this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Pedestrians and cyclists implicated for their own mortality by Victoria Police in road safety education campaign. #australia (themooraboolnews.com.au)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Excerpt from article:

“We all play a role in keeping our roads safe and Crime Stoppers Victoria is offering vulnerable pedestrians the tools they need to use our roads safely,” she [Crime Stoppers Victoria Chief Executive Stella Smith] said.

“We have seen 175 pedestrians killed on our roads over the last five years, and a significant number of those have been in 60 km/h zones.

“We hope with more education and awareness we can reduce the number of injuries and most importantly, deaths on our roads.”

As part of the campaign, Crime Stoppers Victoria will hit the streets to actively engage with high-risk pedestrians to educate them on how they can help keep our roads incident-free.

I guess that means police will be out in force handing out fines to pedestrians and cyclists. "Job done!"

Archived: https://archive.md/UOcHu

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"The most vulnerable people are primary school children aged 4-12, intoxicated pedestrians aged 30-39, and elderly pedestrians aged over 70."

"As part of the campaign, Crime Stoppers Victoria will hit the streets to actively engage with high-risk pedestrians to educate them on how they can help keep our roads incident-free."

How does anyone see this as anything but bananas? Kids should be able to quickly and safely get to and from school without needing worry about whether or not a driver will mow them down. People who've been drinking are infamously not great decision makers so I don't know how "educating" will help any. And 70 year olds are vulnerable because they are 70 years old not because they don't know how dangerous cars are.

"'We have seen 175 pedestrians killed on our roads over the last five years, and a significant number of those have been in 60 km/h zones.'"

the problem is the cars and the car-centric infrastructure, jfc go fix that

[–] yesinmybackyard 4 points 1 year ago

Yup, I'd like to take a closer look at what exactly those 60 kph zones look like. I'll bet my hat that they are all stroads.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Excerpt from article:

“We all play a role in keeping our roads safe and Crime Stoppers Victoria is offering vulnerable pedestrians the tools they need to use our roads safely,” she [Crime Stoppers Victoria Chief Executive Stella Smith] said.

“We have seen 175 pedestrians killed on our roads over the last five years, and a significant number of those have been in 60 km/h zones.

“We hope with more education and awareness we can reduce the number of injuries and most importantly, deaths on our roads.”

As part of the campaign, Crime Stoppers Victoria will hit the streets to actively engage with high-risk pedestrians to educate them on how they can help keep our roads incident-free.

I guess that means police will be out in force handing out fines to pedestrians and cyclists. “Job done!”

Archived: https://archive.md/UOcHu

[–] RoadkillUgly 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Perhaps they are just talking to pedestrians and cyclists that are in a world of their own? Not everything to do with the copers has to do with fines.

The number of pedestrians I see crossing roads with their heads glued to their phones, cyclists at night with no lights or cruising through red lights, groups riding 4 abreast on narrow, winding and hilly 100kmh roads (just a few examples) is astonishing.

Like it or not vehicles will always exist and it is up to everyone to play their part in not being a danger to anyone else or themselves.

Yes there are a lot of reckless, careless, distracted or entitled drivers but there are also pedestrians and cyclists that fit squarely in one or more of those categories.

I say this as someone who has been severely injured on my bicycle as the result of a hit and run, but also continues to ride. I also ride motorcycles and drive over 1000km per week for work for over 40 years, avoiding idiots multiple times a day, be they driving, walking or riding.

Perhaps we all need to be more spatially aware, courteous and in less of a hurry with more sense of self preservation, regardless of our mode of transport.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. ✌️

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Yes there are a lot of reckless, careless, distracted or entitled drivers but there are also pedestrians and cyclists that fit squarely in one or more of those categories."

There is a lot I disagree with in your comment, but I am wondering why you're making this false equivalency. How many people have "distracted pedestrians" killed or severely injured? In the same vein, from the article one of the most vulnerable groups is kids 4-12. What's the way to make sure kids, famous for their inhibitory control, aren't distracted?

[–] RoadkillUgly 1 points 1 year ago

How is it a false equivalence? I can tell you that avoiding obstacles(pedestrians, cyclists, dogs etc) in a split secnd can cause accidents I dont think I need to explain that. As far as 4-12yr olds maybe what used to be done could be an answer. Hold their hand when walking across the road. I dunno, I don't have all the answers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Everyone here reacts very negatively to this because blaming pedestrian has been, via jaywalking rules, in the past, a strategy encourage by car companies to push cities toward more car centric cities. Also it's been proven over and over that car speed is the main factor in pedestrian collisions.

Obviously everyone should be well aware of the dangers of their everyday life and education is good as long as the lesson isn't "get the fuck out of the way or die"

[–] RoadkillUgly 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The education should be "everyone and everything on the road is trying to kill you. I think jaywalking rules may be an american thing. But simply Cars are more noticeable visibly and audibly, pedestrians can stop and change direction orders of magnitude faster than cars. Do I think built up urban areas should discourage car use? Yes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

@RoadkillUgly @pec The problem is cars.

Cars are an inherently dangerous mode of transport.

According to the WHO, car accidents kill 1.3 million people worldwide each year.

Let's put that number into perspective.

There's around 212 seats on a Boeing 777 jumbo jet, depending on configuration.

So 1.3 million deaths is equivalent to around 6132 plane crashes each year. That works out to be equivalent to around 16 plane crashes globally each day.

Cars also make every other mode of transport more dangerous, slower, and less efficient.

You raise walking while looking at your phone. Well, that's generally not a deadly act (try it in a park sometime). Well, what makes that deadly is cars.

Riding a bike, e-bike, or scooter is significantly more dangerous in mixed traffic than it is on a dedicated cycling path or barrier protected bike lane.

It is car drivers who are in control of a deadly multi-tonne vehicle.

Responsibility always rests with the driver.

Full stop.

Now, there are a range of measures that the Victorian state government could put in place to make streets safer for all modes.

Barrier-protected cycling lanes along major streets and roads. Reducing speed limits to 30 KP/h on local streets. Road diets. Pedestrianising major shopping strips.

But suburban Melbourne's backwards car-dependent approach to planning means it's a long way behind the world's best practice, in countries, such as the Netherlands.

It's a long way behind countries in Europe that aren't quite at world's best practice, such as Austria.

It's a long way behind cities and countries that were behind the iron curtain during the Cold War.

It's even falling behind Sydney.

So yes, the problem is with cars. And trying to place the blame on anything else is blaming the victim.

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #cars #cycling #bikes #traffic #walkability #cities #walking

[–] RoadkillUgly 1 points 1 year ago

2 million die every year from diarrhoea. Your point?

[–] rhacer 1 points 1 year ago

I don't understand why people believe they are not responsible for their personal safety.

As residents of this planet we should all watch out for one another, but relying on others to watch out for you, while not watching out for yourself is foolish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm curious, what is your relationship to fuckcars and urbanism in general? Which subreddits and/or YouTube channels do/did you frequent?

[–] RoadkillUgly 2 points 1 year ago

I didn't think I needed a relationship to join a conversation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What the fuck is this gatekeeping shit?

Who gives a fuck where they posted or what they watched.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow. First of all mate, let's chill out a little, hey? Personally, one of the things that I've loved about Lemmy so far is how much more civil it has been than Reddit. Let's try and keep it that way.

As to your main point: I'll be satisfied with an answer of "literally anything". I just suspect that this person isn't an urbanist, and has in fact just blown in from the wider car-brained community. I'm happy to be proven wrong on that though.

[–] RoadkillUgly 1 points 1 year ago

As a cyclist, hit and run by a car, resuscitated 3 times, massive blood loss, massive cranio-facial injuries and traumatic brain injury, zero compensation etc. I think I may have a reason to "fuck cars" but I don't. I was just trying to give a different perspective to the conversation. Which seems to have gone down like a diarrhoea thickshake.

So yeah I must have just blew in from the car brain community. Sorry to disturb your group, I will not bother you again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is possible that a few of these were in fact “glued to their phones” but the majority are from speeding and/or distracted driving. Because regardless of how distracted or badly you are behaving on the road as a pedestrian or cyclist, about the only way you are going to die is if a car runs you over.

And unless the car is being controlled by a psychopath, that pretty much implies failure to control speed or failure to see the other person on the road rather than being young, old or intoxicated while walking/biking. (OK, intoxicated while biking is a crime, this is true.)

Meaning the real issues are more likely:

  • reducing speed limits in any area where cars can interact with pedestrians/cyclists
  • separating high speed traffic from cyclists with physical infrastructure (aka separated bike paths)
  • more walkable areas where cars physically cannot go (city centers, walkable shopping districts)

Basically all the Strong Towns stuff as usual.

[–] RoadkillUgly 1 points 1 year ago

I agree with your dotpoints and their implementation would go a long way to reducing deaths and trauma.

I also think cyclists and pedestrians have a responsibility to make themselves visible, be predictable and follow the same road rules when on the road.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I'm all for walkable cities and all that but being mad about this is some nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

VIC police asked “What are pedestrians doing around 60 km/h zones?”, while the correct question to pose was “What are 60 km/h zones doing around pedestrians?”.