Originally Posted by richardmasoner
40 years of education telling us and our children to stay away from traffic has resulted in much higher speeds and more danger on our residential streets. Residential streets have become child-free zones, the exclusive domain of cars. People have been ushered from playing in the street to playing in the front yard. These days, people drive so fast in neighborhoods that the children have been moved to the backyard or inside to get fat in front of the idiot box. This is not right.
RFM
There is a school of thought that to reduce traffic accidents, you REMOVE traffic light, signs, etc. anything that gives cues of right of way. ROW then is negotiated instead of assumed, which assumption is the cause of grief. I'm all for this calculated anarchy, it bodes very well for cyclists.
But until that happy day we've got a system now that we have to work with. When pedestrians can't do that, well it pisses me off. I don't see why I have to like jaywalkers.
In addition, your analogy (car vs. bike = bike vs. ped) does not hold. For one, cyclists and bicycles do not kill, unlike cars.
For another, the pedestrian is unique in that he pays almost no attention to conveying himself. He is usually talking to friends, or has a cell phone glued to his ear, or is daydreaming. A pedestrian is in no sense like a vehicle. Your analogy doesn't hold.