If a car is trying to yield to me, and I want to force it to go first, I turn my back so that the driver can see that I’m not watching their gestures. If that’s not enough I will start to walk the other way, as though I’ve changed my mind / was never actually planning to cross.
I’ll generally do this if the car has the right-of-way (and is yielding wrongly), or if the car is creating a hazard or problem for other drivers by waiting for me (e.g. sticking out from a driveway into the road), or if I can’t tell whether the space beyond the yielding car is safe (e.g. multiple lanes), or if I just for any reason would feel safer not waking in front of the car.
I will also generally cross behind a stopped car, rather than in front of it, at stop signs / rights-on-red / parking lot exits / any time the car is probably paying attention to other cars, rather than to me.
Definitely +1 on turning your back to indicate you don’t intend to cross (right now). It’s a big clear signal, and I’ve also found it working well in practice.
I live in Germany and I do something similar… but it has to be always. If you are close to a zebra crossing most cars will stop to let you cross even if you haven’t made any intent to cross, so you have to do all kinds of theatre to make it clear that you are not going to cross (in that moment).
But the other day I understood why they do it (I almost never drive). I was driving approaching a zebra crossing an a guy who was walking in the same direction but through the sidewalk just turned 90º and continued walking when he reached the zebra crossing. He didn’t signal the turn at all and didn’t even look before crossing. He even stared at me annoyed that I did not stop before. It was like, “dude read my mind, I was going to turn all along”.
This system is so inefficient and stupid. The best moments are when people do not realise they are close to a zebra crossing (or they don’t give a damn) and cars approaching stop to let them cross. I’ve seen someone making several cars stop because they were just waiting for something in front of a zebra crossing and the traffic was low enough so that one driver would not see the previous car stopping for nothing.
This seems (based on what I’ve been given to understand about how zebra crossings work in Germany) like a consequence of extremely bad roadway signage and associated rules of the road.
A designated pedestrian crossing without an associated stop sign or traffic light is just very, very bad design. (We do not have such things in the U.S., to my knowledge.)
A designated pedestrian crossing without an associated stop sign or traffic light is just very, very bad design.
Why should this be bad design? I find it would be even more stupid to have to stop all the time (stop sign) or when the light is read but no one wants to cross. The traffic lights with a button for pedestrians are useful in some circumstances, but in many they are even more stupid (eg. often the pedestrian would have been able to cross without a problem but is forced to press the button, wait that the traffic light changes and cross, and then several cars have to stop and wait). Of course, in places with a lot of traffic and pedestrians traffic lights are the right choice, but IMO outside the city centres this is often not the right choice.
I’m not sure this is so everywhere, but in Europe one is supposed to drive carefully when approaching a zebra crossing. It is not that the guy I mention above was super-reckless -just that it is easy and useful to signal it when one wants to cross. I could easily stop on time because I drove slow and had him and the crossing in my focus, as one is supposed to do.
The traffic lights with a button for pedestrians are useful in some circumstances, but in many they are even more stupid (eg. often the pedestrian would have been able to cross without a problem but is forced to press the button, wait that the traffic light changes and cross, and then several cars have to stop and wait)
A lot of places near us (Boston) have installed lights at crossings that are normally off, but go on immediately when a pedestrian pushes a button. They’re pretty good!
Because it makes driver behavior vastly less predictable, and it makes it much harder for the driver to behave predictably. Driving predictably is the most important way to minimize accidents.
(“one is supposed to drive carefully when approaching a zebra crossing” is exactly the kind of bad “rule” which is impossible to consistently execute in practice.)
ETA:
I find it would be even more stupid to have to stop all the time (stop sign) or when the light is read but no one wants to cross.
If this is the case, then it’s a sign that either you’re trying to drive much too fast, or that there are entirely too many pedestrian crossings. The appropriate design correction here is to reduce the number of designated pedestrian crossing points until it’s not unduly burdensome to stop at each, then force a stop at each.
Why is driving slow less predictable than stopping?
Because “slow” could be any of a range of speeds, while “stop” is always a speed of 0 mph; and, also, because it’s unknown whether the slow-moving car will stop, but it is known whether the stopped car is stopped.
On the other hand, it’s not known whether a stopped car will stay stopped. Which was the motivating example from the post. (“As we started across the street a driver that had been waiting to turn left misinterpreted the situation and, thinking traffic had stopped for them instead, tried to turn through our location.”)
The appropriate design correction here is to reduce the number of designated pedestrian crossing points until it’s not unduly burdensome to stop at each, then force a stop at each.
Let’s take a simple hypothetical: a section of residential street with no cross streets for a long way in each direction. It would be nice to have a pedestrian crossing in the middle but forcing cars to stop in the middle when there’s no one to cross wouldn’t make much sense. What would you like to see here?
The following two things are contradictory in practice:
It would be nice to have a pedestrian crossing in the middle
and
forcing cars to stop in the middle when there’s no one to cross wouldn’t make much sense
In practice, one of those can be true, but not both. To see this, ask: how often do people want to cross there?
If often, then it’s not the case that “forcing cars to stop in the middle when there’s no one to cross wouldn’t make much sense”; it would, in fact, make plenty of sense. (Why? Because “there’s no one to cross” is not information to which a driver has direct access; he can only know that “it doesn’t look like there’s anyone who wants to cross”.)
If not often, then it is not the case that “it would be nice to have a pedestrian crossing in the middle”; it would, in fact, be inefficient and potentially dangerous.
Obviously, such things exist on a continuum; “often” and “not often” really means “more often” and “less often”. It does not follow from this, however, that “half-baked” solutions are appropriate. A pedestrian crossing without a stop sign (or traffic light, though that’s less appropriate in the particular sort of case you describe) would be such a half-baked solution.
Is the idea that pedestrians would cross at an unmarked location, or that in a less busy place they should need to walk farther along the road before crossing?
They could walk farther along before crossing, and cross safely; that is the intended behavior. Or—as always—they could cross at a place without a designated crossing, and cross unsafely. (That might even be illegal, as in NYC, for instance; or it might be merely a bad idea.) In the latter case, the responsibility for avoiding accidents would be entirely the pedestrian’s, and not the driver’s (as it would be were the pedestrian to cross at a designated crossing).
It is not literally forcing anyone but it is effectively forcing everyone. Or don’t call it forcing if you want, but it is what people are going to do.
Note that moving a zebra crossing just 200 m means having to walk 400 m more, so 5 minutes walking. For people with reduced mobility it is much longer. [edited to add the ending ‘d’ in reduced]
Good design is not about the theory it is about what happens in practice. Search for, for example, the design failure of Brasilia. Super well designed on plan, a failure in practice. Something similar is repeated once and again.
Or don’t call it forcing if you want, but it is what people are going to do.
Let us be precise: not “people are going to”, but “some additional people on the margin are going to” (cross at a point without a designated pedestrian crossing). Some people do so already (no matter how closely spaced the crossings), and some people will continue to not do so (even if you space the crossings further apart).
This is perfectly normal and expected. People have free will, and if they decide to break the rules, that’s their choice. We may, of course, determine that some threshold amount of rule-breaking indicates that the rule is bad—but the mere fact that some people are breaking the rules, is not sufficient to establish this.
(This is especially true given that the new setup will be more safe than the old one.)
Good design is not about the theory it is about what happens in practice.
This has nothing to do with the theory/practice distinction.
if they decide to break the rules, that’s their choice
The point is that your proposal incentivises people to break the rules and cross unsafely; which is the opposite of what the proposal intends.
On the other hand, having zebra crossing more often incentivises people to use them.
The appropriate question here is what is more unsafe? 1) significant amounts of people crossing in random places, or 2) cars not being forced to stop before zebra crossings.
For me, in normal conditions 1) is clearly more unsafe, as car drivers must be paying attention to the traffic anyway. And I’d guess that this is the actual case, otherwise zebra crossings would not have been adopted.
The point is that your proposal incentivises people to break the rules and cross unsafely; which is the opposite of what the proposal intends.
The incentive to break the rules and cross unsafely already exists. One part of my proposal (space crossings further apart) strengthens that incentive. Another part of my proposal (stop signs or traffic lights at each crossing) makes it safer to cross in accordance with the rules.
The reason for the former part is to preserve the usefulness of the roadway for drivers (which would otherwise be reduced by the increase in its safety), while the reason for the latter part is to increase the safety of the roadway for pedestrians.
On net, the roadway becomes safer but less useful for pedestrians, while remaining as useful as previously for drivers. (There is also a matter of safety for drivers, but not a significant one.)
The appropriate question here is what is more unsafe?
It is clear that cars not being forced to stop before zebra crossings is more unsafe.
If crossing in random places is dangerous and sanctioned crossings are less frequent, that does not mean that the road is less safe, only that it is less useful. Safety is to be evaluated on the basis of two things: (a) how safe it is to behave in the approved way, and (b) how easy it is to behave in the approved way and avoid behaving in the un-approved way, should one have a general intention to do so. Mere incentives to behave in the un-approved way are not properly understood to be components of safety, only of usefulness.
It is clear that cars not being forced to stop before zebra crossings is more unsafe.
Then let’s just get rid of zebra crossings all together. But I highly suspect that this would not be a good solution (eg. in Europe I have never seen a stop sign for a zebra crossing).
It’s an hyperbole, of course —to keep the usefulness of the road, if it is less dangerous that people just cross in random places than that cars stop before zebra crossings, let’s get rid of the crossings.
I think the occasional little dance of “oops, I accidentally made that car stop by standing too close to it, I will get away from the zebra crossing” is a relatively small cost.
When there is a junction where one car (lets say turning to join the main road) has to give way to other cars, would you always put a traffic light/stop sign? Or would you let people look and go when its clear? I think it depends on the speed of the road, and whether the traffic levels mean that a gap is actually going to appear in a reasonable timeframe. I would apply the same logic to zebra crossings vs traffic light crossings.
Stop signs will often (eg. at night) cause unnecessary vehicle stops. Traffic lights are more expensive than paint, and keep pedestrians waiting as they press a button (even with a fast button system time is wasted), and keep cars waiting for it to turn green again even after people have finished crossing. So the basic zebra has some advantages.
When there is a junction where one car (lets say turning to join the main road) has to give way to other cars, would you always put a traffic light/stop sign?
In such a case, a stop sign is placed on the smaller road, not the main road.
Stop signs will often (eg. at night) cause unnecessary vehicle stops.
If the caused stops really are unnecessary, then there are too many stop signs. But having drivers have to look around for pedestrians wanting to cross, at night, is a much, much worse solution.
Yes, you could use a stop sign. I am used to (in the UK) them instead putting the white road markings that mean “give way”. I am not sure how much value the stop sign adds, because when they start moving again we still need to trust to the driver’s vision. I suppose we need to place less faith in their judgement.
Zebra crossings are always well lit for that reason. But yes, a sensible pedestrian (esp. at night) would not step in front of a speeding car, but instead signal their intention to cross and begin crossing when the car stops or slows. I did a quick look for statistics on zebra crossing injuries and deaths and couldn’t find anything clear in 5 mins, instead I found a news article about the country’s “most dangerous zebra crossing” being turned into traffic lights. It has videos, which basically show everything you are thinking can go wrong, going wrong. (A link if you are interested : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-66298370 )
If a car is trying to yield to me, and I want to force it to go first, I turn my back so that the driver can see that I’m not watching their gestures. If that’s not enough I will start to walk the other way, as though I’ve changed my mind / was never actually planning to cross.
I’ll generally do this if the car has the right-of-way (and is yielding wrongly), or if the car is creating a hazard or problem for other drivers by waiting for me (e.g. sticking out from a driveway into the road), or if I can’t tell whether the space beyond the yielding car is safe (e.g. multiple lanes), or if I just for any reason would feel safer not waking in front of the car.
I will also generally cross behind a stopped car, rather than in front of it, at stop signs / rights-on-red / parking lot exits / any time the car is probably paying attention to other cars, rather than to me.
Definitely +1 on turning your back to indicate you don’t intend to cross (right now). It’s a big clear signal, and I’ve also found it working well in practice.
I live in Germany and I do something similar… but it has to be always. If you are close to a zebra crossing most cars will stop to let you cross even if you haven’t made any intent to cross, so you have to do all kinds of theatre to make it clear that you are not going to cross (in that moment).
But the other day I understood why they do it (I almost never drive). I was driving approaching a zebra crossing an a guy who was walking in the same direction but through the sidewalk just turned 90º and continued walking when he reached the zebra crossing. He didn’t signal the turn at all and didn’t even look before crossing. He even stared at me annoyed that I did not stop before. It was like, “dude read my mind, I was going to turn all along”.
This system is so inefficient and stupid. The best moments are when people do not realise they are close to a zebra crossing (or they don’t give a damn) and cars approaching stop to let them cross. I’ve seen someone making several cars stop because they were just waiting for something in front of a zebra crossing and the traffic was low enough so that one driver would not see the previous car stopping for nothing.
This seems (based on what I’ve been given to understand about how zebra crossings work in Germany) like a consequence of extremely bad roadway signage and associated rules of the road.
A designated pedestrian crossing without an associated stop sign or traffic light is just very, very bad design. (We do not have such things in the U.S., to my knowledge.)
I’ve seen many of these, and the closest zebra crossing to my house (Somerville MA) is in this category.
Here are several near my house:
https://goo.gl/maps/gWRbstt4JgDwwNzUA
https://goo.gl/maps/NENVdk8fMeLD2Tjx5
https://goo.gl/maps/udGTAT7x3Wy5Vz7K8
https://goo.gl/maps/4GCTfiAgGz5PdJmw8
Why should this be bad design? I find it would be even more stupid to have to stop all the time (stop sign) or when the light is read but no one wants to cross. The traffic lights with a button for pedestrians are useful in some circumstances, but in many they are even more stupid (eg. often the pedestrian would have been able to cross without a problem but is forced to press the button, wait that the traffic light changes and cross, and then several cars have to stop and wait). Of course, in places with a lot of traffic and pedestrians traffic lights are the right choice, but IMO outside the city centres this is often not the right choice.
I’m not sure this is so everywhere, but in Europe one is supposed to drive carefully when approaching a zebra crossing. It is not that the guy I mention above was super-reckless -just that it is easy and useful to signal it when one wants to cross. I could easily stop on time because I drove slow and had him and the crossing in my focus, as one is supposed to do.
A lot of places near us (Boston) have installed lights at crossings that are normally off, but go on immediately when a pedestrian pushes a button. They’re pretty good!
This sounds pretty good.
Because it makes driver behavior vastly less predictable, and it makes it much harder for the driver to behave predictably. Driving predictably is the most important way to minimize accidents.
(“one is supposed to drive carefully when approaching a zebra crossing” is exactly the kind of bad “rule” which is impossible to consistently execute in practice.)
ETA:
If this is the case, then it’s a sign that either you’re trying to drive much too fast, or that there are entirely too many pedestrian crossings. The appropriate design correction here is to reduce the number of designated pedestrian crossing points until it’s not unduly burdensome to stop at each, then force a stop at each.
Why is driving slow less predictable than stopping?
A zebra crossing is similar to a Yield sign, just giving way to pedestrians instead of other cars.
Because “slow” could be any of a range of speeds, while “stop” is always a speed of 0 mph; and, also, because it’s unknown whether the slow-moving car will stop, but it is known whether the stopped car is stopped.
Less accurate, not less predictable ;-)
What is the difference with the yield sign? Or are you also against the yield sign?
These were not rhetorical questions, I would like to see your opinion on yield signs and their difference with zebra crossings.
Yield signs in what context? (Also, are you using the term “zebra crossing” in an unusual way…? It seems like you are…)
Context: in urban environment + slow roads/streets in general.
??
On the other hand, it’s not known whether a stopped car will stay stopped. Which was the motivating example from the post. (“As we started across the street a driver that had been waiting to turn left misinterpreted the situation and, thinking traffic had stopped for them instead, tried to turn through our location.”)
Let’s take a simple hypothetical: a section of residential street with no cross streets for a long way in each direction. It would be nice to have a pedestrian crossing in the middle but forcing cars to stop in the middle when there’s no one to cross wouldn’t make much sense. What would you like to see here?
A stop sign.
The following two things are contradictory in practice:
and
In practice, one of those can be true, but not both. To see this, ask: how often do people want to cross there?
If often, then it’s not the case that “forcing cars to stop in the middle when there’s no one to cross wouldn’t make much sense”; it would, in fact, make plenty of sense. (Why? Because “there’s no one to cross” is not information to which a driver has direct access; he can only know that “it doesn’t look like there’s anyone who wants to cross”.)
If not often, then it is not the case that “it would be nice to have a pedestrian crossing in the middle”; it would, in fact, be inefficient and potentially dangerous.
Obviously, such things exist on a continuum; “often” and “not often” really means “more often” and “less often”. It does not follow from this, however, that “half-baked” solutions are appropriate. A pedestrian crossing without a stop sign (or traffic light, though that’s less appropriate in the particular sort of case you describe) would be such a half-baked solution.
Then only busy places should have zebra crossings?
Less busy places should have pedestrian crossings less frequently.
Is the idea that pedestrians would cross at an unmarked location, or that in a less busy place they should need to walk farther along the road before crossing?
They could walk farther along before crossing, and cross safely; that is the intended behavior. Or—as always—they could cross at a place without a designated crossing, and cross unsafely. (That might even be illegal, as in NYC, for instance; or it might be merely a bad idea.) In the latter case, the responsibility for avoiding accidents would be entirely the pedestrian’s, and not the driver’s (as it would be were the pedestrian to cross at a designated crossing).
So, basically forcing people to cross unsafely (and potentially illegally) is the best design choice?
Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything.
You can walk down to the next crossing. Or, not. This is always true, no matter how many crossings there are.[1]
Unless the crossings are literally abutting one another, i.e. the whole road is one giant pedestrian crossing, i.e. there is no road.
It is not literally forcing anyone but it is effectively forcing everyone. Or don’t call it forcing if you want, but it is what people are going to do.
Note that moving a zebra crossing just 200 m means having to walk 400 m more, so 5 minutes walking. For people with reduced mobility it is much longer. [edited to add the ending ‘d’ in reduced]
Good design is not about the theory it is about what happens in practice. Search for, for example, the design failure of Brasilia. Super well designed on plan, a failure in practice. Something similar is repeated once and again.
Let us be precise: not “people are going to”, but “some additional people on the margin are going to” (cross at a point without a designated pedestrian crossing). Some people do so already (no matter how closely spaced the crossings), and some people will continue to not do so (even if you space the crossings further apart).
This is perfectly normal and expected. People have free will, and if they decide to break the rules, that’s their choice. We may, of course, determine that some threshold amount of rule-breaking indicates that the rule is bad—but the mere fact that some people are breaking the rules, is not sufficient to establish this.
(This is especially true given that the new setup will be more safe than the old one.)
This has nothing to do with the theory/practice distinction.
The point is that your proposal incentivises people to break the rules and cross unsafely; which is the opposite of what the proposal intends.
On the other hand, having zebra crossing more often incentivises people to use them.
The appropriate question here is what is more unsafe? 1) significant amounts of people crossing in random places, or 2) cars not being forced to stop before zebra crossings.
For me, in normal conditions 1) is clearly more unsafe, as car drivers must be paying attention to the traffic anyway. And I’d guess that this is the actual case, otherwise zebra crossings would not have been adopted.
The incentive to break the rules and cross unsafely already exists. One part of my proposal (space crossings further apart) strengthens that incentive. Another part of my proposal (stop signs or traffic lights at each crossing) makes it safer to cross in accordance with the rules.
The reason for the former part is to preserve the usefulness of the roadway for drivers (which would otherwise be reduced by the increase in its safety), while the reason for the latter part is to increase the safety of the roadway for pedestrians.
On net, the roadway becomes safer but less useful for pedestrians, while remaining as useful as previously for drivers. (There is also a matter of safety for drivers, but not a significant one.)
It is clear that cars not being forced to stop before zebra crossings is more unsafe.
If crossing in random places is dangerous and sanctioned crossings are less frequent, that does not mean that the road is less safe, only that it is less useful. Safety is to be evaluated on the basis of two things: (a) how safe it is to behave in the approved way, and (b) how easy it is to behave in the approved way and avoid behaving in the un-approved way, should one have a general intention to do so. Mere incentives to behave in the un-approved way are not properly understood to be components of safety, only of usefulness.
Then let’s just get rid of zebra crossings all together. But I highly suspect that this would not be a good solution (eg. in Europe I have never seen a stop sign for a zebra crossing).
I don’t see how this follows…?
It’s an hyperbole, of course —to keep the usefulness of the road, if it is less dangerous that people just cross in random places than that cars stop before zebra crossings, let’s get rid of the crossings.
That would reduce the usefulness of the road for pedestrians to zero, which for most roads is too low.
In any case, your antecedent clause there is a mischaracterization of the discussion so far.
On the contrary, they could cross anywhere without needing to walk to the zebra crossing! That would increase the road’s usefulness for them.
But pedestrians can do that already, so your proposed change would not change this; thus there could be no increase.
Now it is illegal in some places and not recommended in others → social & cívic pressure against. Plus the increase in usefulness for the cars.
I think the occasional little dance of “oops, I accidentally made that car stop by standing too close to it, I will get away from the zebra crossing” is a relatively small cost.
When there is a junction where one car (lets say turning to join the main road) has to give way to other cars, would you always put a traffic light/stop sign? Or would you let people look and go when its clear? I think it depends on the speed of the road, and whether the traffic levels mean that a gap is actually going to appear in a reasonable timeframe. I would apply the same logic to zebra crossings vs traffic light crossings.
Stop signs will often (eg. at night) cause unnecessary vehicle stops. Traffic lights are more expensive than paint, and keep pedestrians waiting as they press a button (even with a fast button system time is wasted), and keep cars waiting for it to turn green again even after people have finished crossing. So the basic zebra has some advantages.
In such a case, a stop sign is placed on the smaller road, not the main road.
If the caused stops really are unnecessary, then there are too many stop signs. But having drivers have to look around for pedestrians wanting to cross, at night, is a much, much worse solution.
Yes, you could use a stop sign. I am used to (in the UK) them instead putting the white road markings that mean “give way”. I am not sure how much value the stop sign adds, because when they start moving again we still need to trust to the driver’s vision. I suppose we need to place less faith in their judgement.
Zebra crossings are always well lit for that reason. But yes, a sensible pedestrian (esp. at night) would not step in front of a speeding car, but instead signal their intention to cross and begin crossing when the car stops or slows. I did a quick look for statistics on zebra crossing injuries and deaths and couldn’t find anything clear in 5 mins, instead I found a news article about the country’s “most dangerous zebra crossing” being turned into traffic lights. It has videos, which basically show everything you are thinking can go wrong, going wrong. (A link if you are interested : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-66298370 )