pulls out in front of me, going the same direction as me. They get on the gas but not quickly enough, and only up to like 50mph.
They easily could’ve waited an extra 10 seconds and let me pass, and been in nobody’s way. But no.
I let off the gas and cover the brake, and I passive aggressively coasted up behind them, maybe one or two car lengths away. Too close to be safe, I won’t stay there for more than a few moments. But to me, it lets them know they did something dumb and inconvenienced me. Not the best move but whatever.
Their response? The passenger looks over his shoulder, flips me the bird, while the driver simultaneously slams on his brakes, annoyed that I’m tailgating them, trying to get me to rear-end them.
I slam on my brakes, and they speed up and drive off.
I didn’t pursue it any further, it’s not worth it. Honestly, me riding up on them probably wasn’t worth it. But it boggles my mind how crazy people are these days.
Years ago, I had a big toddler-killer sized truck tailgating me on icy roads because I wouldn’t go over the speed limit. He had his brights on, absolutely searing my retinas because his truck was so tall.
I didn’t brake check him. When I found a safe spot to do so, I just pulled over and let him pass.
But I couldn’t help myself, when I pulled back onto the road, I flashed my brights at him from behind. A small screw you for tailgating and blinding me.
The dude locked up all four tires, skidded to a halt, got out of his truck and started walking back towards me with his arms in the air screaming “you want to ducking go?!?”
He was wearing military camo, might’ve been on reserve, there was a base in the area.
I just put my hands up in the air and shook my head no. After a moment, he yelled “that’s what I ducking thought!” And gets back in his truck and tears off.
So yes, from a guy living in America… If you road rage here, you’re chances of getting shot, or at least beaten up, are high. Better to let the idiots do what they want, and pretend it doesn’t bother you.
Yup. I was travelling down there and passed a tractor trailer on the highway. This apparently pissed them off enough to tailgate me and eventually trying to run me off the road.
Y’all are insane.
Watch this
You’re a nation of poorly-educated emotionally-stunted uncivil toddlers with guns. And it’s all Russia’s fault.
That’s giving Russia a bit too much credit.
A single Russian gif on Tik Tok can kill up to 10000 Freedom Citizens and cause even more to vote for Trump. Still think Russia is harmless?
it’s cute and all, but the real reason they don’t stop is because the authorities aren’t enforcing that law effectively. the places where people stop crosswalks do so because they’ll get a ticket if they don’t.
this may raise awareness, but won’t change behavior in the long run.
when i lived more in the city and didn’t own a car i would make hard eye contact with drivers when crossing. my logic was that if they kill me I’ll at least haunt their dreams with that look.
Ah, the Kash Patel look…
If your traffic infrastructure requires a cop to stand there for it to work, it’s shit infrastructure that’s designed to fail.
That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.
I’m not convinced it’s all about enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, there’s not much threat of enforcement but cars stop at the slightest hint of a pedestrian crossing anywhere. Not sure how they pulled it off but there it’s a culture thing, not enforcement.
it’s a culture thing, not enforcement.
Yeah but then you can’t bitch about cars in a car-bitching community.
You can do the same thing without cops more cheaply in the long run. Just raising the crosswalks to sidewalk height completely changes driver behavior, as it’s both a speed bump, and it’s clearly communicated that the crosswalk is the pedestrians’ territory that the driver is crossing through.
We can deal with most of these issue through design rather than a threat of fines.
I’m curious how this impact snow plows. Every speed bump I’ve seen in the region I live in that gets a few feet of snow each winter will have little flags that should stick out over the snow to indicate to plows where they should lift up for a speed bump. I should look sometime to see how scratched to hell they are though to see if plows hit the bumps a lot
That seems pretty simple. Use the small snow plow that clears cycling lanes clear the raised sidewalk lengthwise, then have the snow plow that clears car lanes drive over it without being weighed down.
…you do have a snow plow for non-cars, right?
Right?
Also, more generally, building a 5-15 minute city means snow plows don’t need to clear nearly as much area. A city built for people can afford to spend more time clearing pedestrian infrastructure and modal filters, because it’s still less than clearing ten thousand kilometers of suburb.
With the reduced driving time for emergency services, you can even waste some time clearing a path ahead of them or having ambulance personnel walk, and keep side streets unplowed if the weather is right.
Cyclists have a name for that and I think it’s something like “the life saving look”. Usually used when changing lanes or at an intersection.
Motorcyclists have a name for that, it’s “What the fuck you looked right at me!??”. Usually used when a car is taking a left turn directly infront of a bike.
As a cyclist it was mainly for me to make sure the driver saw me.
As a pedestrian I do it were I am living nowadays when I’m about to cross the road on a pedestrian crossing, but that’s mainly because around here people’s behavior is mainly moderated by public shame and drivers tend to feel anonymous behind the wheel, so the point of looking at the other person rather than the car is to get them to feel seen and judged.
Can’t be sure if this latter use of looking actually works, but the one I do as a cyclist definitely works and has saved me from accidents multiple times, for example from drivers coming from a side-street into a T-junction and not looking properly hence not seeing me on a bicycle coming towards them on the main street.
Some places know their drivers and have some serious barriers popping up.
Holy shit how many idiots had to turn themselves into pancakes for this level of barriers to be justified? Insanity.
There shouldn’t be any barriers at railway crossings. Let natural selection win. Do we really want a future full of people who don’t have the brains to give way to a train?
A car on the tracks can cause the train to derail, potentially killing many people.
The barriers are to guard against the delays, traffic jams and paperwork a crash would cause.
And the trauma of the train driver hitting the car.
I kind want to see what that does to a car that doesn’t stop. Probably rips their front wheels off
Just need a bigger car, then it’s fine
Only enforcement will help. And consequences.
There are plenty of structural changes that can help.
Raised crosswalks are a major one.I hate those, you have to know where they are. We need to develop some standard way for marking them, so drivers know ahead of time what’s coming. And we have to re-mark them before the paint or whatever fades. We want drivers to have reason to decide for themselves to slow down and be alert for other road users
This could be a lot more effective than a gimmick like this video, while lasting longer and requiring less maintenance
It’s pretty easy to tell where they are. They’re at intersections.
Except for the ones not at intersections and of course all the intersections that don’t go that
For example in the 3.5 mile drive from the grocery to home, I drive through quite a few intersections, but the only raised crosswalk is not at one
