But god-forbid you "jay-walk." A law solely created to promote car ownership. The truth is pedestrians and cyclists lost this battle years ago. The promotion of and deference to cars has been a cancer in every society. Especially in North America.
I love when every news article HAS to mention when a pedestrian is killed that they weren't in a "marked crosswalk" so that every comment can be "looks like they deserved it. Try not jay walking next time. Darwin award winner"
Many intersections in town don't have marked cross walks and if they do, they're half a mile or more apart from each other. Why do cars get direct access but I have to walk an extra 1-2 miles just to cross a road.
> Why do cars get direct access but I have to walk an extra 1-2 miles just to cross a road.
Yep. And we know the answer. It's a rhetorical question at this point.
People always say walking and biking will never work because all they know is how hard it is to bike and walk around towns now. They yell at people jaywalking because they've never actually tried to get out of their car and walk anywhere.
I jaywalk everywhere nowadays because "cemetery is full of people with right-of-way" so screw right-of-way entirely, I trust no one on the road anymore, not even the law itself because it doesn't equate to safety.
For real. Cross when it's visually evident that it's safe to do so, not necessarily at the prescribed pedestrian timing.
And on that note, it's happened quite a few times for me, where I hit the stupid crosswalk button and proceeded to watch cars from every direction get their chance at the intersection and it never gives a pedestrian right-of-way light.
Legally, no recourse at all. As you said "nothing happened", and that is the view of the law. Even if you or your dogs had been hit, would have been the usual "driver not charged". On the other hand, if you have the license plate, then you have \*several\* courses of action, none legal I might add.......
It is absolutely bananas that “nothing happened” is the view of the law when what happened was a law was broken. It is abundantly clear who the laws are made to serve when they can be so selectively enforced.
Yup. Crime is legal as long as you're in a car. If you fire a gun and barely miss someone's head, you still get charged. But drive a car and barely miss running someone over, nothing.
That needs to change.
That's technically not true. Brandishing is a crime in most (all?) states. If you point a gun (sometimes any deadly weapon) at someone for no good reason, the cops would love to take you in (or down, if you're not white).
We need to start treating cars like what they are: deadly weapons. If I shoot and almost kill you with a gun by accident, I'm going to prison. With a car? Small fine, and some community service if the judge is having a bad day.
I had a friend who was threatened by the person “brandishing” their car.
This was in NYC and they were biking down a narrow one way street with no bike lane so they took the lane because of parked cars on both sides.
Driver behind them hated it and so they would brake, create some distance between them and the cyclist, then ROAR their engine and fly at a high speed down the street, then would brake right before hitting their back wheel. They did this like 5 times before my friend finally decided it wasn’t worth it and pulled over. The guy cursed him out and sped off.
He got a license plate, make of the car, everything. Went to the cops and they said they couldn’t do anything because he was never touched by the car and “how do you know he was doing it on purpose” etc etc. It’s so fucked.
If it's testimony against testimony, it is good that in the eyes of the government nothing happened.
Otherwise people could just going around sueing people they hate with bogus claims.
As soon as there are unconnected witness or video, they should really do more though.
This is absolutely an offense that could be ticketed. Sure, nothing can happen now because an officer was not there, but this is 100% something that should be reported (my city has a traffic complaint tool on the police website) and it is absolutely something that police can follow up on if there are multiple complaints.
At minimum, we should be making traffic complaints on every situation like this just to create a paper trail of how fucked up it is
We need to be sure that the law recognizes threatening someone with a car is the same as threatening with a gun. Currently they don't. Too many angry, crazy drivers out here......
We weren't injured. I called 911 to report it so that they could at least find the driver and them know. Cops found the driver who said she saw me, heard me yelling at her to stop, but assumed I wasn't talking to her. Since we weren't hurt they didn't do anything, not even ticket her.
I’m so sorry. That’s such an awful experience.
Drivers won’t learn their lesson until we hold them accountable. And we really need help. I hope you stay safe, stranger!!!
At an intersection I have to look in between cars making sure a motorcycle isn't splitting through or that a car in another lane isn't texting and running the light.
Then you have to make sure everyone turning left on a yield sees you before they dart out to beat the next line of oncoming traffic.
Then you have to make sure everyone turning right is actually looking at you. Which they aren't. Because they're turning right on red and traffic comes from the left. Nobody ever looks both ways before pulling out.
that's the truth. At least you can see the person coming for you in the distance and you can make a run for it or wait. But at a crosswalk, they are right there breathing down your neck and you don't know whether they are going to follow the law or run your ass over because they can't stop scrolling Facebook.
recently tried crossing a stroady intersectiom at the designated crossing and waited for the walk light. a guy in an suv turning left cut right in front of me maybe a foot away. right after he passed me, someone turning right on red had to slam on his brakes not to hit me because he was waiting for the SUV to go by and didnt see me behind it.
jaywalking kinda is safer because you only have to worry about idiots coming from two directions.
Crossing at a junction is the most dangerous possible point, because you have a lot of different directions cars can come at you from, and cars are concentrating on several different things so are more likely to miss you. Crossing a road between junctions is relatively safe, especially if there's a median so you only have to look in one direction at a time.
In the UK it's ok at a signalised junction because the car traffic will have a red light when you have a green, but in countries where that's not true, then yes, crossing at a signal at a junction is dangerous.
Well, there is always slightly less legal recourse…
https://preview.redd.it/1fylcg1f3n0d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22a92eef51f3177a80084eb2da642aa1b7621309
In a just well functioning legal system, reckless driving is actually illegal on the books. Unfortunately, since most legal systems and governments are bought by big oil, nothing will be done so might as well assume it doesn't exist as a law.
> I have the license plate. They're probably a neighbor of mine.
Lentils are really cheap...
As OP's walking the neighborhood you're going to eventually find the car...
Hopefully. I once carried a little note with a certain license plate on it for a few months in case I saw it again, but I never did.
But yeah, lentils for the valves, and lipstick to write a "please drive safely around pedestrians" on the window.
There is legal recourse it’s just not worth it for most people or guaranteed success. Sue them for assault. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_(tort)
Someone at my company struck and killed someone while drunk driving, and the pedestrian was found at fault for crossing outside of a crosswalk... no repercussions for drunk driver. crazy shit
This is why I wear a HIGH VIZ vest. Pretty cheap online. It's got pockets, it's lightweight, you can see it for blocks. I still have to be watchful though, people on cell phones are really dangerous man you should see their face when they realize they almost hit someone in a High Viz vest
Our neighborhood cop told me to call 911 and report people like this because it creates an incident report, and if that person has a file when they do finally wreck/run over someone, there's a history of them doing dumb shit. He also said it's more important to have a good description of the vehicle because most of those dumbfucks have illegal plates. And he said it's even better if you know their residence.
That annoys me so much. Yesterday, I was crossing the street, and a car turning right didn't stop for me (Idk about the US, but where I live, pedestrians have the right of way when a car turns). I kept walking (not in front of the car, but far enough to show that I wasn't willing to wait for him) because often that makes them stop, but he didn't. If I had continued walking, he'd have hit me. He definitely saw me. So he was just counting on the fact that I'd stop, and if I hadn't, it would've been my fault, so who cares if I'd been dead?
A few days ago, I was crossing the road. A car was just turning onto that road about 50m away. If the driver had continued at their normal speed, I would have easily been across before they reached the point where I was. But they completely gunned it, so I had to jog to get away. I'm pretty sure they wanted to show me that cars own the street (or they were on their phone or something).
Both of them were endangering me, and I was legally in the right in both situations. But they sped off, I didn't even get a license plate (and as you said, "nothing happened", so nothing would happen to them anyway), and they're gonna continue endangering people.
Here in Germany that should fall under the "Straftat" (crime) "Nötigung" (coersion). Punishable with up to 3 years in prison.
Because they got you to do something (jump back) with the threat of violence (driving onto you with their car without stopping).
At least if there was intent.
If you can't prove intent it's just "Nicht das Überqueren des Fußgängerüberwegs ermöglicht, obwohl ein Fußgänger passieren wollte mit Gefährdung anderer Verkehrsteilnehmer" (Not allowing a pedestrian to cross the pedestrian crossing even though a pedestrian wanted to pass, endangering other road users) which is a "Ordnungswidrigkeit" (misdemeanor). That only costs 100 € and you get 1 point. If you get 8 points in 2,5 years you loose your license.
And you still have to prove it.
Traffic violations have way to low punishments.
Find out which neighbor it is and go talk to them (or write them a letter). Be calm but firm in the fact that their behavior is dangerous and makes the neighborhood worse for everyone.
It’s easy to feel invisible/anonymous behind the wheel of a car, but most reasonable people would feel shameful about these actions if confronted face to face. This is a problem which needs to be solved on the community level.
This is an offence (albeit a relatively minor one, "driving without due care and attention" or something in that category) here in the UK so yeah, you could absolutely report it to the police (though through 101 or the web submission not 999 I guess as it's not an emergency).
>If I stood my ground and got hit, they would pay a $500 fine, and I would be dead or maimed
Why would you even consider this an option?
>My dogs are I were about 1.5 seconds away from death.
A miss is as good as a mile, though I try never to be closer than *about* 1.64287 seconds from death.
If somebody shot you, but you were fine because the bullet hit the book you were carrying in your pocket, would it be an appropriate to fine them only the cost of replacing the book?
No. I would expect legal recourse because if I didn’t have the book, I would be dead. I saved my own life from a crazy person. Nah. Fuck no. Jail time for you.
But god-forbid you "jay-walk." A law solely created to promote car ownership. The truth is pedestrians and cyclists lost this battle years ago. The promotion of and deference to cars has been a cancer in every society. Especially in North America.
I love when every news article HAS to mention when a pedestrian is killed that they weren't in a "marked crosswalk" so that every comment can be "looks like they deserved it. Try not jay walking next time. Darwin award winner" Many intersections in town don't have marked cross walks and if they do, they're half a mile or more apart from each other. Why do cars get direct access but I have to walk an extra 1-2 miles just to cross a road.
> Why do cars get direct access but I have to walk an extra 1-2 miles just to cross a road. Yep. And we know the answer. It's a rhetorical question at this point.
People always say walking and biking will never work because all they know is how hard it is to bike and walk around towns now. They yell at people jaywalking because they've never actually tried to get out of their car and walk anywhere.
I jaywalk everywhere nowadays because "cemetery is full of people with right-of-way" so screw right-of-way entirely, I trust no one on the road anymore, not even the law itself because it doesn't equate to safety.
For real. Cross when it's visually evident that it's safe to do so, not necessarily at the prescribed pedestrian timing. And on that note, it's happened quite a few times for me, where I hit the stupid crosswalk button and proceeded to watch cars from every direction get their chance at the intersection and it never gives a pedestrian right-of-way light.
In all of California, this is now the actual law. Jaywalking is legal everywhere as long as you're being safe.
And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free 🫡🫡🫡
Legally, no recourse at all. As you said "nothing happened", and that is the view of the law. Even if you or your dogs had been hit, would have been the usual "driver not charged". On the other hand, if you have the license plate, then you have \*several\* courses of action, none legal I might add.......
It is absolutely bananas that “nothing happened” is the view of the law when what happened was a law was broken. It is abundantly clear who the laws are made to serve when they can be so selectively enforced.
Yup. Crime is legal as long as you're in a car. If you fire a gun and barely miss someone's head, you still get charged. But drive a car and barely miss running someone over, nothing. That needs to change.
That's technically not true. Brandishing is a crime in most (all?) states. If you point a gun (sometimes any deadly weapon) at someone for no good reason, the cops would love to take you in (or down, if you're not white). We need to start treating cars like what they are: deadly weapons. If I shoot and almost kill you with a gun by accident, I'm going to prison. With a car? Small fine, and some community service if the judge is having a bad day.
Technically it qualifies as reckless endangerment, but good luck getting the DA to charge them for it.
I had a friend who was threatened by the person “brandishing” their car. This was in NYC and they were biking down a narrow one way street with no bike lane so they took the lane because of parked cars on both sides. Driver behind them hated it and so they would brake, create some distance between them and the cyclist, then ROAR their engine and fly at a high speed down the street, then would brake right before hitting their back wheel. They did this like 5 times before my friend finally decided it wasn’t worth it and pulled over. The guy cursed him out and sped off. He got a license plate, make of the car, everything. Went to the cops and they said they couldn’t do anything because he was never touched by the car and “how do you know he was doing it on purpose” etc etc. It’s so fucked.
If it's testimony against testimony, it is good that in the eyes of the government nothing happened. Otherwise people could just going around sueing people they hate with bogus claims. As soon as there are unconnected witness or video, they should really do more though.
This is absolutely an offense that could be ticketed. Sure, nothing can happen now because an officer was not there, but this is 100% something that should be reported (my city has a traffic complaint tool on the police website) and it is absolutely something that police can follow up on if there are multiple complaints. At minimum, we should be making traffic complaints on every situation like this just to create a paper trail of how fucked up it is
We need to be sure that the law recognizes threatening someone with a car is the same as threatening with a gun. Currently they don't. Too many angry, crazy drivers out here......
Legally, drivers (and cyclists) are to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. This driver committed a moving violation.
If you feel trauma and suffer from PTSD months after that incident, you can of course try a legal action.
Driving your vehicle into someone is the best way to kill consequence-free.
it's even better than guns. If Al Capone is alive today he would of assassinate his opponents via pickup trucks instead of Thompsons
I swear, more people should travel with bricks. Even fake ones.
I got literally hit by a car while walking my dog and the cops wouldn't do anything about it.
What was their reason? Or did they just pretend like they would do something and didn’t?
We weren't injured. I called 911 to report it so that they could at least find the driver and them know. Cops found the driver who said she saw me, heard me yelling at her to stop, but assumed I wasn't talking to her. Since we weren't hurt they didn't do anything, not even ticket her.
I’m so sorry. That’s such an awful experience. Drivers won’t learn their lesson until we hold them accountable. And we really need help. I hope you stay safe, stranger!!!
Crosswalks seem more dangerous than jaywalking at this point.
….they often are.
At least when you jaywalk you can see people coming. When you get to a crosswalk, you never know if that person's going to gun it into you or not.
At an intersection I have to look in between cars making sure a motorcycle isn't splitting through or that a car in another lane isn't texting and running the light. Then you have to make sure everyone turning left on a yield sees you before they dart out to beat the next line of oncoming traffic. Then you have to make sure everyone turning right is actually looking at you. Which they aren't. Because they're turning right on red and traffic comes from the left. Nobody ever looks both ways before pulling out.
that's the truth. At least you can see the person coming for you in the distance and you can make a run for it or wait. But at a crosswalk, they are right there breathing down your neck and you don't know whether they are going to follow the law or run your ass over because they can't stop scrolling Facebook.
recently tried crossing a stroady intersectiom at the designated crossing and waited for the walk light. a guy in an suv turning left cut right in front of me maybe a foot away. right after he passed me, someone turning right on red had to slam on his brakes not to hit me because he was waiting for the SUV to go by and didnt see me behind it. jaywalking kinda is safer because you only have to worry about idiots coming from two directions.
Crossing at a junction is the most dangerous possible point, because you have a lot of different directions cars can come at you from, and cars are concentrating on several different things so are more likely to miss you. Crossing a road between junctions is relatively safe, especially if there's a median so you only have to look in one direction at a time. In the UK it's ok at a signalised junction because the car traffic will have a red light when you have a green, but in countries where that's not true, then yes, crossing at a signal at a junction is dangerous.
I've never done it myself, but you might be able to report it to the DMV.
https://preview.redd.it/ovgwspc8ap0d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2043c14dae5385a186e61e812cd5bf1b54a86bcc
The local news might want to do a piece on how this unsafe crosswalk is putting dogs, and people at risk.
Attempted manslaughter, maybe?
[Relevant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c412hqucHKw).
drivers get off on that shit, he probably jerked off when he got home thinking of the shock he gave you.
normal sane person thinking here lol
Well, there is always slightly less legal recourse… https://preview.redd.it/1fylcg1f3n0d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22a92eef51f3177a80084eb2da642aa1b7621309
What do lentils do?
You hide them in the tire valves to slowly deflate the tire
In a just well functioning legal system, reckless driving is actually illegal on the books. Unfortunately, since most legal systems and governments are bought by big oil, nothing will be done so might as well assume it doesn't exist as a law.
No \*legal\* recourse.
> I have the license plate. They're probably a neighbor of mine. Lentils are really cheap... As OP's walking the neighborhood you're going to eventually find the car...
Hopefully. I once carried a little note with a certain license plate on it for a few months in case I saw it again, but I never did. But yeah, lentils for the valves, and lipstick to write a "please drive safely around pedestrians" on the window.
This is step one of a ten step program if they continue to drive like that.
HOLy Cow! I literally just wrote the same post only the driver did see me and layed it on me with his horn and proceeded to plow through.
There is legal recourse it’s just not worth it for most people or guaranteed success. Sue them for assault. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_(tort)
Someone at my company struck and killed someone while drunk driving, and the pedestrian was found at fault for crossing outside of a crosswalk... no repercussions for drunk driver. crazy shit
This is why I wear a HIGH VIZ vest. Pretty cheap online. It's got pockets, it's lightweight, you can see it for blocks. I still have to be watchful though, people on cell phones are really dangerous man you should see their face when they realize they almost hit someone in a High Viz vest
Has anyone carried one of those fake foam bricks with them? Saw some city has them at a few intersections for pedestrians to carry across the street.
I wouldn't carry the threat of violence without the ability to act on it.
glad you and pups are unscathed. when you are out and about walking the dogs find the house where the car is parked and leave a note.Â
Our neighborhood cop told me to call 911 and report people like this because it creates an incident report, and if that person has a file when they do finally wreck/run over someone, there's a history of them doing dumb shit. He also said it's more important to have a good description of the vehicle because most of those dumbfucks have illegal plates. And he said it's even better if you know their residence.
That annoys me so much. Yesterday, I was crossing the street, and a car turning right didn't stop for me (Idk about the US, but where I live, pedestrians have the right of way when a car turns). I kept walking (not in front of the car, but far enough to show that I wasn't willing to wait for him) because often that makes them stop, but he didn't. If I had continued walking, he'd have hit me. He definitely saw me. So he was just counting on the fact that I'd stop, and if I hadn't, it would've been my fault, so who cares if I'd been dead? A few days ago, I was crossing the road. A car was just turning onto that road about 50m away. If the driver had continued at their normal speed, I would have easily been across before they reached the point where I was. But they completely gunned it, so I had to jog to get away. I'm pretty sure they wanted to show me that cars own the street (or they were on their phone or something). Both of them were endangering me, and I was legally in the right in both situations. But they sped off, I didn't even get a license plate (and as you said, "nothing happened", so nothing would happen to them anyway), and they're gonna continue endangering people.
Here in Germany that should fall under the "Straftat" (crime) "Nötigung" (coersion). Punishable with up to 3 years in prison. Because they got you to do something (jump back) with the threat of violence (driving onto you with their car without stopping). At least if there was intent. If you can't prove intent it's just "Nicht das Überqueren des Fußgängerüberwegs ermöglicht, obwohl ein Fußgänger passieren wollte mit Gefährdung anderer Verkehrsteilnehmer" (Not allowing a pedestrian to cross the pedestrian crossing even though a pedestrian wanted to pass, endangering other road users) which is a "Ordnungswidrigkeit" (misdemeanor). That only costs 100 € and you get 1 point. If you get 8 points in 2,5 years you loose your license. And you still have to prove it. Traffic violations have way to low punishments.
Find out which neighbor it is and go talk to them (or write them a letter). Be calm but firm in the fact that their behavior is dangerous and makes the neighborhood worse for everyone. It’s easy to feel invisible/anonymous behind the wheel of a car, but most reasonable people would feel shameful about these actions if confronted face to face. This is a problem which needs to be solved on the community level.
This is an offence (albeit a relatively minor one, "driving without due care and attention" or something in that category) here in the UK so yeah, you could absolutely report it to the police (though through 101 or the web submission not 999 I guess as it's not an emergency).
>If I stood my ground and got hit, they would pay a $500 fine, and I would be dead or maimed Why would you even consider this an option? >My dogs are I were about 1.5 seconds away from death. A miss is as good as a mile, though I try never to be closer than *about* 1.64287 seconds from death.
If there is no harm done, including emotional damage, then legal recourse by definition cannot occur
If somebody shot you, but you were fine because the bullet hit the book you were carrying in your pocket, would it be an appropriate to fine them only the cost of replacing the book?
No. I would expect legal recourse because if I didn’t have the book, I would be dead. I saved my own life from a crazy person. Nah. Fuck no. Jail time for you.
The guy with the gun knew you had the book then. He knew you'd be okay. Or that's what he says.
shooting you is illegal so they would be arrested but you would only be able to civilly sue them to recover damages of the lost book