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[–] 72 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Many drivers won't stop unless they're forced to by a physical barrier, and some still won't stop. Ever seen those videos from Europe of bus lane bollards that retract when a bus approaches and pop back up again after the bus passes, and the cars wrecked on them? Those are much more solid barriers than these plastic things.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    I remember a driver on Reddit losing their shit about bus-lane modal filters - the kind that will wreck the underside of your car if you ignore all the signs and drive over them anyway. They could not imagine the cruelty.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Those plastic things are just for show, as part of the campaign, which is why the drivers seem surprised that they're there. They're not actually installed on any roads. But having them pop up as the car approaches if there's a pedestrian on the corner makes it obvious that the car needs to stop.

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  • [–] 159 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    I can already hear the carbrainrotten screaming "But thats dangerous, what if i run into it" as if the danger wasnt their own fault for going too fast and not yielding.

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  • [–] 85 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    They might get a few scratches from those flimsy flexible plastics but it's not dangerous.

    They'll definitely compassion about the possibility for scratches screaming, "that could damage my property!" though.

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  • [–] 41 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Make them metal bars that rise up, like those that are placed at the entrance of some stores to deter vehicular raid. That will quickly make them re-evaluate.

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  • [–] 34 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Some places know their drivers and have some serious barriers popping up.

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  • [+] -11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    There shouldn't be any barriers at railway crossings. Let natural selection win. Do we really want a future full of people who don't have the brains to give way to a train?

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Imagine if all painted infrastructure did this haha.

    Right at the end there it shows a side effect of this installation that by itself is useful in bringing the cars to a reasonable speed when approaching the crosswalk every time, not just when there's a pedestrian: the crossing is raised.

    Off the top of my head I can't remember how common raised crossings are in Montréal, but they are effective. This demonstration is quite fun though, I was expecting a bunch of body guards to pop out and create a wall across the roadway and the instant fence caught me off guard.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Just For Laughs gags meets traffic engineering.

    Raised crosswalks weren't too common in most burroughs of Montréal when I left, but alternative road surfaces for slower zones we're gaining popularity.

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  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I was expecting this to be the "carry a brick"-trick.

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  • [–] 38 points 8 months ago (11 children)

    Here in Denmark I can basically just jump in front of a moving car on a crosswalk (one without traffic lights) and if the car so much as touches me they risk losing their driver's licence.

    I know The Netherlands is the same like that. Not sure about other EU countries.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    The French will try to run you over, and the Italians actively speed up when they see a pedestrian.

    In the UK you actually do have to stop and people do even Audi drivers stop sometimes.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    even Audi drivers stop sometimes.

    This sounds outlandish, I'm not sure I believe you. What about BMW drivers? Don't tell me even they stop for pedestrians?

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    In France, these days, you lose your license. Period. I don't know what the results have been though, but I think it's a fairly good approach.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    Man I remember when they used to take away peoples licenses in the USA. Good times. It’s like the only way you can get people to recognize that it’s a privilege and not a divine right is by taking it away.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    They still do, after multiple DUI’s.

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  • [–] 81 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (14 children)

    it's cute and all, but the real reason they don't stop is because the authorities aren't enforcing that law effectively. the places where people stop crosswalks do so because they'll get a ticket if they don't.

    this may raise awareness, but won't change behavior in the long run.

    when i lived more in the city and didn't own a car i would make hard eye contact with drivers when crossing. my logic was that if they kill me I'll at least haunt their dreams with that look.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    You can do the same thing without cops more cheaply in the long run. Just raising the crosswalks to sidewalk height completely changes driver behavior, as it's both a speed bump, and it's clearly communicated that the crosswalk is the pedestrians' territory that the driver is crossing through.

    We can deal with most of these issue through design rather than a threat of fines.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I'm curious how this impact snow plows. Every speed bump I've seen in the region I live in that gets a few feet of snow each winter will have little flags that should stick out over the snow to indicate to plows where they should lift up for a speed bump. I should look sometime to see how scratched to hell they are though to see if plows hit the bumps a lot

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    That seems pretty simple. Use the small snow plow that clears cycling lanes clear the raised sidewalk lengthwise, then have the snow plow that clears car lanes drive over it without being weighed down.

    ...you do have a snow plow for non-cars, right?

    Right?

    Also, more generally, building a 5-15 minute city means snow plows don't need to clear nearly as much area. A city built for people can afford to spend more time clearing pedestrian infrastructure and modal filters, because it's still less than clearing ten thousand kilometers of suburb.

    With the reduced driving time for emergency services, you can even waste some time clearing a path ahead of them or having ambulance personnel walk, and keep side streets unplowed if the weather is right.

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  • [–] 26 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Cyclists have a name for that and I think it's something like "the life saving look". Usually used when changing lanes or at an intersection.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago*

    As a cyclist it was mainly for me to make sure the driver saw me.

    As a pedestrian I do it were I am living nowadays when I'm about to cross the road on a pedestrian crossing, but that's mainly because around here people's behavior is mainly moderated by public shame and drivers tend to feel anonymous behind the wheel, so the point of looking at the other person rather than the car is to get them to feel seen and judged.

    Can't be sure if this latter use of looking actually works, but the one I do as a cyclist definitely works and has saved me from accidents multiple times, for example from drivers coming from a side-street into a T-junction and not looking properly hence not seeing me on a bicycle coming towards them on the main street.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    That's a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don't stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.

    If you want people to stop, you've got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won't do shit. You've got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.

    That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don't feel like they're losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.

    Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They're a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country

    Are they now?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes' walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes' bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.

    The gap isn't as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not convinced it's all about enforcement. In Portland, Oregon, there's not much threat of enforcement but cars stop at the slightest hint of a pedestrian crossing anywhere. Not sure how they pulled it off but there it's a culture thing, not enforcement.

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  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Except that it will take much more than this to 'motivate' any car brain here to actually stop. Those stopping for pedestrian crossings here are the exception. So much so that some towns "don't know what to do" about it and ask pedestrians to wave orange flags to cross busy streets.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago

    I prefer the bucket of bricks one over this marketing stunt

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago

    Carry a brick.

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  • [–] 57 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    It’s cute but this is from the same province that would rather blame immigrant drivers for road fatalities than the failing, inconsistent infrastructure and terrible driver training.

    In Montreal, the drivers are bad enough that turning right on red lights was banned because we couldn’t stop killing pedestrians.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Montréal never banned right on red.

    No right on red was the default, then most of Canada enabled right on red in the 1970, but Québec did not. Québec later enabled right on red by default in 2003, but Montréal (island) retained no right on red.

    And RToR is bad everywhere. We'veknow it for a long time, but have jsut collectivelydecoded the cost was worth it. Here's an article from Victoira in 1981 talking about it https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107821508/times-colonist-victoria-may-5-1981/

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Thank you, I learn something new everyday 🚦

    I stand by one of the greatest difficulties for everyone on/around the road in Montreal is that they don’t consistently follow traffic conventions accepted across the rest of the country (almost continent). Makes decisions less confident, less predictable and less safe across the board. I love their unique take in most other areas.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Makes decisions less confident, less predictable

    Valid opinion, I'd be interested to see if there is some data to confirm or deny it. It's different than my experiences, but I did live and drive there, so obviously it comes with a bias.

    and less safe across the board.

    Incorrect. Montréal has a low collision frequency and low serious injury and fatal collision rate compared to most the country/contient.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Turning on right policy was never enabled in Montreal. And wtf you going on about blaming immigrant drivers? Source please, because this sounds like some divisive bullshit from the ROC.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Because Ontario doesn't test truck drivers, Quebec wanted to ban them.

    On paper we test but it's really corrupt and companies are basically given x number of licenses.

    I imagine this person took it to thinking they were mad that they are majority immigrants rather than living in Ontario and seeing how unsafe our roads have gotten.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Definitely not my opinion about immigrant drivers being a major source of accidents …our elected officials on the other hand…

    Québec restreint l’accès à la possibilité de conduire pour les immigrants

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago*

    I mean, I might be wrong, but from a quick research, it seems that our program is still more lenient than (most?) other provinces. e.g. :

    • people from non-reciprocal jurisdiction can drive for 6 months with their permit from their country of provenance. Alberta is 90 days. Manitoba is 3 months.
    • Like in these provinces, you now gotta take a driver's test. If you fail, you get demoted to apprentice, not completely permitless. Sure, being an apprentice driver can be constraining - more or less depending on your situation - but it's not something that can't be remedied in the following year.

    I am in no way knowledgeable of the intricacies of policies on the right to drive a vehicle, but from what I gather, it seems to all be pretty regular and taking into account data. Now, is the data good? I am not in a place to say, so if you're educated about that let us know what you find reprehensible in there.

    And all that doesn't removes from the fact that our infrastructure is not properly maintained and developed, and hat many people in the province are not courteous drivers, in some region more than others (from my experience growing up outside of Montreal before moving to the city - where I come from, most drivers seemed to be motivated to make your life miserable).

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (13 children)

    Sort of unrelated but what is Quebec like to live in? I ask because my wife and I may take refuge there in couple of months with the way things are going here in the states. I don't speak French and the only language that I speak, besides English, is Spanish.

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  • [–] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Québec is very Nice to live in. We expect immigrants to learn french, and keep religions to themselves. All religions. Catholics have it easier because of our history, but still priests dont go proletyzing un school anymore. Se are largely socialist democrats. Way left of wathever is left un thé usa. The indépendant mouvement is currently gaining ground but i dont expect it to win indépendance while Trump ils un power.

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Wild you type with an accent.

    I like it

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Quebec is notoriously difficult for immigrants to Canada. Highly recommend heading toward Toronto or Ottawa instead

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Try to learn French and don't shove religious beliefs in our face. That's about it.

    Though our current government is trying to scapegoat immigrants for their own incompetence. I'll give you that. We're kicking them out next term however, we promise!

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Yah, don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking specifically about the Quebeçois govt being super strict with immigrants they allow in. I am Quebeçois through heritage so this is not coming from any place of judgment, just how things are to get in these days sadly

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    It’s also difficult for other Canadians visiting from other providences.

    Hell, it’s difficult for other Canadians when they visit us. One of my rudest interactions in the service industry was interacting with a Quebecker couple in Ontario. They were outraged that I didn’t understand French.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    Depends where. Most places around Montreal and Laval are pretty bilingual. The further you get away and eastward (3 rivières, Quebec City, etc. ) the more French it gets, even as close as 30 minutes out you might find there’s no English speaking folks at all, you will still be alright at most tourist destinations though. Not sure how it gets more westward towards Ontario.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    I'm Finnish and I lived in Montréal for a short while, absolutely loved it. Didn't speak any French when I moved there, but I took a language course meant for immigrants (I think it was the municipality that offered those courses? Didn't cost anything as far as I can remember, but it's been a while) and it didn't take me all that long until I could get by with just French in most "simple" situations like stores, restaurants, what have you.

    Like others have been saying Montréal is pretty much bilingual so it's easy to get by even if you don't speak French, but I'd definitely recommend studying French

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