Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.
Drivers Tend To Kill Pedestrians At Night. Thermal Imaging May Help.::Pedestrian automatic emergency braking (AEB), which may become mandatory on U.S. cars in the future, tends to not perform well in the dark.
I know I am part of the problem, but the number of people walking around in dark colors and dark jackets at night baffles me. Bonus points if they are jaywalking because they have the right of way.
Combine that with spending any time after sunset either partially blind from super bright LEDs or fully blind from high beams and yeah. Constantly having to drive defensively and try to spot potential hazards a mile ahead in the brief window of just being partially blinded.
So I am all for some thermals I can glance at
My genuine favorite is a motorcyclist who lives out near my ex. Lights off more often than not and he has jet black leathers and helmet and bike
A pedantic point from me here, but it’s not ‘jaywalking’ if you have the right of way. It’s only jaywalking if it’s against regulations.
Still endangering yourself to trust drivers to stop at night I agree, right of way or not.
AFAIK the law here in Ontario is that pedestrians can cross mid-block on a non-controlled-access-highway (ie a regular road not expressway) as long as any oncoming vehicles have plentiful space to safely come to a complete stop. You only lose the right-of-way as a pedestrian if you’re doing something that forces drivers to make emergency manoeuvres.
I nearly killed a group of people one night.
Full on slamming of brakes and trying to not have another sort of accident.
Roughly 3am, a major major highway, and a group of people decides to dash across.
Dark clothing. Crossed between where any lights were.
Everyone involved was very lucky in that moment.
If you cannot drive safely around pedestrians in normal street clothes, you should not be driving. You are the one bringing a lethal machine into the equation, they’re just out living.
Then please enlighten me as to how you manipulate the laws of physics to increase the reflectivity of clothing while your night vision is impaired by all the headlights at face level angles too far to the left?
Defensive driving is acknowledging problems and trying to mitigate them. Stupidity is pretending there isn’t one
The law says, regardless of the speed limit, you need to be driving slow enough to react to someone suddenly stepping on the road. If you can’t do that while driving at the speed limit, you’ll just have to drive slower.
Ah. So you don’t have a magic secret but will still smugly pretend you do.
That seems safe
Slow. Down. That’s all there is to it.
I guess people angrily speeding past and honking means they would hit the ninjas, so… kudos.
Unless they just get angry and blast high beams into my rear mirrors even more.
Don’t disrupt the flow of traffic
The speed limit isn’t a suggested speed, it’s an absolute maximum (excluding motorways with a minimum of 60km/h). If the road is frozen over you can’t drive the speed limit either, the same applies when it’s slippery due to rain or leaves or when the lights are off.
You always need to be able to react to sudden movement, no matter if it’s a pedestrian crossing the street, a motorist leaving their own driveway or even a trash can rolling into the road. It should be in your own best interest to avoid accidents.
The entitled attitude you ascribe to the overtaking drivers but also display yourself is just going to cause problems for everyone. Trying to shave a few seconds off of your commute by speeding in dark areas isn’t going to get you home any faster, all you’re doing is increasing your own stress level and risking someone’s life.
A little bit of respect on the road would go a long way to improve everyone’s experience on the road.
Ignoring the massive disruption that going below the speed limit causes and the increased aggression it instills in other drivers who understand how to follow the rules of the road:
A sedan is, on average, 1302 kg according to a random quora page. 45 miles per hour is approximately 20.116 meters per second. So about 26.191 newton seconds. People aren’t surviving that.
So unless you are battling entitlement by going thirty miles under the speed limit (which will probably still squish a person but I am too lazy to math it), all you are doing is antagonizing everyone around you while filling yourself with a false sense of security.
Seriously, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, take a defensive driving course. Defensive driving is about learning to anticipate the drivers around you and how to minimize the chance of a collision. Which is not the law you learned in driver’s Ed. It makes you a much safer driver and will probably lower your insurance premium.
That means driving in a way that doesn’t anger everyone around you and knowing when you actually need to slow down and when doing so won’t help
Sure but people can be a little more sensible to think not to dress as a fucking ninja at night and expect to be seen?
You clearly have never driven at night.
Edit: Also, the idiot wearing dark clothes walking into a road at night will still be just as dead whether the driver is considered culpable or not.
As a motorcyclist of 30+ years, this is a rule you either learn early or pay the price.
I wanted to bring this up, I’m glad others also see it. (Or rather don’t? :p)
I don’t know where you live, but over my way that is a dangerous, and factually wrong, assumption.
Anyone reading that, make absolutely sure it applies in your area; it doesn’t everywhere.
I understand I tend to forget people have different life experiences.
The legality doesn’t matter in the slightest. The cash settlement for suing the driver who paralyzed you isn’t really that large.
Look both ways for fuck’s sake
Legality is exactly what applies when you sue. For example, in California, USA, the law is written pedestrians do not have right of way in your scenario. No, it does not mean drivers can mow them down, but pedestrians assume the risk of their actions.
I’ve had a lot of puahback talking about this with local people in my city who have a “pedestrians are always right” mentality, and I understand the desire to wish that’s true, but it just isn’t the case. There are very clear places right of way is, and is not, protecting pedestrians.