... not gonna happen. We are willing to trade lives for the ability to get somewhere quicker.

Not exactly sure why you'd say something that is happening is not happening because of an assumption.

Assumptions don't trump facts.

If you are walking you are doing it on the shoulder (which often has a steep drop associated with it) or you are in the road.

30 kph = 18 mph. Good luck getting that passed in the land of 60 mile one way commutes.

In small towns too.

That doesn't mean higher speeds can't be safely allowed in other stretches or on divided highways or limited access highways.

The point I was making is that we don't even attempt to separate the cars from pedestrians and bikes in much of the country, I routinely ride my bike on two lane roads with cars going over 50 mph.. Few of the buttons that are supposed to let pedestrians trigger the lights so they can cross work properly, there is almost zero concern for pedestrians.

My father ran over and severely injured a child before he even met my mother, not his fault the child darted in the road right in front of his car but it obviously bothered him and he spoke of it fairly often up until his death.

Robot cars are the long term answer, take the unreliable human out of the driving equation and deaths by automobile would plummet.

Bike lanes. There are even roads that have the curbside parking not on the curb. The bike lanes continue down the street, undisturbed, and you park on the outside of the bike lane.

I think we're number one for biking. Though there are still accidents. My cousin was hit by a cab not paying attention and he didn't stop. But at least he wasn't seriously hurt

Nice thought but it's never going to happen. And even with this type of thing, accidents would still occur with fatalities.

I was driving down a side street recently, going slower than the 25 mph limit because I was looking for an address. There was no traffic behind me. A small child jumped out into the street right in front of my car. I was able to stop, thank goodness, but had she come out from between those two cars less than a second later, or I had been going the speed limit, that tiny little girl would have been dead. And I would have had to live with the fact I killed her. Don't know where the parents were but shame on them for not keeping an eye on that little one

... and the chance of death would be around 10%. That's the point. Assuming you would obey the new law.

And because of her size, it would have killed her.

A child in my town died years ago in the same way. The son of a friend of my dad's. He was 3. The car was going about 15 or 20 mph. The kid came out from between 2 cars, into the street, at exactly the wrong second. It decapitated him. At that slow a speed, when a person is that little, it won't matter.

I understand they're trying to make it happen. The speed bumps on side streets in Chicago make it impossible to speed without doing damage to your vehicle. But on the mid thoroughfares, nothing will change. People don't want to wait, be late, have to spend too much time traveling.

I think it's a great idea. I hope that this can at least be implemented on side streets. But other than that, I just don't think it will happen

When you say "never going to happen", it is happening.

Why are you telling me something's red when it's blue? It's happening.

Many cities around the country and the world have already adopted this and are taking steps to implement it.

When you say it's not going to happen, I feel like you're substituting your assumption for a fact.

I wish you wouldn't because if you say, nobody will do this (and some already are) then you give up and you undermine those who are actually doing the things you are saying nobody will do.

Trying to and it actually becoming the norm are two different things. I'm not trying to argumentative. I like it. I rec'd the post. I'm just looking at reality.

Chicago is one of the worst offenders of the red light cameras. It has caused more accidents than before they were around. Because it's about revenue. The yellow light is shorter to catch people in a red they wouldn't have been in before or at lights without the cameras. They don't care about lives. They care about money.

Sorry, I really hope it can become a full fledged reality but I just don't see it happening

It's moving in that direction.

I think a little bit of moderation is in order. And maybe people need to be more careful, driving, walking, and raising kids.

Thanks for being safe that day, marym625!

I appreciate it. I was lucky. It haunts me though. I'm very aware when I drive down side streets now, not that I wasn't always. But some kid hiding between parked cars just isn't going to be seen, until it could be too late.

It already exists in many places.

"Driving with undue caution" or "without due care and attention" can include driving too fast for weather or visibility conditions, or for any other reason.

Naturally, it differs in every state, but it means that the speed limit is not always the safe speed and if you are in an accident at the speed limit, you can still be at fault.

You seem to know enough to imaging what MIGHT happen, not wait for the actual kid to come out.

I do that, too. Blind corners and pedestrians who might not see you, these are times to slow down and get ready to stop.

Take care!

your solution is for drivers and pedestrians to be careful.

i'm not depending on a measure which is 50% effective.

when i step into the street, i can look every direction, but once i'm in the street i can't control by looking whether or not cars endanger me. they come up fast.

you're attitude is anti pedestrian.

you think that when crossing a 5 lane street in a large city that you can cross and see every danger and avoid it, well you can't on foot because many drivers simply aren't indicating that they're turning when you step out into the street and they're 100-250 feet away. and so i see them begin to turn but i'm in the middle of the street.

your ideas indicate NO recent education in traffic engineering, AND what you say is not only not backed up by education, it's in disagreement with the current studies, research and environmental positions on pedestrian safety.

if you gave your advice on this to an environmental policy group, NRDC, Sierra Club, etc. you'd never be asked back again and leaders would think you arrived from the 1950's.

ACEEE, CARB, others....

Mine is a balanced common sense approach, others prefer a nanny-state approach.

easier to win against an argument nobody's making.

If it's becoming reality in some cities, you can bet that Chicago will also be looking into it.

Massachusetts also was slow to adopt the law because like NYC, the state recognized that giving drivers the option to turn into a controlled pedestrian crossing was just asking for more pedestrian casualties. While it makes sense in some suburban areas it never makes sense in densely pack urban cores.

I'm glad to see more attention being paid to designing away risk. As annoying as speed humps can be, they do work in terms of slowing down traffic. Bulb outs to narrow the pedestrian crossing also are smart design.

The problem is that when you make a right on green, the cross street is red - which means there's also a walk for pedestrians traversing the cross street, so the flow of turning traffic collides with the flow of the peds.

The only solution short of building footbridges over every crosswalk is to completely interleave the pedestrians with the traffic so that there's never a crosswalk open where traffic is allowed to turn, e.g. green for northbound traffic, all peds stopped so northbound can turn onto cross. Northbound traffic goes red, cross traffic stays red while northbound peds get a walk. Peds are stopped and cross goes green, allowing cross traffic turns northbound. Cross traffic goes red, cross peds get a walk. Cross peds are stopped, northbound gets green again, cycle repeats.

Right on green is a different problem and there actually is a solution for it which is to stop traffic in all directions to allow safe pedestrian crossings. I don't know if NYC ever had that, but it was common in New England when I was growing up. There is a movement to introduce/reintroduce this around the country. They're called 'scramble crosswalks' because pedestrians can cross side to side or diagonally across the intersection during one cycle rather than having to wait for two WALK cycles.

one that has been done for years and can be done in more places.

it works pretty well. basically there's one cycle of lights where pedestrians move any direction (diagonally too) and no cars move.

then there are two cycles where cars move, one cycle for each direction.

it solves the problem you mention and reduces the time needed for walk signals.

That is absurd. And yes a certain amount of deaths are acceptable in exchange for automotive transport.

What we need, as others have said, is computerized cars to take the human out of the equation. and they are on the way. There is no need to invest billions in infrastructure to make the roads safer when the driverless car will be here by the time you are done, rendering the changes you made moot.

and reasonable