The infrastructure is the true waste. I mean, the least they could have done was make it a fucking circle…
I hit these buttons in both directions whenever I get to an intersection. The more stopped cars in the city, the better.
jokes on you, I run the red light
In my city, crosswalks, even with the flashing lights mean NOTHING. Less than nothing really because it gives people a (very) false sense of security.
definitely satire
everybody knows an intersection like this has at least a 90s light cycle
Not 50 minutes of human life; 50 minutes of carbrain life. There’s a difference
I press the button every time, and if there’s a break in the traffic, I cross before it changes.
I also recline my seat on the plane as far as it goes. I don’t have any problem with others doing the same.
I’ve pressed the button when I don’t need to cross when the flow of traffic is being unsafe together.
I definitely don’t want my life in the hands of someone that can’t afford to be 30 seconds late to wherever they are going.
I have become convinced that people get addicted to speed. One of the fastest ways to make some people’s blood boil is simply making them drive a little slower; even if it’s so marginal that it can’t actually possibly affect when they arrive at their destination they become furious.
The US loves to have wide, straight roads with great visibility and no obstacles on which cars could easily, safely do 80MPH (in the absence of other drivers of course) but with artificial limits of 30-40 miles per hour that everybody obviously ignores because - hey, just look at the road, it’s begging for people to go faster. The Netherlands by comparison generally does a great job of managing drivers’ expectations by adding artificial curves, places where cars have to gently swerve, setting trees along the roads that give a feeling of constraint and not “wide open place to floor it”, etc. Of course you still see people here losing their minds because they have to wait for pedestrians to cross once the light turns green, but it’s not as bad as my experiences in the US.
Addiction to speed is a part of it. I think being trapped in a car actually creates a lot of psychological issues. Another one that doesn’t get mentioned enough IMO is claustrophobia. All these psychological issues are probably big contributors to road rage.
Car gave people power, the larger it is, the greater the power felt. It is a great way to see if people will addicted to power and abuse it.
I don’t think speed is the main factor, I think it’s entitlement. With public transportation, you might have to go somewhere specific to get your ride, rather than it being just outside. Then you wait til a certain time, share the ride with others, the path and speed arent in your control so it may not be the most efficient route. With a car, you can go when you want, where you want and how you want. Until you know, others get in the way. If something is making you drive slightly slower, you now have less control.
I also think driving in general is an unpleasant experience. For most of the time driving, you are staring at asphalt, concrete and other cars, nothing is fun to look at. You have to focus constantly and any distractions become annoyances. Because of cars everything is so far away it always requires the car to do ANYTHING. For all the supposed freedom, you are constantly being told what to do. This is the speed limit, this is a stop sign, this is your designated lane, you have to yield. At every point you run into people and the more you run into the less you can do what you want. And those people can act like don’t understand rules, aren’t paying attention, interpret the rules differently, think they don’t apply to them, know they can get away with it because the rules aren’t heavily enforced or they are selectively enforced. Sometimes the rules don’t always make the most sense, they are the way they are so it’s easier to assign blame to someone in a insurance claim or court case. Or sometimes the rules make sense for someone else, but not your entitlement machine.
Counterpoint: Motorcycles, ebikes.
Way more control exists, but you never see motorcyclists suggest bicycles and pedestrians shouldn’t be allowed to use the street too.
Maybe its something to do with the dynamic where ignoring the rules risks your safely instead of others or the isolation from the environment a car driver experiences.
I have a more metaphysical take on it: One’s level of suffering is proportional to the distance between where one’s body is located, and where one’s mind is. It applies in a lot of different scenarios, and I think is kind of the secret behind the mindfulness movement. (If your mind and body are in the same place, you are much happier.)
The way that this applies to cars is in two ways: 1) The driver’s body is physically located in a torture chamber, essentially. Sure, they put in a cushy recliner, and an entertainment system, but those can only do so much to mitigate how awful it is to drive. 2) The speed of the car promises a quick trip, so the driver’s mind is already at their destination, and the separation makes them miserable and furious.
Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty woo-woo. It’s just a metaphor for the impatience drivers feel because, in their minds, they’re already walking in the door, they’re already ordering food at the restaurant, they’re already kissing their spouse, they’re already answering work emails, or whatever it is they have at the destination. And you, pedestrian, you are directly responsible for keeping them from it.
But I notice the real effects myself. Last weekend, I went up north to my vacation spot, where I’ve found that riding my bicycle to the beach is subjectively much faster than driving. It’s almost like teleporting! Objectively, it takes longer, but when I’m riding my bicycle, I’m mentally on the road riding my bicycle, so the trip doesn’t even register as part of the beach experience the way driving does.
Often their mind is already at a destination that they hate (work), making it even worse.
I do believe you’re absolutely correct in essence, even if the mechanisms are subject to debate.
I switched to only getting around by E-bike 90% of the time, and the effect you describe regarding bicycle trip time subjectivity is absolutely real.
Taking 45 minutes to go 15 miles away feels a lot faster and relaxing than the 20 minutes it would be by car. People wave at you and you at them, that’s still a thing!
About the only time the American psyche is confronted with the prospect of mindfulness and driving, is during the now nearly mythical “road trip” and even that experience has long since been reduced to listening to nav voice as you drive fast from point to point.
I have become convinced that people get addicted to speed.
While that part is certainly true, the modern homo sapiens automobilis seems more addicted to crawling along in slow moving traffic while hating everyone moving faster or able to escape in any way.
I’m surprised that such buttons even exist in the US.
They often do nothing.
My city surprisingly set ones up at certain intersections, where the walk lights won’t change UNLESS you hit the button. Had to get back in the habit of pressing them again
Fun fact, those are dangerous as fuck! Drivers just straight up don’t see lights that don’t regularly change.
I think the lights change (for cars) but the walk signals specifically don’t activate unless someone pushes the button.
I hate those so so much.
Ohhh. There is one near my house that is literally only a pedestrian cross light. It’s off 90% of the time. Cars blow right through it constantly with kids in the road.
Yeah, we have some of those nearby me. “RRFB” rectangular rapid-flash beacon.
Upside, people do notice them. Downside, they never quite know what to do and it’s not good enough for a 4-lane road.
My opinion they need one-way traffic spikes activated by the buttons. That might motivate drivers to stop, and if not they get the consequences instead of a person.
I had one that did nothing in my town. I wrote to the state DOT and they fixed it for me. It’s been about 10 years since then and it still works.
There’s one on my bike ride home that’s wired backwards. You need to hit the one that controls the perpendicular flow to go straight.
I sent in a service request to the city, but they said it was the state’s responsibility and forwarded it.and forwarded it.
I’m sure they did.
Did you follow up with the state?
Yeah in my city the difference between hitting the beg button and not hitting the button is often that if you hit the button, the next time your direction of travel has the green light, the little walking man light also comes on. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t affect the timings at all. And if you hit the button even a split second after your direction of travel’s green light comes on? The little man does not light up, instead it makes you wait through more than an entire cycle before it gives you the little man.
New York City is awesome in this respect: They have almost no beg buttons. There is just a pedestrian phase in every light cycle, no matter what. The same way we assume a car phase in every light cycle. Because it’s a city, there are pedestrians in cities, so it’s assumed that they’re walkin here.
One thing my city (Portland) does right is LPIs: Leading Pedestrian Interval. At more and more crossings, they’ve been making it so that the pedestrians get the little walking man about 7 seconds before the cars get the green. Ensuring that drivers turning have to sit there and see that there are pedestrians for them to wait for.
Sometimes they make clicky sounds when you press them
Just like the “close” buttons on elevators. They make you feel better. Often, the buttons don’t actually exist, and the “walk” light is on the same system that allows cars to go the same way.
We’ve been lied too! Close buttons work in asia!
There’s lots of places they do work, even in the US, which is the only place I’ve heard about them not working, it’s just not universal.
In Germany, they often just don’t have close buttons, which is better than the placebo, but still annoying
I lived in the US nearly all my life and literally never saw one that worked, they must be extremely rare.
They’re referred to by city planners and those in the industry as “beg buttons”.
THIS has to be satire.
Why? I live in a state that is currently ranked 48th in many metrics including accessibility and I have still almost never seen a signaled intersection that didn’t have one. In fact I have seen several at places that aren’t even an intersection just a place where people cross the street often like near a school.
I’m pretty sure they are almost always placebo
They exist in my city but the only use they have is to turn on the speaker to help the visually-impaired
The sense of entitlement of people inside cars is staggering
I agree…
but not in the way the Twitter OP expects.For the majority of intersections, if you don’t press the button (or more often, don’t press it in time), you don’t get the walk light. Doesn’t matter if the parallel car traffic has a green and all cross traffic is blocked, if you didn’t press it beforehand, it stays on the red hand and skips your turn.
I say the buttons should not be there to “beg” for crossing permission. They should be used to say, “Hey I’m in a wheelchair or carrying a heavy can you give me 15 extra seconds?” And it should not need to be pressed beforehand.
I ignore crossing signals at intersections that don’t turn the walk sign on by default
I’ve been honked at for it. nothing worse. hasn’t actually happened in a while now, but my reaction would definitely be a lot more aggressive towards drivers if they did it to me now
Honestly fuck the button entirely, we live in the modern era, you can use human detection technology to detect people waiting to cross
There’s plenty of places that have that
the length of the pedestrian’s signal may be adjusted longer as well, especially for crossing wide multi-lane and divided roadways.
It may be, but it isn’t.
Ah, so like in Europe
Europe’s a big place. I don’t have anything resembling that here in Romania. You mean like in the Netherlands?
France too, in cities the buttons is mostly just switching on a speaker to announce when it’s green for pedestrians for the visually impaired or if you like “ding ding” sounds
Love ding ding sounds. I’d hit em all even if I wasn’t crossing just for the ding dings. My local transit agency is probably onto this fact, because instead of ding dings ours make a sound similar to when you flick a spring-loaded doorstop, but bassier.
Everyone knows that europe is js the nederlands
Yeh
In my corner or Europe there are indeed many of those buttons that don’t work and are purely cosmetically. It gives people something to focus on in the minute or so they have to wait for their light to get green which it would also do anyway when no one was there.
And it’s a somewhat standardized way of putting a vibrating indicator for people with impaired sight at the pole, whether it doubles to actually request a green light or just fakes it doesn’t matter.
Fuck Jeremy Kauffman.
Hint of misandry too, implying it’s not manly to follow traffic safety laws. Dude probably has personal hygiene too and Mr. Jeremy Kauffman would point out washing one’s butt is gay.
Calling a man gay or effeminate in a derogatory way is not misandry. That’s homophobia and/or misogyny. Misandry isn’t a real thing just like heterophobia and reverse racism isn’t a thing.
Just one more lane, bro 🙏
But they stop anyway for the other traffic
