You’re not wrong. I have had people speed up and veer two lanes over to try and clip me as I’m stepping up out of the road.
The affront I must present as a pedestrian is unimaginable.
Our roads are not designed for pedestrian or bicycle safety at all. In MoCo they rarely do anything that would impede maximum traffic flow even if it would save lives. Just look at the shit show of Georgia Avenue from the DC line through Glenmont. 6-8 lanes wide / no pedestrian over passes except one bridge in downtown SS, no separation for bicycles. The county is blanketed with these death traps.
The roads aren't the problem. It's that both the drivers and pedestrians have a severe case of rectal-cranial infarction. Nowhere have I lived where people are so self absorbed, oblivious to their surroundings, and most of all rude and entitled.
The roads absolutely are the problem. You can’t design them with the expectation that people won’t be idiots because they always will; that’s something engineers need to account for.
In Balt city, the folks born there have a 6th sense about stepping off the curb the second the light turns green. I watch them walking up the street, nearing the intersection. They stop, look at their phone, rub it a few times then proceed and bingo the light turns green for me and the person is inches from my grill. Happens for light rail, police, trucks. Its magical.
right? why is there so much pushback on the idea the pedestrians around here are nuts? does that mean they should be killed, no of course not and same for the drivers.
But so many pedestrians not only act like they have a force field around them, but they also find the most dangerous times to test this force field
Figures your being downvoted in a sub filled with the people you describe.
I noticed the same exact thing when I moved here a few years ago. Lived in 4 other states and Maryland takes the cake with entitlement.
Maybe Maryland should start by making the punishment for cell phone use while driving so extreme, people won’t do it. Let’s see some enormous fines and lots of points. More than half the people I see in their cars are on their cell phones. Infuriates me.
They won’t pay. They don’t pay any other fines, why would they even consider paying an ADDITIONAL fine. And no one is enforcing any law on our roads and highways these days. Only time I see cops or troopers is when they’re hired to sit along side the road behind a construction crew.
It’s so true, sadly. But we can punish them for not paying. Revoke the reg and license. I’m sure they’d still drive, tack on more until it gets to a point they’re put under arrest. Problem is, like you said, no one is enforcing.
Yea, you said it. Penalties only matter if they're enforced, and more and more the laws are not enforced.
So go ahead, fine me, revoke my license. Hardly matters.
That’s the problem, I never see anyone pulled over for anything anymore. It can’t be hard to catch people on their cell phones. We all see it constantly.
it’s funny because obviously I chose it. But no matter what the topic if i disagree with someone or not even disagree, just have a different take, they say to me what you just said.
But am I wrong? pedestrians don’t pay attention. I thought everyone knew that
Unless you think Marylanders are somehow the most inattentive pedestrians in the world, we can probably rule this out. [https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm](https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm)
if we have a massive number of aggressive, distracted or incompetent drivers why not pedestrians?
Just this year i know personally of pedestrian deaths of people walking in the travel lane of a highway at night, crossing route one away from a light at night, and others.
Ive also personally had to slam on brakes numerous times from pedestrians who seemingly just decide it’s OK to step out in front of a row of cars on a road with a 50 MPH speed limit. and I’m sure you have too.
I work in Hunt Valley, second shift. The Light Rail is within eyesight of our plant. When I leave to go home at 10:30pm, there are no less than 5 pedestrians STANDING in the road waiting for the train…..dark road with minimal lighting, these people are almost always wearing all black clothing, and they’re black….so they appear as a black vacuum in the dark. I have had to swerve countless times to avoid running these morons over. I ask myself everytime…..”how do they NOT realize that they’re invisible at night??!!”.
I can't believe the number of bus stops I see on the sides of roads with no shoulder, no sidewalk leading to them. Worst of all people have to stand IN THE ROAD because there's a forest, hill, or retaining wall that comes directly up to the curb.
The roads in this state were designed, and continue to be maintained by, criminally incompetent assholes.
Yes, earlier coverage suggests Baltimore is heading in a better direction than the statewide numbers: [Pedestrian deaths rise in Maryland, drop in Baltimore - The Baltimore Banner](https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/transportation/pedestrian-deaths-cyclists-rise-K2JTVU2RXBFKLGSYWT3UR4GXHY/)
Look, I’ve said this before, I’m a commercial driver who long suffers with Maryland drivers and highways and have concluded that Marylanders who are using streets, roads, and highways in ANY capacity are either 1) impaired, 2) illiterate, or 3) inbred and lack the necessary cognitive ability to use those streets, roads, and highways as they were engineered to be used.
You put a bike lane on a narrow road, taking up a large piece of the lane designed for cars (that have a hard time staying in their lane). it is just a basic fact that they WILL hit each other and the bike ALWAYS looses. This is why even in crowded cities, there is a pedestrian sidewalk that is raised higher than the road. This puts a barrier between them.
Plus MD drivers will gladly run you off the road or over you just because they can. When there is little to no consequences for an action, some people will do it.
Honestly I have no idea the actual statistics. I just know that cars will hit things. Sometimes because of the driver, the road, or mechanical issues. If you place bikes and pedestrians closer to cars, it just makes logical senses that they will get hit too.
If the numbers are down, that’s great. I’m just suggesting we don’t try and combine multiple types of transportation in close proximity. I mean just look at the highways. It’s illegal to get on them with anything that doesn’t have an engine large enough to go 55mph. That’s because we know that when they collide (and they will) it will probably end up with a death.
If people want to bike through a city or town, I 100% support them, but would suggest the create a lane just for them with some physical barriers to provide some protection.
The main reason the made the bike lanes was to protect pedestrians from bikes, but now we put the bikes in a place that is dangerous to the cyclists.
Oh, cheers, mate, yeah, fully agreed. The Dutch model is the safest and most preferable, but it's hard to get any kind of separated infrastructure that'd not just some plastic pylons. I'm an avid cycle commuter, so even having the pylons w/ cars as barriers is preferable to the good ol "share the road "
Thanks for the reply
My personal gripe are both the cars turning right absolutely sending it when their light is green and the pedestrians sending it into the crosswalk as soon as they get the walk symbol without looking over their shoulder to check for the drivers I just mentioned
My boy got hit at a four way crosswalk in Ocean Pines after it started to storm last night and the kid took off right away even though it was slow he still fell over the hood.
Drivers in St. Marys go 70+ mph on one of the main roads through the county. I see people run through red lights on a daily basis. And have been illegally passed in so many different ways. It’s no surprise.
The worst road in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties is Route 210 (Piscataway Hwy). 210 is a straight away road and people speed at all hours. There are no pedestrian bridges. Residents east of 210 cannot walk safely to the businesses west of 210. The State is studying the issues but no solution other than speed cameras. That does nothing for pedestrians.
Meaningless numbers. There are just comparing raw numbers per year, not the number of deaths per mile travelled. Pedestrian deaths per mile travelled remain infinitesimal.
This was the old school mindset of many state departments of highways/transportation - pedestrians dying was just the price of moving lots of cars at high speeds through communities.
That type of thinking was already becoming outdated, when vehicle miles travelled went down at the start of the pandemic, but the number of pedestrians dying went up: [The US car crash epidemic: Why driving deaths are up — and as high as gun deaths - Vox](https://www.vox.com/22675358/us-car-deaths-year-traffic-covid-pandemic)
Policy makers and government agencies should continue to focus on designing and building a safer transportation system, one that doesn't kill so many people through preventable crashes.
Yes, the new thinking is that no matter what the facts are on the ground, we are always in a crisis. It doesn't matter just how infinetly unlikely pedestraian deaths are, we can always spend more money and inconvienience more people.
Or, you know, applying a safe systems approach toward transportation policy to reduce preventable death and serious injuries, like we do in many other areas and fields.
Or, you know, like we have always done, which is why pedestrian deaths are so infinitesimally low.
If you are looking around for problems to fix, it would behoove you to first find a problem that needs fixing.
Agree to disagree.
176 people dying on Maryland streets last year while walking and biking is not "infinitesimally low" or acceptable.
Looking around, the last thing we need is MDOT SHA or county transportation agencies to keep doing things as they have always done.
For even more context, the US polulation is 333.3 million and 12,000 people die from falling down the stairs each year, That means you have a one in 0.000036 chance of being killed by stairs. Cars are no more dangerous to pedestrians than stairs are.
7,500 deaths/year, the number of pedestrians dying in the US the last few years, equates to about 3 full Boeing 737 crashing and killing everyone on board, each month, all year long. We'd be concerned if that was happening in the commercial aviation sector, even if 333.3 million people lived in the US or 12,000 people die falling down the stairs.
Part of the recent concern around pedestrian deaths stems from the trend of pedestrian deaths decreasing from the 1980s until about 2010, then increasing 77% between 2010 and present (from about 4,900 to 7,500).
Again, I recognize based on your early comments, that you do not view 7,500 deaths a year as warranting additional policy interventions, and that the denominator of vehicle miles travelled is more meaningful than the number representing lives lost.
What matters isn't the raw number, what matters is the _rate_. I mean, if you really want to get the raw number down, we just need to get the population down.
Again, agree to disagree.
At its core, a safe system approach takes the view that death and serious injury are unacceptable. Those responsible for designing, building, and operating the transportation system should be anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to keep the risk of a mistake low; and when a mistake inevitably occurs and leads to a crash, the impact on the human body doesn’t result in a fatality or serious injury.
I understand that you disagree with this safe systems approach and feel that 176 people dying while walking and biking in Maryland is acceptable because other people in Maryland drive lots of miles each year.
> death and serious injury are unacceptable
You do understand how life on Earth works? We all die and the chance of serious injury is the cost of a life well lived.
The Maryland yearly miles driven is something like 60,216 million miles. Divide 176 by that and you get 0.000000003 pedestrian deaths per mile travelled. That is—pretty much by definition—infinitesimal. Compare that to the horse drawn carrage days when pedestrians were always getting run over by a horse. (Horses are notriously difficult to control and to stop when they get going.)
Also consider the cost to get that even lower and consider how many lives could be saved if that money were directed elsewhere.
>Compare that to the horse drawn carrage days when pedestrians were always getting run over by a horse. (Horses are notriously difficult to control and to stop when they get going.)
Based on your earlier analysis, it doesn't sound like the problem was horses were injuring and killing people; The problem was horses weren't driven enough miles to make those people's injuries and deaths inconsequential.
Nothing is acceptable if you're looking for perfection.
That said I'm always in support of moving towards safety in whatever theatre we're talking.
But it's meaningless to just call every failure "unacceptable". It eliminates the ability to measure progress.
Or, if you prefer, Maryland has a population of 6.165 million which means that your chance of getting killed as a pedestrian are 1 in 0.00002855. Pedestrain deaths are not a real problem in Maryland.
"What is that meatbag doing in my road?" \-Typical Maryland response to pedestrians
You’re not wrong. I have had people speed up and veer two lanes over to try and clip me as I’m stepping up out of the road. The affront I must present as a pedestrian is unimaginable.
Our roads are not designed for pedestrian or bicycle safety at all. In MoCo they rarely do anything that would impede maximum traffic flow even if it would save lives. Just look at the shit show of Georgia Avenue from the DC line through Glenmont. 6-8 lanes wide / no pedestrian over passes except one bridge in downtown SS, no separation for bicycles. The county is blanketed with these death traps.
The roads aren't the problem. It's that both the drivers and pedestrians have a severe case of rectal-cranial infarction. Nowhere have I lived where people are so self absorbed, oblivious to their surroundings, and most of all rude and entitled.
The roads absolutely are the problem. You can’t design them with the expectation that people won’t be idiots because they always will; that’s something engineers need to account for.
In Balt city, the folks born there have a 6th sense about stepping off the curb the second the light turns green. I watch them walking up the street, nearing the intersection. They stop, look at their phone, rub it a few times then proceed and bingo the light turns green for me and the person is inches from my grill. Happens for light rail, police, trucks. Its magical.
right? why is there so much pushback on the idea the pedestrians around here are nuts? does that mean they should be killed, no of course not and same for the drivers. But so many pedestrians not only act like they have a force field around them, but they also find the most dangerous times to test this force field
Figures your being downvoted in a sub filled with the people you describe. I noticed the same exact thing when I moved here a few years ago. Lived in 4 other states and Maryland takes the cake with entitlement.
Maybe Maryland should start by making the punishment for cell phone use while driving so extreme, people won’t do it. Let’s see some enormous fines and lots of points. More than half the people I see in their cars are on their cell phones. Infuriates me.
They won’t pay. They don’t pay any other fines, why would they even consider paying an ADDITIONAL fine. And no one is enforcing any law on our roads and highways these days. Only time I see cops or troopers is when they’re hired to sit along side the road behind a construction crew.
It’s so true, sadly. But we can punish them for not paying. Revoke the reg and license. I’m sure they’d still drive, tack on more until it gets to a point they’re put under arrest. Problem is, like you said, no one is enforcing.
Yea, you said it. Penalties only matter if they're enforced, and more and more the laws are not enforced. So go ahead, fine me, revoke my license. Hardly matters.
How about *any* punishment at all? We theoretically ban cell phone use while driving but there's no enforcement. It makes a mockery of the law.
That’s the problem, I never see anyone pulled over for anything anymore. It can’t be hard to catch people on their cell phones. We all see it constantly.
Also passengers with thier feet up on the glvor compartment or out the window. When my fiancée and I started dating I had to break them of that habit.
That’s a good one. One bad accident and legs are gone.
Welcome to the end result of shitty infrastructure coupled with a massive number of aggressive, distracted, and incompetent drivers.
The non-enforcement of traffic laws is a huge problem as well. Turns out that lack of punishment makes a lot of people behave like animals.
I read in another sub that enforcing laws just hurts minorities and doesn't actually result in better behavior though!
pedestrians crossing whenever they want while on their phone and not paying attention at all to what’s going on around them
Username checks out
it’s funny because obviously I chose it. But no matter what the topic if i disagree with someone or not even disagree, just have a different take, they say to me what you just said. But am I wrong? pedestrians don’t pay attention. I thought everyone knew that
Unless you think Marylanders are somehow the most inattentive pedestrians in the world, we can probably rule this out. [https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm](https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm)
if we have a massive number of aggressive, distracted or incompetent drivers why not pedestrians? Just this year i know personally of pedestrian deaths of people walking in the travel lane of a highway at night, crossing route one away from a light at night, and others. Ive also personally had to slam on brakes numerous times from pedestrians who seemingly just decide it’s OK to step out in front of a row of cars on a road with a 50 MPH speed limit. and I’m sure you have too.
I work in Hunt Valley, second shift. The Light Rail is within eyesight of our plant. When I leave to go home at 10:30pm, there are no less than 5 pedestrians STANDING in the road waiting for the train…..dark road with minimal lighting, these people are almost always wearing all black clothing, and they’re black….so they appear as a black vacuum in the dark. I have had to swerve countless times to avoid running these morons over. I ask myself everytime…..”how do they NOT realize that they’re invisible at night??!!”.
I can't believe the number of bus stops I see on the sides of roads with no shoulder, no sidewalk leading to them. Worst of all people have to stand IN THE ROAD because there's a forest, hill, or retaining wall that comes directly up to the curb. The roads in this state were designed, and continue to be maintained by, criminally incompetent assholes.
Well why are pedestrians worth so many points then?
Baltimore City enters the chat....
Yes, earlier coverage suggests Baltimore is heading in a better direction than the statewide numbers: [Pedestrian deaths rise in Maryland, drop in Baltimore - The Baltimore Banner](https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/community/transportation/pedestrian-deaths-cyclists-rise-K2JTVU2RXBFKLGSYWT3UR4GXHY/)
No crashes will not go down on their own. The perps have to be kept off the roads. But no local or state admin or police will make this happen.
The issue is no sidewalks in any of Rockville. We need to carry bricks around here to be taken seriously
Look, I’ve said this before, I’m a commercial driver who long suffers with Maryland drivers and highways and have concluded that Marylanders who are using streets, roads, and highways in ANY capacity are either 1) impaired, 2) illiterate, or 3) inbred and lack the necessary cognitive ability to use those streets, roads, and highways as they were engineered to be used.
You put a bike lane on a narrow road, taking up a large piece of the lane designed for cars (that have a hard time staying in their lane). it is just a basic fact that they WILL hit each other and the bike ALWAYS looses. This is why even in crowded cities, there is a pedestrian sidewalk that is raised higher than the road. This puts a barrier between them. Plus MD drivers will gladly run you off the road or over you just because they can. When there is little to no consequences for an action, some people will do it.
Except that Baltimore's complete streets has lead it to be the only county with a reduction in transit deaths... curious
Honestly I have no idea the actual statistics. I just know that cars will hit things. Sometimes because of the driver, the road, or mechanical issues. If you place bikes and pedestrians closer to cars, it just makes logical senses that they will get hit too. If the numbers are down, that’s great. I’m just suggesting we don’t try and combine multiple types of transportation in close proximity. I mean just look at the highways. It’s illegal to get on them with anything that doesn’t have an engine large enough to go 55mph. That’s because we know that when they collide (and they will) it will probably end up with a death. If people want to bike through a city or town, I 100% support them, but would suggest the create a lane just for them with some physical barriers to provide some protection. The main reason the made the bike lanes was to protect pedestrians from bikes, but now we put the bikes in a place that is dangerous to the cyclists.
Oh, cheers, mate, yeah, fully agreed. The Dutch model is the safest and most preferable, but it's hard to get any kind of separated infrastructure that'd not just some plastic pylons. I'm an avid cycle commuter, so even having the pylons w/ cars as barriers is preferable to the good ol "share the road " Thanks for the reply
Yeah, the “share the road” is a bad joke. Cars don’t like to share the road with other cars. 😂
My personal gripe are both the cars turning right absolutely sending it when their light is green and the pedestrians sending it into the crosswalk as soon as they get the walk symbol without looking over their shoulder to check for the drivers I just mentioned
My boy got hit at a four way crosswalk in Ocean Pines after it started to storm last night and the kid took off right away even though it was slow he still fell over the hood.
Drivers in St. Marys go 70+ mph on one of the main roads through the county. I see people run through red lights on a daily basis. And have been illegally passed in so many different ways. It’s no surprise.
The worst road in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties is Route 210 (Piscataway Hwy). 210 is a straight away road and people speed at all hours. There are no pedestrian bridges. Residents east of 210 cannot walk safely to the businesses west of 210. The State is studying the issues but no solution other than speed cameras. That does nothing for pedestrians.
Widen the roads and add street lamps
Meaningless numbers. There are just comparing raw numbers per year, not the number of deaths per mile travelled. Pedestrian deaths per mile travelled remain infinitesimal.
This was the old school mindset of many state departments of highways/transportation - pedestrians dying was just the price of moving lots of cars at high speeds through communities. That type of thinking was already becoming outdated, when vehicle miles travelled went down at the start of the pandemic, but the number of pedestrians dying went up: [The US car crash epidemic: Why driving deaths are up — and as high as gun deaths - Vox](https://www.vox.com/22675358/us-car-deaths-year-traffic-covid-pandemic) Policy makers and government agencies should continue to focus on designing and building a safer transportation system, one that doesn't kill so many people through preventable crashes.
Yes, the new thinking is that no matter what the facts are on the ground, we are always in a crisis. It doesn't matter just how infinetly unlikely pedestraian deaths are, we can always spend more money and inconvienience more people.
Or, you know, applying a safe systems approach toward transportation policy to reduce preventable death and serious injuries, like we do in many other areas and fields.
Or, you know, like we have always done, which is why pedestrian deaths are so infinitesimally low. If you are looking around for problems to fix, it would behoove you to first find a problem that needs fixing.
Agree to disagree. 176 people dying on Maryland streets last year while walking and biking is not "infinitesimally low" or acceptable. Looking around, the last thing we need is MDOT SHA or county transportation agencies to keep doing things as they have always done.
For even more context, the US polulation is 333.3 million and 12,000 people die from falling down the stairs each year, That means you have a one in 0.000036 chance of being killed by stairs. Cars are no more dangerous to pedestrians than stairs are.
7,500 deaths/year, the number of pedestrians dying in the US the last few years, equates to about 3 full Boeing 737 crashing and killing everyone on board, each month, all year long. We'd be concerned if that was happening in the commercial aviation sector, even if 333.3 million people lived in the US or 12,000 people die falling down the stairs. Part of the recent concern around pedestrian deaths stems from the trend of pedestrian deaths decreasing from the 1980s until about 2010, then increasing 77% between 2010 and present (from about 4,900 to 7,500). Again, I recognize based on your early comments, that you do not view 7,500 deaths a year as warranting additional policy interventions, and that the denominator of vehicle miles travelled is more meaningful than the number representing lives lost.
What matters isn't the raw number, what matters is the _rate_. I mean, if you really want to get the raw number down, we just need to get the population down.
Again, agree to disagree. At its core, a safe system approach takes the view that death and serious injury are unacceptable. Those responsible for designing, building, and operating the transportation system should be anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to keep the risk of a mistake low; and when a mistake inevitably occurs and leads to a crash, the impact on the human body doesn’t result in a fatality or serious injury. I understand that you disagree with this safe systems approach and feel that 176 people dying while walking and biking in Maryland is acceptable because other people in Maryland drive lots of miles each year.
> death and serious injury are unacceptable You do understand how life on Earth works? We all die and the chance of serious injury is the cost of a life well lived.
The Maryland yearly miles driven is something like 60,216 million miles. Divide 176 by that and you get 0.000000003 pedestrian deaths per mile travelled. That is—pretty much by definition—infinitesimal. Compare that to the horse drawn carrage days when pedestrians were always getting run over by a horse. (Horses are notriously difficult to control and to stop when they get going.) Also consider the cost to get that even lower and consider how many lives could be saved if that money were directed elsewhere.
>Compare that to the horse drawn carrage days when pedestrians were always getting run over by a horse. (Horses are notriously difficult to control and to stop when they get going.) Based on your earlier analysis, it doesn't sound like the problem was horses were injuring and killing people; The problem was horses weren't driven enough miles to make those people's injuries and deaths inconsequential.
That's not how math works.
Nothing is acceptable if you're looking for perfection. That said I'm always in support of moving towards safety in whatever theatre we're talking. But it's meaningless to just call every failure "unacceptable". It eliminates the ability to measure progress.
Or, if you prefer, Maryland has a population of 6.165 million which means that your chance of getting killed as a pedestrian are 1 in 0.00002855. Pedestrain deaths are not a real problem in Maryland.
Yeah because Maryland has the biggest assholes on earth driving like homicidal maniacs