[ibejoeb]

That courtesy is almost always bad practice and is generally unlawful. You must yield right of way to a pedestrian at a legal crossing, but california has codes that prohibit impeding normal traffic flow, including stopping in the street to wave across a pedestrian where there is no such crossing. It's especially dangerous on multi-lane roads because the stopped vehicle can blind the pedestrian to other traffic.

[AngryData]

I would dispute saying it is almost always bad practice. Sometimes it is, people do dumb stuff, but in many cases it solves problems before they become a problem to start with because most humans are pretty good at predicting how others around them will react.

Stopping in the middle of the road to save a pedestrian 3 seconds while costing 5 cars on the road to wait 10 seconds is obviously dumb, but what about recognizing the gap near you in the line of cars is the only gap around for the pedestrian waiting ahead, and either slowing down or speeding up a little bit to open that gap wider which makes everybody safer and eliminates any real braking events.

You might not notice all the things people do now to make traffic move smoothly, either intentionally or not, but something as simple as a line of robot cars spreading out on a road can cause problems when traffic levels that normally leave large gaps for easier left turns, pedestrians, poor visibility crossings, etc, instead becomes a steady spaced stream of traffic that has to be disrupted to fit those other options. Very small things can result in large traffic bottlenecks. Humans aren't immune to it, we cause out own problems with things like traffic waves, but we also solve many problems ourselves without really thinking about it.

[noduerme]

I think the comment you're responding to was referring to needing to cross a backed up lane of traffic in their car, not on foot.

[ibejoeb]

Sure, there are valid scenarios. LA certainly has some terrible and legal vehicle crossings. (The fast, windy portion of beverly ranks.) I agree that it's hard to navigate without some cooperation. It's just that almost all of the crashes I've witnessed involved someone giving a bad go-ahead.

[_DeadFred_]

A lot of our society works/has less friction because of human courtesy. Systemically stamping it out of every interaction for optimization will not result in a better society.

Our systems don't cover every case, and it's better when we use human courtesy to solve the edge cases.

[nunez]

I also hate that "courtesy." It blocks traffic behind the yielding car and is often done without considering that driver's surroundings (like impatient drivers switching lanes and speeding up to overtake the yielding car, increasing the chances of a collision with the crossing car).

[rfrey]

In many places, traffic would not function if drivers did not e.g. make space for other drivers to change lanes. It's an extraordinary claim to say such behaviour is bad practice (or even illegal??)

[ibejoeb]

In that context, yes, there are certainly cases where making space is reasonable and legal, like stopping shy of side intersection while (traffic is stopped) to allow a turn.

Stopping or altering traffic isn't, though. You shouldn't stop at a green to allow another driver to maneuver for all the same reasons.

[rogerrogerr]

"Courtesy causes confusion; confusion causes crashes"

[dangero]

That assumes you live in a place where the traffic system handles all edge cases