Look both ways...

There has always been a problem on Long Island with accidents because random guys cross the street in the dark. Now it just seems out of hand; I hear of 4 or 5 people a month.

A few days ago, one of my co-workers passed away from severe head wouds because he was hit in an unlit parking lot. Does anyone else have problems with pedestrians and unlit areas in their neighborhood?

No...in Atlanta, we have a larger problem with people discarding chicken bones in parking lots. As if someone were eating wings and just tossed the bones in the parking lot.

I wish that I were kidding. Not as serious as your co-worker dying, obviously.

I think we probably get an inordinate number of pedestrians hit up here in Saskatchewan, especially considering the small population (just over 1,000,000). A combination of icy roads for 4-5 months of the year, terrible drivers who are used to small town traffic, and unattended children/drunks who run/stagger out into the streets.

Here, in crazy land, the leading cause of death is car accidents by far. You frequently see cars swerving across three lanes at high speed to get a turnoff. The rate of death is twice that of USA (per 1000 cars)

No seat belts, babies in the front on laps even while mum is driving in a full veil and sunglasses at night (I kid you not).

Kids hanging out of sun roofs. Once I saw a baby fly out of a side window into the road after a sharp turn. Mother didnt even notice. She had to be chased down and told that she'd lost a kid at the last junction. Luckily, the baby was OK bar cuts and bruises.

Insha'Allah is what we always heard in Jordan. 'if god wills it' or something. My dad almost died out there, he was riding with a Jordanian down the Desert Highway at night, travelling 90+, cargo truck pulls out in front of them - no lights, and of course none out there in the desert.

Funnily enough, my wife and I holiday quite a bit in Jordan. We've found the driving there to be 1000 times better than Kuwait, in general.

Novel things, like people signalling when they change lanes and generally sticking to the slow lane when driving or at least pulling over when someone comes up the middle lane behind them. This shit is unknown in Kuwait. No one signals at all.

My wife had a crash (minor) last year and the guy driving the car that smashed into hers stated he didn't need to signal because he was a maths professor. WTF!!!!

How are cars sneaking up on these people at night? They have big bright things on the front of them.

The chicken bones are probably being pulled out of dumpsters by the local four-legged residents. We need to keep a shock cord holding our garbage lid down or we have them all over the yard.

S.

Michael just inadvertantly answered a huge WTF for me....when I was in Atlanta for work (and Trashfest South) I stopped at several places and I was like "huh" because there were bones all over the parking lots. Not like millions, but enough to notice. I thought it was that dying bird phenomenon or something. But now I realize it's just that the people of Atlanta just really dig fried chicken.

I'm not even going there regarding stereotypes.

Anyhow, here in Cincinnati, people are pretty good. The real problem is the rain and the snow. We just got like 1/4" of snow and there were 3 big pile ups, one of them 24-car, another 12-car, and a 5-car. It's ridiculous. People lose their fucking minds. Sad thing is that when it snows 5 inches people are fine. But the first snows of the year are deathtraps.

I live in Los Angeles, where shitty driving is elevated to an art form. I grew up near Boston, where the drivers are excellent, but the ROADS are so fucking crazy everyone looks like a fuckwit trying to accomplish a thing like driving down the road.

...but the worst driving I ever saw (barring Israeli madness) was Washington D.C. after a snow squall. It was like the snow had fallen into people's brains and killed them as they drove. Cars just sliding along the road, completely out of control. Not just one! Five or six of them! I was only walking down the street for a couple of blocks and it was like the Apocolypse. Cars flipping around, sliding through intersections, up on the sidewalk--it was the most crazy thing I have ever seen. I knelt down and felt the snow to see if it was more slippery than the kind in New England. I assumed there had to be something magical about it to cause this much insanity for 2" or 3".

It haunts my dreams. We live this close to anarchy.

Sagrilarus wrote: How are cars sneaking up on these people at night? They have big bright things on the front of them.

Sag: It's one of three things: 1) People dashing in the middle of the road trying to cross in a hurry.

2) cars not looking before they pull out because THEY are in a hurry (parking lots are notorious for it)

3) Kids on a dare trying to "beat cars" or surfing on the hoods, and/or suicidal people

The German traffic minister (yes, if you've got Autobahnen and billion dollar car industries you need a traffic minister) recently suggested banning iPods on sidewalks because last year has been a 7% rise in traffic accidents, a larger portion due to unattentive passengers wearing iPods.

I was walking around Main and Hastings here in Vancouver not too long ago where we have the largest homeless and drug addiction problems in all of N. America and I saw a crack addict wander in front of an Ambulance. Sirens on and everything. When the Ambulance came to a stop the guy looked at it like the Ambulance driver was to blame. It would have been hillarious if there wasn't someones life on the line. The driver was actually honking at him and he just stared at it incredulously.

I saw another guy get killed in the same neighbourhood just two years ago. Well, I saw a stretcher and some kind of (what I assumed was) a body bag. I turned away immediately though cause I hate that shit.

It happens here often is the point but it's more to do with the severe crack/heroin addiction then anything. I actually am part of a community team that cleans up needles and condoms from the area. It sucks and is depressing since I have a child now. For sober people I think cyclists get hit with some regularity and that scares me since I don't drive anything but a bicycle.

Cars are big scary fast pieces of metal and we forget that far too quickly.

It's not much better here in Louisiana. Last week, a section of I-10 on the south shore (south of Lake Ponchatrain) was shut off due to a 40 car pile up. Took me two hours of backtracking and taking alternate routes to get to work. The cause? Combination of marsh fires and fog.

Then, yesterday, we had ANOTHER minor pile up due to the same thing. It was nowhere near as bad as the 40 car pileup, but it's the same problem, poor visibility due to marsh fire and fog. To which I say, SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, MORONS! I swear to God, drivers from Mississippi and Louisiana have NO concept of driving in inclement weather or in poor conditions. They see the fog and go, "Oh, look, fog! Guess I'll clear a path through it by DRIVING FASTER!!! That'll make it clearer!"

Dave, we also have a problem with cars and pedestrians, but it's the car drivers being assholes and not giving THE RIGHT OF WAY to the pedestrians who are in the crosswalk and are not walking against a light. I got hit by a car during Mardi Gras 2005 because an inattentive driver was paying attention to incoming traffic and NOT to the crosswalk, which I was traveling on with the light. He just plowed into me, albeit at slow speed. To his credit, he was extremely apologetic and his insurance paid my medical bills. But then you have the assholes who think they can intimidate you by slowing just near you and honking their horns. I turn, make eye contact, flip them the bird, and yell RIGHT OF WAY, ASSHOLE!!!

Bike riders in New Orleans aren't really much different from the drivers. I have an unscientific poll when I walk from the parking garage to my work, it's the DBOB/RC ratio. DBOB is Douche Bag on Bike. RC is Regular Cyclist.

The DBOB's are the ones you can spot right away, they're the ones ignoring the rules of the road (speeding through stop signs/intersections against the light, riding on the sidewalks, riding against traffic, and yesterday while heading to court to deliver bench books - one turned on me and almost collided with me when I was in the crosswalk. Didn't slow down, nothing. Fucker.)

And, of course, the RC's are the ones ACTUALLY following the rules (Stopping at a redlight, going with traffic, yielding to pedestrians). When driving, I always keep my eyes out for them. I cheer the RCs and curse the DBOBs. Too bad there are more DB's than RC's here in New Orleans.

/rant off.

ubarose wrote: The pedestrians in Hartford are idiots.

Are you proposing a ban?