In a few parts of America, and maybe Canada since that's pretty much the same place, at any big busy intersection, you pull out into traffic against a red signal if you are turning right. If the walking light is flashing this means you are driving right into a crosswalk, close as you can be to the curb, and because there is cross traffic you necessarily must be looking away from the curb, to check if you can get out. You could not design a more dangerous interaction between car and person if you were trying, and this is like pretty much every intersection you walk through, almost every single time you cross the street possibly. There is no noticable benefit to drivers besides maybe less congestion, the amount of time and gas it saves are negligible on an individual level.
Anyway I just got hit by a car for this rule. My friend has a traumatic brain injury from this rule. If you walk a lot or bike you are taking your life into your hands in this, the country where vastly more people die to cars than anywhere else, inside them or no, how much due to this rule I cannot say, but it feels like a big part of it to me
you are 1000% right. i've lost count of how many times i've almost been hit by this rule. it's one of the things that makes me want to stick with pedestrianism over riding a bike, because i feel safer jumping/diving out of harm's way and more able to watch the driver's face when looking for danger, essentially willing them to turn their head away from oncoming traffic and to regard the crosswalk where a cluster of us are trying to cross.
i am a bigger guy and i put on my meanest mug to drivers that i catch lunging into the cross walk for a RTOR while i walk in front of their hood. it's probably my most if not only routinely aggressive ritual i engage in. like i am daring them to see what happens or imagine a world where they didn't catch themselves in time. it makes me feel like a psycho, but fuck cagers. they should be afraid.
Yeah totally like I know it is not their fault its the rule's fault, like there is intentionally driving like an asshole and then there's just lax attention (the person who clipped me today was an old lady), but its so fucking infuriating it makes me want to smash windshields. The stupid fucking 'whoops! Sorry bro!' look they give like they just gave you a little startle rather than them literally being within a few inches of ending your life
Also if you don't turn cus you don't feel it's safe, some carbrained motherfucker behind will honk at you and give you the finger. I swear so many drivers get into a fit of fury if something happens on the road that delays their trip by 5 seconds.
Driving brings out peoples thinly veiled true self. Most people are off their rockers.
that shit really sucks - car-dependency and its consequences are such a fucking meat grinder
Good post, and worth considering for motorists as well, maybe you give up that right turn
