This HAS to be satire
Par for the course, it would seem.
State Libertarian Party leader charged for disorderly conduct after fender bender
Jeremy Kauffman, a former Free State Project leader who now chairs the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, is facing criminal charges stemming from an incident where police say a fender bender in a Manchester parking lot prompted Kauffman to fight “several people” and yell racist epithets.
My BIC, cars must me satire. Yet here we are
Awww he’s upset his broom broom had to go wait wait
the entitlement of the motorati is mindboggling. god forbid someone slow down their CO2 factory for a few moments, oh’s no’s
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.
Wat
There’s a crosswalk near me that is normally a flashing green light when you drive past it.
I still have no idea what to do at a flashing green light. What are you trying to tell me?
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.
The ones here are normal traffic lights, so several sets green when no pedestrians around, then go red when someone wants to cross.
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.
Thankfully the ones I encounter the most are in an already pedestrian heavy area. The city has also taken steps in the last few years to discourage driving through that stretch as well. Speed limit is slower, lights every block, pedestrian crossings (though half are mid block without lights 👎), and new expanded bike lanes. But it still makes no sense why the walk lights don’t automatically change with the traffic lights 🤦♂️
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?
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.
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 both NYC and my city (Portland) do right is LPIs: Leading Pedestrian Intervals. 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.
they do the same here in NZ (leading the pedestrian signal), and on the bigger intersections, even a red turning arrow for another 15 sec
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.
I’ve timed them in multiple public and housing buildings in New England and New York (but like, handfuls, not thousands- I’m just exactly this type of curious and autistic, so whenever I use an elevator for long enough to get the opportunity, I do experiments). Around half work in my experience, but that may change depending on where you are.
Timed them?
Is there a delay before they work? Over here in asia, you press close, it instantly starts closing. Maybe thats why I assumed they never worked in the US.
They’re referred to by city planners and those in the industry as “beg buttons”.
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.
They exist in my city but the only use they have is to turn on the speaker to help the visually-impaired
THIS has to be satire.
I’m pretty sure they are almost always placebo
maybe in america, definitely not everywhere else. In sweden pressing the button can sometimes give you instant green depending on the specific signal and if there are any cars at the intersection.
in NZ they are on every intersection, you don’t get a pedestrian crossing signal without someone pressing it. Even better are the diagonal cross intersections where all the cars stop once a cycle for pedestrians to cross to whatever side they want
That seems unlikely to me. If they were fully timer-based, that would mean there are times when cars would have to stop even though there are no pedestrians trying to cross, and we can’t have that(!)
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.
One aspect i never see talked about is that you literally feel like you’re going slower in a car, a big part of which is because the outer parts of your field of view are blocked so you only see the things that are moving relatively slower:
Very true, and it has a much stronger effect when there’s nothing around you. When you’re in a large Asian/European city with tall buildings and narrow roads, everything feels closer so a small amount of speed feels like a lot. On massive American roads where everything is spread out (like the one in the photo), a lot of speed doesn’t feel like very much.
I think the stronger effect is the opposite. When humans use tools with fluency, they temporarily become part of the body plan. You feel it when a hammer or a sling become “part of your body,” and it feels good. A person in a big vehicle doesn’t feel claustrophobic, they feel like a giant metal juggernaut.
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 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 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 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
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.
Not 50 minutes of human life; 50 minutes of carbrain life. There’s a difference
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.
The sense of entitlement of people inside cars is staggering
Starting to think this entire community is satire
why? do you agree with the twitter post?
A local meme in my country says “you can’t be all trolls, some of you has to be an idiot for real”.
If this vommunity is a meme, i am the idiot, cause i really believe cars should be pushed back
definitely satire
everybody knows an intersection like this has at least a 90s light cycle
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.
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.
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
exactly, the button should just be a backup if the detection fails
There should also be a light to indicate that you’re detected, and ideally a change in the sound signal as well (because the signal has a sound so blind people know when it’s green, right?)Plenty do instead a mechanical actuator, as it’s not uncommon for people who are blind to also be deaf, but very rare for anyone to be insensitive to touch
Literally a tiny dial under the crossing button, attached to a motor, that begins spinning very slowly (like 5-10 rpm) when the light is green
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.
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
Fuck Jeremy Kauffman.
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.
