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walkandtalkk t1_iv99wen wrote

Reply to comment by campbeer in Nearly killed in a crosswalk...again. Is there anything to be done? by GrokYourWorld

A lot of this comes down to enforcement. You can have all the bike lanes, weekend street closures, and no-turn-on-anything policies you want. But that's only going to stop halfway-responsible drivers. The people who seem to be making D.C. a lot more dangerous for pedestrians recently are the many complete assholes who just do not care about traffic laws. Or the halfholes who may not intend to run a light but are willing to text while driving.

Constant enforcement is how you deal with that. It doesn't even have to be super strict. Just reliable enough to deter assholes.

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Bitterfish t1_ivam97y wrote

This is actually completely backwards. You can't control people's minds, and you can't have traffic cops on every street corner at all times; enforcement is extremely limited in what it can accomplish.

But you can build infrastructure that makes it harder to drive dangerously -- and this works on people no matter how erratically they want to drive. People don't want to wreck their cars -- if you build infrastructure where unsafe driving is very likely to lead you to smash into a curb or median or divider, even really dickish drivers will drive safer.

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campbeer t1_iv9b0d8 wrote

Some, not all. I definitely agree with meaningful enforcement such as reciprocity for outstanding tickets, or a meaningful punishment when caught. But I think this is all a short term solution.

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Yithar t1_ivd05s6 wrote

As stated, enforcement only goes so far. You really need roads to be designed to make dangerous driving difficult. This includes speed bumps and narrow roads. Dutch roads are designed like this.

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