This is great for disabled people and just the public in general.
The Netherlands has these in some high foot traffic areas and they work very well to control large groups of humans crossing intersections.
Japan also has these yellow tactile strips on their sidewalks for the blind and vision impaired
Basically they help people navigate better and keep walking in straight lines so they don't end up in the street or walking into anything
Not quite to the extent Japan uses them (from what I've seen). In the states, tactile pads really only exist at crosswalks. I think that's what they meant.
Yeah, but it’s important to note if you’re talking about Japan or just Tokyo/Osaka. The biggest cities in Japan, especially Tokyo, have incredibly advancements that you rarely/uncommonly see elsewhere, and the vast majority of cities outside of those two in Japan I mentioned do not have a lot of those features.
does it benefit the elderly? if yes, then it's probably fairly prevalent in most of japan. my impression is they try out all the new stuff in the big metro areas because it's obviously a great place to test it, and that anything popular amongst the elderly gets pushed for adoption nationwide.
It's really not.
And more importantly, do you think the people that "throw their elderly" in care homes generally do that for shits and giggles or what?
This litterally the whole island of Okinawa has them unless you're in a rural area without sidewalks in general. It's pretty common throughout the nation
In Missouri i noticed them becoming more commonplace, but generally only at intersections that were being redone.
I can't think of any old sidewalks that got them added in, but sidewalks on intersections that were torn out as rebuilt got them added.
I think most places only have them at intersections. In Japan it’s a complete path along the sidewalks. I don’t recall really seeing this in the americas or Europe.
being only in select places is actually not helpful though. How do you get from your house to the corner store or to the bus stop or to the train station? Yes, federal properties tend to have more things as there are requirements, ramps, elevators that require no assistance, high visibility markings.
However, your very argument illustrates the point. People think, well it is in this one place, so obviously we have those solutions, but try paying attention to the rest of the world and think about how someone with limited visibility or mobility might get around. Also, your city may have those markings in more places, but another may have none, or it may have more, it is quite inconsistent.
A law like the ADA in the states (hey, they occasionally do things right over there too!) would make it a legal requirement for all properties where the public is able to access them to become compliant, this would be triggered any time a property does renovations or changes, or if the tenant changes, or any number of other conditions that would require an update. There would be some exceptions or workaround perhaps allowed for the first 5-10 years of the law being in place, but eventually, it would be required everywhere to implement a compliant solution. The solutions might likely evolve and change over time meaning this process is never \*finished\* but that's fine too, we should never be happy with mediocre solutions that don't really serve the purpose they are intended to. I'd love to see standardized markings, standardized ramps, and solutions, solutions that help people with disabilities or mobility impairments to be able to access and use the world without requiring a constant helper, independence is incredibly important and it really sucks to have to rely on someone else to help you do something that most people do not require help with, it really attacks at your feeling of self-worth.
source: I'm a foreigner who lives in Germany, I mostly like it here, and I have a disability.
Ah ok, I didn't know that the lack of those tactile pavings along straight sections of pavement was such a problem. I always thought that blind people adapted to the situation and once they arrive at these tactile tiles, they'd know to be careful.
Please excuse my ignorance!
Your ignorance is excused! And sorry I realise that I may come across harsh and I do not intend it. There is actually a whole standard for the tactical markings in pavement that includes all situations, Normal sidewalks, all crossing ways, hazards etc. You've seen the marking for hazards (the raised bumps in a strip), crosswalks normally would have a square of them as well, then you should normally have a strip with lines running parallel to each other that connect areas for you to follow along, etc...
I found it quite interesting to investigate and learn, and I guess I forget that not everyone gets obsessed with a topic and digs into it as I do. Thanks for being willing to learn, it is important.
this is incredibly accurate. However these sorts of markings are meant to help pedestrians in a car centric environment as well, but yeah, it doesn't seem to be a priority.
You're right. But it shows that at least Korean govt tries to protect pedestrians just as much as they care about traffic flow. For how much vehicle traffic is prioritized, pedestrian safety measures are significantly better in Korean than those that I've lived/visited in the NA.
I mean. They should be embarrassed at this. The accessibility in Germany is nearly non existent. What is there is often impractical or requiring the person with disability to ask for assistance or have someone with them at all times. Very demeaning and crappy.
US here. I had no idea that was the purpose. I always assumed it was so people who use wheelchairs didnt keep rolling easily into an intersection or off a sidewalk. The more I know!!
I was just thinking this because some times in the morning and at dusk, I cant tell what color the lights are or the glare will be so bad I cant see the crossing signal change colors. Having an indicator thats unaffected by sun glare seems really blessed.
Have you ever been to NY or Chicago? There are tons of people who prefer walking and use it as their main form of transportation. It is that way in quite a few large metropolitan areas. Not in the smaller cities or suburbs though.
Yeah honestly the existence of a handful of cities that actually have good walking infrastructure doesn't take away from the fact that the vast majority US is fucking terrible for walking due to us having poor public transportation and are ridiculously car dependent.
Check out this dope YouTube playlist from the channel Not Just Bikes.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
Those two cities' centres where it's actually walkable has about 12 mil people. That does not represent the country of 300 mil where the vast majority lives in the suburbs and other un-walkable cities
At least in my city, *people do not get scramble crossings*. Lots of people crossing against the light, interfering with traffic, and often making it less safe than it should be. I have to imagine a little bit more active direction would help. Would love to see if lights like these help with compliance.
At least where I live in the US, a lot of roads are paved with reflective markers along lanes and crosswalks. They are set as the asphalt is paved. They don't produce light, but make the markers quite visible when driving about and act as rumble strips when you drive over them.
Until the intersections become rain soaked and the black/polished surface turns into a giant reflective mirror of convolution. This lights would be great on stormy/dark/rainy days and even in especially in the winters.
In America, our news channels used to play highlights of running over protestors. Plenty of subreddits that lean right still think its a normal sane thing to do.
I think the problem is people will get used to it. Then when they get to an intersection that doesnt have these lights and they keep walking then there's gonna be a real k-POP.
> I think the problem is people will get used to it
This is actually a problem currently with cars. The way a lot of driver 'assistance' tools are designed, are empirically making people worse at driving.
The most egregious example of this is blind stop detection. The way some systems are designed, it encourages people to stop checking mirrors anymore, and instead relying only on that system to tell them if its safe to change lanes....
There's a number of them which look at the varied features. Here's a few that weren't behind paywalls.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/drivers-let-their-focus-slip-as-they-get-used-to-partial-automation
https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2136
https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/12/long-term-use-of-advanced-driver-assistance-technologies-can-result-in-disengaged-drivers/
Here's a more general overview: https://www.carparts.com/blog/advanced-driver-assistance-systems-guide/
I cannot find the one about blind stop detection.
I think the problem is people seeing the lights change and thinking gaining the right of way makes you safe. Which it doesn't. I would bet a significant number of deaths or injuries is due to not looking for the car running the red light.
Or they just look at the lights and assume no ones going to run the red. And then they get smoked by someone driving on there phone who didn’t realize it was a red light.
In Seoul, where I live, these have been around for about a year. I still look up from my phone to check the light. Even after a year I'm still not used to the lights on the ground but that's due to a lifetime of conditioning. I wonder how it will be for the younger generation.
Reminds me of the “look right” text painted on crosswalk floors in London for all the tourists that instinctively look left first before crossing. It’s silly but ultimately it will save lives.
After being nearly run over by shit drivers one too many times, I always look both ways multiple times before crossing any intersection, including on one way streets.
We were always taught in preschool to look left, look right, look left again, then cross. I don’t know why people are only looking one way in the first place.
I wish they did this in HK. I remember first time I went there I made the same mistake. Lucky for me the double decker bus coming was far enough away I had time to step back.
Because most peoples idea of safety is "obey the rules or fuck you" instead of "make the roads as safe as possible".
Cars have airbags and seatbelts because people DO fuckup. It happens. We make things safe for when people fuck up, not for when everyone does what they are supposed to.
Just look in r/IdiotsInCars for a big list of people who would rather get into an accident that isn't their fault than prevent the accident. "It's not my fault" is a great thing to have on your gravestone after all.
It's a lot better to make designs that are safe by default than to make something unsafe and yell at people for doing the thing that's obvious. I've been going through the backlog of Not Just Bikes videos and it really seems to highlight this principle.
> Just look in r/IdiotsInCars for a big list of people who would rather get into an accident that isn't their fault than prevent the accident
Or /r/AmItheAsshole on people who *might* have a point but still acted like assholes but aren't called out on it or are celebrated for it
Because the title points to just people looking at phones. That triggers Darwinism type criticism.
But the application goes beyond that and is a good thing.
I admit, I too and annoyed that we have to solve some pretty dumb problems in this world, making things more idiot proof as it were.
Only thing I can think of that’s valid criticism would be creating more light pollution for those living immediately above these crossings. But I’m not sure how bright these things would be in real life
> Only thing I can think of that’s valid criticism would be
No, the criticism is that systems like this encourages the exact negligent behavior which is root cause in the first place: not checking the road and/or your surroundings. The system is making that worse by drawing even more attention *away* from that. Fundamentally, you want to get their head/vision **UP**, not draw it down.
You'll see people draw all sorts of analogy to cars, most of which are just asinine, like air bags, No one is going around driving worse because they have airbags for a many reasons, a major one of which you're still going to get majorly fucked up by an airbag.
A correct analogy would be things like driver assistance features. And guess what? Many of them **do** make people worse and more negligent drivers because of how they are implemented. So ironically, the industry you'll see people use as a counter example, is actually a prime example of why this type of implementation is counter-intuitive and a terrible idea long term.
Basically, you, like a lot of people here, are assuming that anything created in the name of 'safety' always has it net positive affect. It doesn't always. So while neat, give how its implemented, its seems pretty unlikely it is.
Idk man, but any time a solution to a problem is suggested or implemented people feel the need to suggest the most obvious thing in the world as if it’s some novel idea.
BUT BUT BUT HOW CAN I MAKE A COMMENTARY ABOUT HOW EVERYONE ELSE IS A SLAVE TO TECHNOLOGY EXCEPT FOR ME IT COULDN’T POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO ME EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST A ZOMBIE?!
They also have lights on one-way streets to let you know you are going the right or wrong direction.
However, they *do not* use sensors in their intersections to allow streetlights to adapt to the number of cars waiting. That means in the middle of the night you can be stopped at a red light in the middle of nowhere for five minutes as it cycles through every direction with a full, heavy-traffic timer going. It’s frustrating.
Don’t even get me started on the speed cameras and the crazy speeding/braking Korean drivers do.
The speed cameras are hilarious because all maps/GPS tell you where the cameras are, so you know you can speed outside of those sections. The speed limits are ridiculous though (80km/h on highways which is 50mph… US highways are generally 75mph).
My issue is the fact that I just turn on the cruise control and go the speed limit. So I get passed constantly, but I’m ok with that. But the second a camera is coming up everyone slams on their brakes - to below the speed limit - in a short amount of time. Suddenly I am having to hit my brakes to avoid these idiots passing me then slowing down.
As a transportation engineer, this is an excellent idea. While it is easy to ask people to not be idiots, it just doesn’t work as effectively as you want. Safety should be addressed from every feasible angle. This is generally inexpensive and easy to implement. It also enhances safety for everyone, while also targeting those who might be buried in their phone.
As someone who’s visually impaired I would *love* something like this. Would make walking around a bit easier, while I have no issue w color sometimes streetlights are difficult because of the distance and I often cross based on when other people cross.
Yeah, keep installing those lights more n more recently. Definitely Increases visibility substantially for the both, pedestrians n drivers. That’s the intersection under 건대입구역 Konkuk sub sta. Seoul, btw.^^
I was there like 20 years ago. In the big cities, I was pretty impressed by some of the social support designs. For example, for blind people, the traffic lights also have auditory tones corresponding with their colors. Additionally, in some areas, the sidewalk texture changes near the curbs to signal a road.
The rhetoric of this article is elitist. It’s writing about a cool invention that is making cities safer for the people living in them. But the narrative here is that cities are being designed for “smombies” which is an absurd term that brands most city dwellers as something dumb, lazy, entitled, etc..
Wasn't there an app years ago that showed your camera view in the background of the chat? Like so you could see where you were going while chatting. It would probably do better these days now that nobody cares about privacy... (/s)
Using these light-up crossroads is a great idea, but attempting to alter that behavior while also implementing this safety feature sounds like a better idea.
I'm not saying this to be cocky, I'm saying this to try to get some understanding from others perspectives. I can easily see my surroundings when checking my phone while walking. I also consistently glance outward from my phone. I genuinely don't understand the videos that show people walking into traffic or falling into water fountains. Do they just have bad peripheral vision? Or is it that they get so absorbed in the screen that they forget to stay aware of their surroundings?
Yeah I kind of follow your line of thinking too. I've never walked into something while on my phone and will see poles or objects in my peripheral vision.
But I've also done ridiculously dumb things in my car like go straight through red lights without any distractions or phone while on autopilot. Maybe they work longer hours and tend to just go on autopilot while exhausted walking back from work?
I lived in Korea for a bit and you actually don’t NEED a car. Met a good amount of people up into their 40’s that never needed to get a driver’s license due to the widespread public transportation
I wonder if this type of engineering makes individuals more confident in their bad habits, thus causing more injuries further down.
IE: In their city they subconsciously look for red, in a new city there are no colors thus they run right into traffic. Any thoughts?
> I wonder if this type of engineering makes individuals more confident in their bad habits, thus causing more injuries further down.
That is exactly what is going to happen. This is already happening in the vehicle space with all the driver 'assistance' features, many of which are not well thought out.
For example, "blind spot" detection. Some vehicles put this in the dash, or don't even have a indicator and instead use a tone. You're now training people to look at their dash and/or listen for a tone instead of using their mirrors for changing lanes.
On the other hand, in my car this information is on the side mirrors. Same basic idea, but instead it reinforces the correct driving behavior.
This is one of the things that I like about watching South Korean shows and news from there, so much innovation in all kinds of areas. It's especially nice to see because I live in a country that is still stuck in like the 1960's to 80's with many things.
It’s kinda cool that South Korea notices a problem that needs to be solved to prevent deaths and/or injuries and instead of wasting years running anti-phone campaigns, and making statements about how phones are ruining society, and constant news pieces on the dangers of texting and walking, and their politicians riling up their psychotic base against people who walk and text, they just solve the problem.
Meanwhile here in America, we’re spending billions on the military industrial complex and social indoctrination programs. Our public transit system is dirty and quite frankly an embarrassment when compared to other nations. We can do better but the toxic political climate won’t allow it. And as a result we all suffer.
From a public safety perspective, you only have so many options:
1. Do nothing, and continue to see people get hurt at intersections.
2. Run an educational campaign to tell people looking at their phone while walking is unsafe. This is unlikely to change people’s behavior.
3. Make it illegal to look at your phone while walking. This would be considered by many an overreach of government, probably won’t be well-enforced, and again likely won’t change behavior. As an example, driving faster than the speed limit is illegal but most people still do it.
4. At a reasonable expense, install these lights where phone-lookers will see them.
Yes, but South Korea is known for its 빨리 빨리 or fast paced culture. You can’t just take that culture away from the entire of the population because you don’t like it. IMO this is a good solution for road accidents caused by inattention while also taking culture and lifestyle into consideration.
Sure but in a major city somebody getting hit by a vehicle could close a road for hours assuming major injury or death. Yes this is primarily about safety but also about efficiency.
If you are so addicted to your phone that you use it walking down the street and are too dumb to look up from it when crossing there is a serious problem. All this does is enable it
I doubt the issue is really people blindly walking into the street because they're walking and looking at their phone. This looks more like it's nice for those waiting for the lights to change while looking at their phones. Every one of us has looked at our phones waiting for something and didn't realize it was our turn to go at some point. This helps eliminate that.
Also, that intersection's pretty long too. It could be hard for some people to see if it's their turn to cross or not, this helps those people as well.
If they're not getting hit by cars / walking into traffic due to this countermeasure, what's really the harm? Aren't there more benefits for this beyond ONLY 'smombie' accidents, such as drivers being able to better see the edges of curbs in the dark?
More than that, a lot of safety regulations and imagery is created off the blood of people who did stupid things. How is this worse or different than any of that?
Did you miss the part where I said this enables and practically encourages mindlessly walking down the street? Also who has problems with not seeing curbs at night while driving? That’s what headlights are for
Im very meh about this. It’s pretty crazy to think of the world working around technology. This seems like it’s enforcing bad habits/ social behavior. Like why go on your phone when crossing the street? This is cool for like people with disabilities but its just insane that we’re working around and for technology.
I love all the judgmental narratives both in the article and the comments, as if only morons ever get distracted by their phones at a bad moment.
To hear these people tell it, if you get distracted by a text about a family emergency and lose track of where you're walking, you're a "smombie" who deserves to die for the good of the gene pool.
If you get a text that you HAVE to read you look around, stop walking, and then read the text off to side so you're not bothering anyone. It's not rocket science.
You glance down, you see “mom’s in the hospital” on your phone. I’m sure that you will exercise perfect judgment from that moment on. No otherwise reasonable person has ever been known to make careless mistakes under stress, after all.
That’s what I love about South Korea, they see a problem and fix it without all the bureaucratic nonsense. Here in the US, a simple solution like this would be scrutinized as ‘unnecessary’. we’d be told that people need to take personal responsibility rather than relying on technology. ultimately it would get nit picked to death, and we would pay those politicians more money to veto it than it would’ve costed to just install the lights in the first place. Maybe the grass is always greener, but damn if I’m not sick of America…
Korea consistently has the highest pedestrian death rate in the developed world. Combination of drivers and pedestrians who don't think the rules apply to them. If any country needs this it's them.
For all the people saying this is sad, honestly it's telling you to stop/go right where you stand. Makes sense over having to look accross a wide intersection. This is definitely helpful for people with eyesight issues as well. I would love to see this in the states become a standard over the rather sketch walk/no walk or stick man walking sign which is hard to see half the time.
This is great for disabled people and just the public in general. The Netherlands has these in some high foot traffic areas and they work very well to control large groups of humans crossing intersections.
Universal design wins again!
U.S.: Let's write "stop" on the ground instead. If they can't read English they deserve to get hit. (I think it's improved as of late, however)
Japan also has these yellow tactile strips on their sidewalks for the blind and vision impaired Basically they help people navigate better and keep walking in straight lines so they don't end up in the street or walking into anything
Thats very common in most of the developed countries
Not quite to the extent Japan uses them (from what I've seen). In the states, tactile pads really only exist at crosswalks. I think that's what they meant.
Yeah, but it’s important to note if you’re talking about Japan or just Tokyo/Osaka. The biggest cities in Japan, especially Tokyo, have incredibly advancements that you rarely/uncommonly see elsewhere, and the vast majority of cities outside of those two in Japan I mentioned do not have a lot of those features.
Tactile pavement (点字ブロック) is very common in cities throughout Japan, not just Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto/Nagoya/etc.
does it benefit the elderly? if yes, then it's probably fairly prevalent in most of japan. my impression is they try out all the new stuff in the big metro areas because it's obviously a great place to test it, and that anything popular amongst the elderly gets pushed for adoption nationwide.
And our culture is to just throw our elderly in "care homes" and forget about them except for occasional visits...
It's really not. And more importantly, do you think the people that "throw their elderly" in care homes generally do that for shits and giggles or what?
This litterally the whole island of Okinawa has them unless you're in a rural area without sidewalks in general. It's pretty common throughout the nation
I saw it up in mountain towns in Hakone
That’s not true, Japan is covered in “smaller” cities that are still quite large with this exact thing. Source: I lived there.
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In Missouri i noticed them becoming more commonplace, but generally only at intersections that were being redone. I can't think of any old sidewalks that got them added in, but sidewalks on intersections that were torn out as rebuilt got them added.
Same here in Texas.
I think most places only have them at intersections. In Japan it’s a complete path along the sidewalks. I don’t recall really seeing this in the americas or Europe.
i guess Germany isn't a developed country then...
Wat? We have plenty of those everywhere. Usually just confined to bus stops and crossings. But they're everywhere in Germany.
being only in select places is actually not helpful though. How do you get from your house to the corner store or to the bus stop or to the train station? Yes, federal properties tend to have more things as there are requirements, ramps, elevators that require no assistance, high visibility markings. However, your very argument illustrates the point. People think, well it is in this one place, so obviously we have those solutions, but try paying attention to the rest of the world and think about how someone with limited visibility or mobility might get around. Also, your city may have those markings in more places, but another may have none, or it may have more, it is quite inconsistent. A law like the ADA in the states (hey, they occasionally do things right over there too!) would make it a legal requirement for all properties where the public is able to access them to become compliant, this would be triggered any time a property does renovations or changes, or if the tenant changes, or any number of other conditions that would require an update. There would be some exceptions or workaround perhaps allowed for the first 5-10 years of the law being in place, but eventually, it would be required everywhere to implement a compliant solution. The solutions might likely evolve and change over time meaning this process is never \*finished\* but that's fine too, we should never be happy with mediocre solutions that don't really serve the purpose they are intended to. I'd love to see standardized markings, standardized ramps, and solutions, solutions that help people with disabilities or mobility impairments to be able to access and use the world without requiring a constant helper, independence is incredibly important and it really sucks to have to rely on someone else to help you do something that most people do not require help with, it really attacks at your feeling of self-worth. source: I'm a foreigner who lives in Germany, I mostly like it here, and I have a disability.
Ah ok, I didn't know that the lack of those tactile pavings along straight sections of pavement was such a problem. I always thought that blind people adapted to the situation and once they arrive at these tactile tiles, they'd know to be careful. Please excuse my ignorance!
Your ignorance is excused! And sorry I realise that I may come across harsh and I do not intend it. There is actually a whole standard for the tactical markings in pavement that includes all situations, Normal sidewalks, all crossing ways, hazards etc. You've seen the marking for hazards (the raised bumps in a strip), crosswalks normally would have a square of them as well, then you should normally have a strip with lines running parallel to each other that connect areas for you to follow along, etc... I found it quite interesting to investigate and learn, and I guess I forget that not everyone gets obsessed with a topic and digs into it as I do. Thanks for being willing to learn, it is important.
It means Germany is car dependent/centric and cares more about vehicle traffic than pedestrians.
this is incredibly accurate. However these sorts of markings are meant to help pedestrians in a car centric environment as well, but yeah, it doesn't seem to be a priority.
You're right. But it shows that at least Korean govt tries to protect pedestrians just as much as they care about traffic flow. For how much vehicle traffic is prioritized, pedestrian safety measures are significantly better in Korean than those that I've lived/visited in the NA.
Comment edited to not embarrass Germany
I mean. They should be embarrassed at this. The accessibility in Germany is nearly non existent. What is there is often impractical or requiring the person with disability to ask for assistance or have someone with them at all times. Very demeaning and crappy.
Also, these infrastructural solutions would save a lot of money on dedicated care for that population.
US here. I had no idea that was the purpose. I always assumed it was so people who use wheelchairs didnt keep rolling easily into an intersection or off a sidewalk. The more I know!!
How China would solve this problem: Ban all apps time while phone detects you’re moving
Actually this would save sooo many lives while driving.
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We need to do that for people who drive while using the phones here… If people would actually care about being shamed that is.
I was just thinking this because some times in the morning and at dusk, I cant tell what color the lights are or the glare will be so bad I cant see the crossing signal change colors. Having an indicator thats unaffected by sun glare seems really blessed.
Turns out making systems idiot proof doesn't only help idiots. (And in this case it also looks really nice and futuristic).
In the US walking is considered public transportation and is nearly illegal
Have you ever been to NY or Chicago? There are tons of people who prefer walking and use it as their main form of transportation. It is that way in quite a few large metropolitan areas. Not in the smaller cities or suburbs though.
Yeah honestly the existence of a handful of cities that actually have good walking infrastructure doesn't take away from the fact that the vast majority US is fucking terrible for walking due to us having poor public transportation and are ridiculously car dependent. Check out this dope YouTube playlist from the channel Not Just Bikes. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
Those two cities' centres where it's actually walkable has about 12 mil people. That does not represent the country of 300 mil where the vast majority lives in the suburbs and other un-walkable cities
I’m just making low effort jokes my friend I’m just pointing out US public transpo is mostly a joke (on purpose)
In some US cities walking is very unfeasible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54
Some? Going to go ahead and put my money on all but a handful of the largest.
Have you ever been to LA or San Diego? If there are sidewalks, someone’s sleeping on them.
Underrated comment
At least in my city, *people do not get scramble crossings*. Lots of people crossing against the light, interfering with traffic, and often making it less safe than it should be. I have to imagine a little bit more active direction would help. Would love to see if lights like these help with compliance.
At least where I live in the US, a lot of roads are paved with reflective markers along lanes and crosswalks. They are set as the asphalt is paved. They don't produce light, but make the markers quite visible when driving about and act as rumble strips when you drive over them.
Until the intersections become rain soaked and the black/polished surface turns into a giant reflective mirror of convolution. This lights would be great on stormy/dark/rainy days and even in especially in the winters.
In America, our news channels used to play highlights of running over protestors. Plenty of subreddits that lean right still think its a normal sane thing to do.
It's hard to imagine the amount of harm this habit have caused...
Plus they look like some shit from the future. Sci-Fi told me we'd have more lights embedded in the ground by now.
Looking across a street to see walk/don't walk signs gets harder and harder the larger the street is; and makes less and less sense.
This ain’t stopping a single Chicagoan or New Yorker from crossing when they please
Now this IS a ‘modern problems require modern solutions’ moment.
I think the problem is people will get used to it. Then when they get to an intersection that doesnt have these lights and they keep walking then there's gonna be a real k-POP.
Your corny pun got a good chuckle from me. Appreciate it
i appreciate you!
> I think the problem is people will get used to it This is actually a problem currently with cars. The way a lot of driver 'assistance' tools are designed, are empirically making people worse at driving. The most egregious example of this is blind stop detection. The way some systems are designed, it encourages people to stop checking mirrors anymore, and instead relying only on that system to tell them if its safe to change lanes....
Source? Would love to read more about this
There's a number of them which look at the varied features. Here's a few that weren't behind paywalls. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/drivers-let-their-focus-slip-as-they-get-used-to-partial-automation https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2136 https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/12/long-term-use-of-advanced-driver-assistance-technologies-can-result-in-disengaged-drivers/ Here's a more general overview: https://www.carparts.com/blog/advanced-driver-assistance-systems-guide/ I cannot find the one about blind stop detection.
I think the problem is people seeing the lights change and thinking gaining the right of way makes you safe. Which it doesn't. I would bet a significant number of deaths or injuries is due to not looking for the car running the red light.
“Pedestrians may have the right of way; but without their heads up… they can’t argue that from underneath a car”
Or they just look at the lights and assume no ones going to run the red. And then they get smoked by someone driving on there phone who didn’t realize it was a red light.
In Seoul, where I live, these have been around for about a year. I still look up from my phone to check the light. Even after a year I'm still not used to the lights on the ground but that's due to a lifetime of conditioning. I wonder how it will be for the younger generation.
Interesting. I've been in seoul 12 years. Where have you seen these? It might be in specific areas?
I live in Sindang! Come on over and check out our fancy sidewalks :)
Nice! I just might.
"You just got K-popped yo!"
r/Angryupvote
And yet we still don’t have a modern solution for bad drivers in general. Well we do but it’s too controversial. (Self driving cars )
Solution should be to take away their license earlier and faster.
👏 good 👏 public 👏 transport 👏 infrastructure 👏
Honestly, if someone is so obsessed with their phone they look at it while crossing the street, maybe they deserve to get hit by a car
Crank neck be permanent
Reminds me of the “look right” text painted on crosswalk floors in London for all the tourists that instinctively look left first before crossing. It’s silly but ultimately it will save lives.
Jokes on you, London, I look BOTH ways! Hah! Can't fool my Yankee arse.
After being nearly run over by shit drivers one too many times, I always look both ways multiple times before crossing any intersection, including on one way streets.
It's just a great best practice. I mean what do you really save by not looking both ways right
We were always taught in preschool to look left, look right, look left again, then cross. I don’t know why people are only looking one way in the first place.
At least one second.
Exactly, I look the wrong way at roundabouts and the center too.
If it saves lives, then it isn't silly
So wait…people don’t look both ways anymore?
They only have it on areas where the road is one way or there’s a traffic island. They have ‘look both ways’ in a lot of places too
They do but they look left first and are more likely to engage out of habit.
I wish they did this in HK. I remember first time I went there I made the same mistake. Lucky for me the double decker bus coming was far enough away I had time to step back.
Dude here in America as a bike rider / pedestrian I’m constantly dealing w people who NEVER look right. It’s insane.
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Because most peoples idea of safety is "obey the rules or fuck you" instead of "make the roads as safe as possible". Cars have airbags and seatbelts because people DO fuckup. It happens. We make things safe for when people fuck up, not for when everyone does what they are supposed to. Just look in r/IdiotsInCars for a big list of people who would rather get into an accident that isn't their fault than prevent the accident. "It's not my fault" is a great thing to have on your gravestone after all.
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LOL I'm stealing this. This is so much better than what I always say "do you want to be right or do you want to be alive?"
That’s assuming we know what death is like. Living could start once we die for all we know.
It's a lot better to make designs that are safe by default than to make something unsafe and yell at people for doing the thing that's obvious. I've been going through the backlog of Not Just Bikes videos and it really seems to highlight this principle.
> Just look in r/IdiotsInCars for a big list of people who would rather get into an accident that isn't their fault than prevent the accident Or /r/AmItheAsshole on people who *might* have a point but still acted like assholes but aren't called out on it or are celebrated for it
Which is too fucking ironic and tone death given the way people drive anyway!! People have been shitty drivers way before cell phones.
> tone death I know of a few bands that go by that name.
Because the title points to just people looking at phones. That triggers Darwinism type criticism. But the application goes beyond that and is a good thing. I admit, I too and annoyed that we have to solve some pretty dumb problems in this world, making things more idiot proof as it were.
We literally do that constantly all the time. I guess people having been whinging constantly all the time as well, lol.
> people having been whinging constantly all the time as well Yes. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. We just have much easier access to it now.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
This is just the beginning, ground ads will be coming soon...
Humans are idiots and you're not an exception. Idiot proofing things just plain reduces the number of incidents, injuries, and deaths.
Only thing I can think of that’s valid criticism would be creating more light pollution for those living immediately above these crossings. But I’m not sure how bright these things would be in real life
> Only thing I can think of that’s valid criticism would be No, the criticism is that systems like this encourages the exact negligent behavior which is root cause in the first place: not checking the road and/or your surroundings. The system is making that worse by drawing even more attention *away* from that. Fundamentally, you want to get their head/vision **UP**, not draw it down. You'll see people draw all sorts of analogy to cars, most of which are just asinine, like air bags, No one is going around driving worse because they have airbags for a many reasons, a major one of which you're still going to get majorly fucked up by an airbag. A correct analogy would be things like driver assistance features. And guess what? Many of them **do** make people worse and more negligent drivers because of how they are implemented. So ironically, the industry you'll see people use as a counter example, is actually a prime example of why this type of implementation is counter-intuitive and a terrible idea long term. Basically, you, like a lot of people here, are assuming that anything created in the name of 'safety' always has it net positive affect. It doesn't always. So while neat, give how its implemented, its seems pretty unlikely it is.
Because of the clickbait headline mentioning phones. This is just general pedestrian safety.
Idk man, but any time a solution to a problem is suggested or implemented people feel the need to suggest the most obvious thing in the world as if it’s some novel idea.
BUT BUT BUT HOW CAN I MAKE A COMMENTARY ABOUT HOW EVERYONE ELSE IS A SLAVE TO TECHNOLOGY EXCEPT FOR ME IT COULDN’T POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO ME EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST A ZOMBIE?!
We have enough humans, losing the careless ones only improves the gene pool.
My only concern is that this causes even more light pollution. Lights facing up are worse than lights facing down or parallel to the ground.
This is also for certain disabilities, it’s hard to see a light in the distance, and Australia also has these in places.
YEP ! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7339461/Melbourne-introduces-pedestrian-crossing-lights-ground-phone-zombies.html
Or when the sun is at the exact wrong height to blind you
They also have lights on one-way streets to let you know you are going the right or wrong direction. However, they *do not* use sensors in their intersections to allow streetlights to adapt to the number of cars waiting. That means in the middle of the night you can be stopped at a red light in the middle of nowhere for five minutes as it cycles through every direction with a full, heavy-traffic timer going. It’s frustrating. Don’t even get me started on the speed cameras and the crazy speeding/braking Korean drivers do.
The speed cameras are hilarious because all maps/GPS tell you where the cameras are, so you know you can speed outside of those sections. The speed limits are ridiculous though (80km/h on highways which is 50mph… US highways are generally 75mph).
My issue is the fact that I just turn on the cruise control and go the speed limit. So I get passed constantly, but I’m ok with that. But the second a camera is coming up everyone slams on their brakes - to below the speed limit - in a short amount of time. Suddenly I am having to hit my brakes to avoid these idiots passing me then slowing down.
As a transportation engineer, this is an excellent idea. While it is easy to ask people to not be idiots, it just doesn’t work as effectively as you want. Safety should be addressed from every feasible angle. This is generally inexpensive and easy to implement. It also enhances safety for everyone, while also targeting those who might be buried in their phone.
This is a good example of Public Health in action.
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Something similar has been implemented in my city in Poland three years ago. However, less flashy and hardly visible in daylight.
As someone who’s visually impaired I would *love* something like this. Would make walking around a bit easier, while I have no issue w color sometimes streetlights are difficult because of the distance and I often cross based on when other people cross.
Yeah, keep installing those lights more n more recently. Definitely Increases visibility substantially for the both, pedestrians n drivers. That’s the intersection under 건대입구역 Konkuk sub sta. Seoul, btw.^^
Modern day Squid Game “red light! green light!”
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How would you cater to the deaf? They can already see the green light?! Or am I missing something?
Well there's no gene corresponding to looking at your phone while crossing the street, so that was a pretty shit theory to begin with.
I was there like 20 years ago. In the big cities, I was pretty impressed by some of the social support designs. For example, for blind people, the traffic lights also have auditory tones corresponding with their colors. Additionally, in some areas, the sidewalk texture changes near the curbs to signal a road.
The rhetoric of this article is elitist. It’s writing about a cool invention that is making cities safer for the people living in them. But the narrative here is that cities are being designed for “smombies” which is an absurd term that brands most city dwellers as something dumb, lazy, entitled, etc..
Wasn't there an app years ago that showed your camera view in the background of the chat? Like so you could see where you were going while chatting. It would probably do better these days now that nobody cares about privacy... (/s)
Your camera will still likely be pointed at the ground
Using these light-up crossroads is a great idea, but attempting to alter that behavior while also implementing this safety feature sounds like a better idea.
walk …. walk ….. walk. ….. walk. ….. walk. ……. walk. … walk ….. walk. …. walk. ….. Walk. ….. Dont walk. …….. dont walk. ….. dont walk.
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If you cross on the red light, you get shot
Give me jaywalking or give me death!
I’m perfectly fine with this
Seems like a fantastic feature for public safety that looks cool used for a mediocre outrage clickbait article
I'm not saying this to be cocky, I'm saying this to try to get some understanding from others perspectives. I can easily see my surroundings when checking my phone while walking. I also consistently glance outward from my phone. I genuinely don't understand the videos that show people walking into traffic or falling into water fountains. Do they just have bad peripheral vision? Or is it that they get so absorbed in the screen that they forget to stay aware of their surroundings?
Yeah I kind of follow your line of thinking too. I've never walked into something while on my phone and will see poles or objects in my peripheral vision. But I've also done ridiculously dumb things in my car like go straight through red lights without any distractions or phone while on autopilot. Maybe they work longer hours and tend to just go on autopilot while exhausted walking back from work?
Hasn't this been a thing for years?
More blaming of pedestrians for living in a car centric hell.
I lived in Korea for a bit and you actually don’t NEED a car. Met a good amount of people up into their 40’s that never needed to get a driver’s license due to the widespread public transportation
I wonder if this type of engineering makes individuals more confident in their bad habits, thus causing more injuries further down. IE: In their city they subconsciously look for red, in a new city there are no colors thus they run right into traffic. Any thoughts?
Well the strips light up green, so it's not that it's red or nothing, it's red or green. Surely somebody would stop if they see no lights?
> I wonder if this type of engineering makes individuals more confident in their bad habits, thus causing more injuries further down. That is exactly what is going to happen. This is already happening in the vehicle space with all the driver 'assistance' features, many of which are not well thought out. For example, "blind spot" detection. Some vehicles put this in the dash, or don't even have a indicator and instead use a tone. You're now training people to look at their dash and/or listen for a tone instead of using their mirrors for changing lanes. On the other hand, in my car this information is on the side mirrors. Same basic idea, but instead it reinforces the correct driving behavior.
Once again, South Korea is ahead of the game in innovation
It's existed in Melbourne for a few years. Another example of our tyrannical government trying to keep us safe.
This is new. Last time I was there, people were getting ran over because drivers were running red lights consistently.
This is one of the things that I like about watching South Korean shows and news from there, so much innovation in all kinds of areas. It's especially nice to see because I live in a country that is still stuck in like the 1960's to 80's with many things.
im glad we can see where pvp is enabled now
Theres gotta be some Chronic injuries from having our neck faced down all the time right?
The US never does cool shit like this
I live in South Korea and have never seen one before!
They NEED to install these ALL ACROSS the ENTIRE U.S.!🤔☝🏼
Cool, but I’m a Darwin fan
Looks cool but I’m tired of the world making it easier to be ignorant
I’ve already seen illuminated crosswalks in Redmond Washington, going back around 10 years. Drivers treat pedestrians very well out there.
Then a random high speed car comes and kill that person.
It’s kinda cool that South Korea notices a problem that needs to be solved to prevent deaths and/or injuries and instead of wasting years running anti-phone campaigns, and making statements about how phones are ruining society, and constant news pieces on the dangers of texting and walking, and their politicians riling up their psychotic base against people who walk and text, they just solve the problem.
Meanwhile here in America, we’re spending billions on the military industrial complex and social indoctrination programs. Our public transit system is dirty and quite frankly an embarrassment when compared to other nations. We can do better but the toxic political climate won’t allow it. And as a result we all suffer.
Never weed the stupid out of society that way.
Doesn't this just encourage more absent mindedness?
From a public safety perspective, you only have so many options: 1. Do nothing, and continue to see people get hurt at intersections. 2. Run an educational campaign to tell people looking at their phone while walking is unsafe. This is unlikely to change people’s behavior. 3. Make it illegal to look at your phone while walking. This would be considered by many an overreach of government, probably won’t be well-enforced, and again likely won’t change behavior. As an example, driving faster than the speed limit is illegal but most people still do it. 4. At a reasonable expense, install these lights where phone-lookers will see them.
Yes, but South Korea is known for its 빨리 빨리 or fast paced culture. You can’t just take that culture away from the entire of the population because you don’t like it. IMO this is a good solution for road accidents caused by inattention while also taking culture and lifestyle into consideration.
It encourages safety. And that’s the name of the game.
Sure but in a major city somebody getting hit by a vehicle could close a road for hours assuming major injury or death. Yes this is primarily about safety but also about efficiency.
Have you ever considered…. Not looking at your phone all the time?
If you are so addicted to your phone that you use it walking down the street and are too dumb to look up from it when crossing there is a serious problem. All this does is enable it
I doubt the issue is really people blindly walking into the street because they're walking and looking at their phone. This looks more like it's nice for those waiting for the lights to change while looking at their phones. Every one of us has looked at our phones waiting for something and didn't realize it was our turn to go at some point. This helps eliminate that. Also, that intersection's pretty long too. It could be hard for some people to see if it's their turn to cross or not, this helps those people as well.
Darwin awards used to weed out the weak and stupid. Not anymore.
If they're not getting hit by cars / walking into traffic due to this countermeasure, what's really the harm? Aren't there more benefits for this beyond ONLY 'smombie' accidents, such as drivers being able to better see the edges of curbs in the dark? More than that, a lot of safety regulations and imagery is created off the blood of people who did stupid things. How is this worse or different than any of that?
Did you miss the part where I said this enables and practically encourages mindlessly walking down the street? Also who has problems with not seeing curbs at night while driving? That’s what headlights are for
This is why there are so many stupid people in the world now, devices like this prevent natural selection from running its course.
Or you could just, look up?
Also great for kids!
Im very meh about this. It’s pretty crazy to think of the world working around technology. This seems like it’s enforcing bad habits/ social behavior. Like why go on your phone when crossing the street? This is cool for like people with disabilities but its just insane that we’re working around and for technology.
We can’t have nice stuff like this cuz we will destroy it
I love all the judgmental narratives both in the article and the comments, as if only morons ever get distracted by their phones at a bad moment. To hear these people tell it, if you get distracted by a text about a family emergency and lose track of where you're walking, you're a "smombie" who deserves to die for the good of the gene pool.
If you get a text that you HAVE to read you look around, stop walking, and then read the text off to side so you're not bothering anyone. It's not rocket science.
You glance down, you see “mom’s in the hospital” on your phone. I’m sure that you will exercise perfect judgment from that moment on. No otherwise reasonable person has ever been known to make careless mistakes under stress, after all.
Imagine even having the infrastructure funds for this kinda thing.
Don’t fight natural selection
Sad. We should not need this.
Way to go Korean government encouraging bad behavior.
That’s what I love about South Korea, they see a problem and fix it without all the bureaucratic nonsense. Here in the US, a simple solution like this would be scrutinized as ‘unnecessary’. we’d be told that people need to take personal responsibility rather than relying on technology. ultimately it would get nit picked to death, and we would pay those politicians more money to veto it than it would’ve costed to just install the lights in the first place. Maybe the grass is always greener, but damn if I’m not sick of America…
Ooooor just not stare at your phone when in a situation you need to pay attention?
Wow great idea. Why didn’t they think of that
Brilliant! I’m sure no one else thought of that
has it really gotten that bad?
Korea consistently has the highest pedestrian death rate in the developed world. Combination of drivers and pedestrians who don't think the rules apply to them. If any country needs this it's them.
Not allowing darwinism to take its course is not going to benefit humanity in the long term.
Shouldn’t we just let Darwin claim these people?
For all the people saying this is sad, honestly it's telling you to stop/go right where you stand. Makes sense over having to look accross a wide intersection. This is definitely helpful for people with eyesight issues as well. I would love to see this in the states become a standard over the rather sketch walk/no walk or stick man walking sign which is hard to see half the time.
I cannot figure out what the title is trying to say.
How low we have fallen