Just a quick note today, spurred on by a dangerous column by CW Nevius in the Chronicle. He basically rants that pedestrians in San Francisco get in the way of cars too often, and end up causing accidents. The problem is, that is a perfectly normal point of view. Not to say that it’s accurate, inaccurate, or inbetween, just that it’s to be expected. Because he’s writing from the perspective of a driver.
This is problem that is all too common, when you don’t understand the perspective of other people. But it’s more than that. Whatever method of travel you’re engaging in tends to be the one you’re intent on enforcing at that moment. It’s called Modal Bias. Bikers feel like they own the road. Pedestrians dominate crosswalks. Automobiles want to be everywhere. Unless you’re one of the other two.
I feel this myself, on the rare occasions that I get behind the wheel of a car, and I get upset that I have to slow down for a pedestrian, or go around a bike. I generally adjust pretty quickly, but the instincts from growing up in suburbia don’t go away that fast. When my brain actually kicks in, I realize that I should give bikes the lane, and walkers get to use crosswalks. But that’s with much experience biking and walking in San Francisco, so I partially know what to expect. The problem lies in inexperience from the driver’s point of view- part of the above average driver thinking, “What’s wrong with that guy?”
I’m also an above average cyclist, and an amazingly diligent pedestrian. Until I’m not. The problem is that the big guy always wins, regardless of any legal precedent. Rock beats scissors : car beats pedestrian. In a city that features such huge numbers of pedestrians, transit users, cyclists, and whatever else – the burden lies on those that have the ability to kill people to be on the lookout.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Daniel Howard on 10.16.2009
The bigger-wins problem helps explain why pedestrians and cyclists can be particularly assertive in San Francisco. I’ve smacked a good number of cars that got too close to me. I found this approach to be counter-productive in New York, where pedestrians can basically do whatever they want, but have to share the road, and the crosswalk, with cars, very closely. The cars try not to kill anyone, and they have to drive slow because there are pedestrians (jaywalking) EVERYWHERE . . . so they’re all just kinda creeping around each other.
Pedestrianist on 10.16.2009
I agree right down to the last sentence, which I’d like to emphasize. There is a natural hierarchy of transportation modes, arranged by how much they sacrifice public safety for personal speed. Ideally traffic laws and road culture would reflect this. Some places (Paris, Portland) have enacted vulnerable users’ laws that attempt to recognize that someone who is walking is not, at the core, responsible for an accident just because someone wanted to make their own life convenient by driving. Driving, in these cases, is acknowledged to be a privilege, not a right, and drivers who cannot promise to be responsible for those they endanger are subject to losing that privilege.