[banga]

This morning while jogging in the US I came to an intersection. Green lights and walk on in my direction. A car approaching from my left had a red light, the driver glanced to his left and without stopping or looking in my direction, turned right across my path. I expected this of course, so avoided being run over. If I wasn't watching for this, it likely would be a different outcome.

So why do so many pedestrians get killed in the US? The two main reasons to me are: 1. Drivers don't look for pedestrians, and 2. pedestrians expect drivers to follow rules.

Another contributing factor is of course the huge vehicles that crush people with drivers barely noticing...

[ageitgey]

This is exactly why this turn is illegal in nearly every country in the world except the US and Canada. [1]

If you are in the UK, this turn is illegal always and everywhere, so it basically never happens.

I grew up in the US with right turn on red, so I was used to it and accepted it as normal. But after living the UK for 6 years, I'm now physically shocked when visiting the US at how dangerous it is to walk around even very dense urban US areas like Chicago's north loop. Cars are constantly trying to run you over by turning across active crosswalks. It's totally absurd to experience once you've lived somewhere else where that would result in you immediately losing your license. US culture in general has no respect for pedestrians (although of course some individuals do).

This isn't some utopian dream of ultimate walkability achieved through pro-pedestrian urban redesign. This is the most basic laws that govern cities actively making it dangerous to walk around because it saved a bit of gas during the 1970s oil crisis.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on_red

[belorn]

In Sweden you are not allowed to turn on red, but the crossroad on the right and left are often aligned to be green at the same time as the cars has green. As such, both the car lane and crossroads are active at the same time, and drivers are expected to turn across active crosswalks. Pedestrian has priority, and there is usually a short period between green -> yellow -> red, where the crosswalk will be red, which allow for around 2-3 cars to pass if the crossroad has people on them during the full active duration.

I think the major difference lies elsewhere. A major one could be that teaching drivers to ignore red is just a very bad idea. An other aspect I find quite different when I visited the states was that the transition time was extremely long compared to Sweden. Here it is not uncommon to see green to be only active for a handful cars worth of traffic before changing, or about the estimated time that it takes for a person to cross the road. It not designed to drive fast and do a quick turn.

[ourguile]

I'm convinced this is a big cause as well. Reduced visibility greatly exacerbates this (as a driver looking for visibility while in the turning lane) trying to see if walkers or cars are coming over the very high hoods of other vehicles. Multiple lanes, signs and etc. all vying for attention all cause a drain on focus which wouldn't exist if the turn was outlawed in the first place.

I'll also say, it's not only pedestrians affected by this, anecdotally just this morning a car turned right on red directly into my path, while the driver was making eye contact with me as I was turning left through a green arrow.

[Hemospectrum]

From your link, emphasis mine:

> permits the operator of a motor vehicle to turn such vehicle right at a red stop light after stopping

Quoting GP, emphasis again mine:

> the driver glanced to his left and without stopping or looking in my direction, turned right across my path

The driver turned without stopping. That is explicitly and clearly illegal throughout the US.

This is one of those rules drivers are supposed to be trained on (and tested on) before being given a license, but it doesn't seem to stick.

The Wikipedia article notes that allowing turn-on-red became widespread in response to fuel scarcity. Fuel efficiency is dramatically higher in modern vehicles. Maybe it's time to repeal it after all.

If only there was public interest in public safety...

[rich_sasha]

> This is exactly why this turn is illegal in nearly every country in the world except the US and Canada.

I think variations of this are pretty common in Europe. Your link says this actually. Details vary, but as the GP post says, it is not uncommon that the pedestrian has a green light and the car can still turn right across it. UK, indeed, does not have it. But frankly I find it frustrating, both as a driver and a pedestrian, as I feel waiting time on junctions is always infinitely long.

I'm not familiar with how it works in the US, but in Europe pedestrians have priority in such cases, and it's fairly well respected.

[merely-unlikely]

NYC very sensibly does not allow right turns on red. Our streets are chaotic enough as is.

[542354234235]

The reason drivers are able to drive like that is the design of the streets themselves. Things like raised crosswalks[1] and corner extensions[2] slow cars down and force them to pay attention. A lot of intersections in my area are the opposite, where they lower the whole curb to road level so cars can cut onto the curb to make the turn faster. There are lots of ways that the US builds infrastructure in ways that make it much more dangerous for pedestrians and bikers.

[0] https://highways.dot.gov/safety/speed-management/traffic-cal... [1] 3.14 Raised Crosswalk section of [0] [2] 3.16 Corner Extension/Bulbout section of [0]

[Zambyte]

This comment makes it seem like people are built differently in the US than they are in the rest of the world, but that obviously isn't true. The roads (particularly intersections, where crashes tend to happen) are in fact built differently though. Urbanist resources like NotJustBikes and Oh The Urbanity! YouTube channels do a great job of highlighting the differences, and how they force drivers to pay attention through the laws of physics rather than the laws of signage.

[estimator7292]

No, the US has a culture of not giving a single shit about anyone but yourself. A frighteningly large fraction of drivers will do anything they can get away with. Here in the land of the free, rules are for other people, not for me.

[Gigachad]

Some amount is likely cultural too.

[softwaredoug]

Right turns are really dangerous for pedestrians. A lot of localities started banning right-on-red because cars look left only.

[tbrownaw]

There's an intersection here where the crosswalk button lights up a "no right turn" light hanging next to the usual stoplights.

[potato3732842]

The problem is that even if they look back and fourth and know you're there the "go" condition (no incoming cross traffic) is the same for both parties so it's a ready made "two idiots trying to pass each other in the hallway" situation.

I think it speaks volumes that the discussion is anchored around whether cars look or not despite the fact that the underlying algorithm will produce conflicts even if they do.

[karma_fountain]

Cars don't look at all.

[_fat_santa]

One thing I always do is say a car is stopped at an intersection and is making a right turn while I'm in the crosswalk, I always look at the driver and where they are looking. Often times what I see is the driver will just look to see that the road is clear and never looks to see that the sidewalk is clear and just goes. I can count maybe 2-3 occasions where had I not done this I would have been run over.

This was one thing not talked about in the article: drivers in the US are not used to pedestrians outside of major cities like Boston, NYC, etc. I've seen drivers blow past me while I was in the crosswalk to rush and make a right turn and were bewildered that someone was actually using the crosswalk.

[nativeit]

I was just in Montpelier, VT yesterday, which has a population of just 8000 people, but as the state capital enjoys a busy downtown with a lot of activity. The moment a pedestrian approaches a non-signal crosswalk, traffic in both directions immediately stops to allow them to cross.

Not sure why the people in Vermont have all worked this out, but they do.

[rstuart4133]

> So why do so many pedestrians get killed in the US? The two main reasons to me are: 1. Drivers don't look for pedestrians, and 2. pedestrians expect drivers to follow rules.

You think that isn't the same everywhere? I've got some news: in every country there are parents distracted by kids fighting in the back seat, and in every country pedestrians walking into light poles while on the phone is a running joke. Also: the USA has managed to export it's love for large cars to most countries. Here in Australia we call large SUV's shopping trolleys.

Despite this, if you look at the graphs in the article, you will see most countries have managed to drive down pedestrian deaths. Except the US, where the curve trends up. The reason is pretty straight forward, and has nothing to do with the cars, the attitudes of drives or pedestrians. Hell, you can even ask an AI what it is, and you will get a reasonable answer:

    [Countries] have historically managed to drive down pedestrian deaths due to motor vehicle accidents primarily by adopting the Safe System approach, which includes elements of Vision Zero, a long-term goal of zero road fatalities and serious injuries.

    This approach focuses on creating a road system that is safe for all users, particularly vulnerable ones like pedestrians, by managing speed, designing safer infrastructure, and ensuring safe vehicles and road user behavior.

The AI drones on and on, listing the many changes to road design and rules that caused the drop. This is not rocket science. Everybody can do it, and it's trivial to find out what needs to be done. What the USA lacks is a political system that can deliver it.

[cozzyd]

Yes one of the hardest things is to train a toddler for the hostile road conditions when she's biking, walking or scootering to school from the train station. Obviously I'm with her, but it's hard to explain the art of making eye contact to make sure the motorists acknowledge us at a crosswalk or stop sign

[rufus_foreman]

>> The two main reasons to me are: 1. Drivers don't look for pedestrians, and 2. pedestrians expect drivers to follow rules.

If that is the cause, why did the number of drivers not looking for pedestrians suddenly start increasing around 2010?

>> Another contributing factor is of course the huge vehicles that crush people with drivers barely noticing

"If the increase of size and frequency of trucks and SUVs was behind the increase in pedestrian deaths, we wouldn’t expect to see an increase in the frequency of pedestrians killed by sedans or compact cars. However, if we look at pedestrian deaths by model of car, we see that pedestrian deaths involving popular sedans have increased as well. Pedestrian deaths involving Honda Civics and Accords, Toyota Corollas and Camrys, and Nissan Altimas have all increased substantially"

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

To me the reason is the right-on-red rule. I still find it insane, and I have been in Canada for 9 years.

In my driving classes, I have been clearly explained that a right-on-red must be treated like a stop sign and that to turn, there needs to be two lanes free of cars: the one you are getting into and the next one (if one lane is available,this doesn't apply).

Many,many drivers treat the red light like a green light for turning right and that's the root of the issue.

[sanex]

Looks like most of these comments aren't reading the article. Most of the pedestrian deaths are not at intersections. Likely it's a combo of big vehicles, distracted pedestrians and distracted drivers. One thing I've noticed in other countries is people are much more likely to jaywalk. I wonder if that is becoming more common as our share of immigrants increases.

[cozzyd]

I think it's also that driver skill in the US is on average very low. Anyone with a pulse can get a driver license

[Waterluvian]

The more I look, the more I see a cultural mindset of “someone else’s problem; someone else’s fault.”

I see that in both 1, and 2, and the lawyer ads everywhere necessary to make the consequences also someone else’s problem and fault.

[Zigurd]

Pedestrians pay with their lives so that we can have butch looking trucks in the US. Seriously. It's for the vanity of pavement queens. And it's measurable. Quantifiable. Regulators are unwilling to take on this problem because they'd be called woke.

[Zambyte]

The "pavement queens" have been convinced they need larger by companies that sell trucks, because larger trucks have lower legal requirements for fuel efficiency.

[bluGill]

The article examines that idea and finds the evidence is against it.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Even when they do see you they have an air of entitlement and/or don't know any of the right-of-way rules. I've had drivers honk and yell at me when they want to cross a sidewalk driveway I'm currently moving through.

[kenjackson]

Except this seems to differ from the article in that the article notes that the vast majority of fatalities are the fault of the pedestrian. What you describe would be the drivers fault.

[lesostep]

>> vast majority of fatalities are the fault of the pedestrian

>> This doesn’t necessarily mean the pedestrian was at fault — it could simply indicate that in a pedestrian death we only get one side of the story, which makes it hard to charge the driver with a crime.

But I have to say, I agree with both of you there. I lived in a country where car drivers are explicitly required by law to avoid killing people, and therefore are always at fault, even if pedestrian was crossing illegally. Law even requires drivers to speed down if they reasonably couldn't see a pedestrian. Basically, if you can't not hit people, you might as well abandon you car.

Just the fact that the pedestrian could be at fault for their own killing, I think, makes the chances of that happening way way higher. It's insane that "well my car weights 8 ton and cant stop in time even when im under speed limit" is even an argument for an innocence, and not a jail ticket that has "didn't care enough about not killing people" written on it.