snowflake20 wrote:
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PathH8Tr wrote:
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snowflake20 wrote:
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PathH8Tr wrote:
Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks period. No ifs, ands or buts. Pedestrians are soft tissued, easily breakable - cars are metal, 2000 lbs. I've never in my life lived anywhere else where this is put in question daily on the streets when cars don't stop, try and get away without stopping or just barely let you walk across. I've been almost hit 3 times and can't count the near misses on many other occasions in the past ten years living here. And all I've done is try to cross the street, carefully, at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Other cities are well trained in the civility of letting a pedestrian cross. It's the law. Why are we different?

It doesn't matter if it takes you 10 more minutes to get to work letting a dozen pedestrians at a dozen crosswalks cross. It is civil, it's the law, it's the thing to do. If you don't like waiting, find another route. What a great city it would be if we were that civil to one another instead of seeing what we can get away with.

And if you make the argument pedestrians needs to do their job first and cross correctly or whatever the argument will be on this thread that pedestrians have to do their part. Nope. Cars are BIG. Cars are HEAVY. Cars can kill. Let the cars start being polite and letting people cross. We can teach our pedestrians after, why? Because then they are still ALIVE to learn how.

I always stop for pedestrians when they are on the curb and trying to cross the street. However, I've seen people cross streets not on the cross walk, cross against the light on a busy street and then jump off of the curb without looking up from their phones. You are supposed to look both ways before you cross the street! We learned this in Kindergarten.

I drive through DT JC and Hoboken often and I can't tell you how many times I've had to slam on my brake because some idiot who wasn't anywhere near the curb while I entered the intersection, walks into the crosswalk without looking up. If a car is already approaching the crosswalk that doesn't mean you can run from the sidwalk and jump off the curb into the intersection to cut off a car! Look up and stop before you cross the street!

They still have the right of way regardless if they are idiots or not. Don't adhere to j-walkers, but adhere to those crossing at a legal pedestrian crosswalk. Phones in hand, blindfolded, walking backwards, those with a skip in their step, a gaggle of teens walking .000008 mph, they legally have the right of way. They are soft targets, cars are hard targets. You hit 'em, you pay, not the other way around.

Fine. I'll go to jail but at least I'll still be alive.

PathH8Tr wrote:
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snowflake20 wrote:
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PathH8Tr wrote:
Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks period. No ifs, ands or buts. Pedestrians are soft tissued, easily breakable - cars are metal, 2000 lbs. I've never in my life lived anywhere else where this is put in question daily on the streets when cars don't stop, try and get away without stopping or just barely let you walk across. I've been almost hit 3 times and can't count the near misses on many other occasions in the past ten years living here. And all I've done is try to cross the street, carefully, at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Other cities are well trained in the civility of letting a pedestrian cross. It's the law. Why are we different?

It doesn't matter if it takes you 10 more minutes to get to work letting a dozen pedestrians at a dozen crosswalks cross. It is civil, it's the law, it's the thing to do. If you don't like waiting, find another route. What a great city it would be if we were that civil to one another instead of seeing what we can get away with.

And if you make the argument pedestrians needs to do their job first and cross correctly or whatever the argument will be on this thread that pedestrians have to do their part. Nope. Cars are BIG. Cars are HEAVY. Cars can kill. Let the cars start being polite and letting people cross. We can teach our pedestrians after, why? Because then they are still ALIVE to learn how.

I always stop for pedestrians when they are on the curb and trying to cross the street. However, I've seen people cross streets not on the cross walk, cross against the light on a busy street and then jump off of the curb without looking up from their phones. You are supposed to look both ways before you cross the street! We learned this in Kindergarten.

I drive through DT JC and Hoboken often and I can't tell you how many times I've had to slam on my brake because some idiot who wasn't anywhere near the curb while I entered the intersection, walks into the crosswalk without looking up. If a car is already approaching the crosswalk that doesn't mean you can run from the sidwalk and jump off the curb into the intersection to cut off a car! Look up and stop before you cross the street!

They still have the right of way regardless if they are idiots or not. Don't adhere to j-walkers, but adhere to those crossing at a legal pedestrian crosswalk. Phones in hand, blindfolded, walking backwards, those with a skip in their step, a gaggle of teens walking .000008 mph, they legally have the right of way. They are soft targets, cars are hard targets. You hit 'em, you pay, not the other way around.

PathH8Tr wrote:
They still have the right of way regardless if they are idiots or not. Don't adhere to j-walkers, but adhere to those crossing at a legal pedestrian crosswalk. Phones in hand, blindfolded, walking backwards, those with a skip in their step, a gaggle of teens walking .000008 mph, they legally have the right of way. They are soft targets, cars are hard targets. You hit 'em, you pay, not the other way around.

Law of Gross Tonnage

The law, which is more common sense then explicitly written in the code, goes like this: ?The heavier vessel always has the right-of-way.?

This is based on simple Newtonian physics. Newton?s first law talks about objects in motion stay in motion unless another force is acted upon it. In other words, if a boat is moving a 5 mph east and you were in the vacuum of space, it would never stop traveling east at 5 mph. However, we all know when we stop our engine on our boat, we slow down.

How long it takes to go from 5 mph to zero, depends on wind, and current. Even if there was no wind or current, we?d still slow down, because the water itself provides friction upon the hull of the boat, and that in itself acts as a brake.

We all have, by observation found that the bigger the object, the longer it takes to slow down. Newton?s second law of physics talks about how the amount of force required to move an object is inversely proportional to the mass of the object.

So, if a tug and barge were traveling down a narrow channel, and you stopped your boat 1,000 feet away, right in front of the tug and barge; and, if the master of the tug saw you immediately; and if the master of the tug immediately began to stop the tug and barge; you?d have less than one minute to move your vessel.

Because if you didn?t move your vessel in less than 60 small seconds, the tug and barge would just run right over you. It would be impossible for the master of the tug to stop, based of the collective mass of both the vessel and the barge, in 1,000 feet.

The law of gross tonnage is un-relenting. It is a fact of life. What also is a fact of life, is that you should not depend on the master of the tug or any other large vessel is able to see you, either visually or on radar.

snowflake20 wrote:
Quote:

PathH8Tr wrote:
Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks period. No ifs, ands or buts. Pedestrians are soft tissued, easily breakable - cars are metal, 2000 lbs. I've never in my life lived anywhere else where this is put in question daily on the streets when cars don't stop, try and get away without stopping or just barely let you walk across. I've been almost hit 3 times and can't count the near misses on many other occasions in the past ten years living here. And all I've done is try to cross the street, carefully, at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Other cities are well trained in the civility of letting a pedestrian cross. It's the law. Why are we different?

It doesn't matter if it takes you 10 more minutes to get to work letting a dozen pedestrians at a dozen crosswalks cross. It is civil, it's the law, it's the thing to do. If you don't like waiting, find another route. What a great city it would be if we were that civil to one another instead of seeing what we can get away with.

And if you make the argument pedestrians needs to do their job first and cross correctly or whatever the argument will be on this thread that pedestrians have to do their part. Nope. Cars are BIG. Cars are HEAVY. Cars can kill. Let the cars start being polite and letting people cross. We can teach our pedestrians after, why? Because then they are still ALIVE to learn how.

I always stop for pedestrians when they are on the curb and trying to cross the street. However, I've seen people cross streets not on the cross walk, cross against the light on a busy street and then jump off of the curb without looking up from their phones. You are supposed to look both ways before you cross the street! We learned this in Kindergarten.

I drive through DT JC and Hoboken often and I can't tell you how many times I've had to slam on my brake because some idiot who wasn't anywhere near the curb while I entered the intersection, walks into the crosswalk without looking up. If a car is already approaching the crosswalk that doesn't mean you can run from the sidwalk and jump off the curb into the intersection to cut off a car! Look up and stop before you cross the street!

PathH8Tr wrote:
Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks period. No ifs, ands or buts. Pedestrians are soft tissued, easily breakable - cars are metal, 2000 lbs. I've never in my life lived anywhere else where this is put in question daily on the streets when cars don't stop, try and get away without stopping or just barely let you walk across. I've been almost hit 3 times and can't count the near misses on many other occasions in the past ten years living here. And all I've done is try to cross the street, carefully, at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Other cities are well trained in the civility of letting a pedestrian cross. It's the law. Why are we different?

It doesn't matter if it takes you 10 more minutes to get to work letting a dozen pedestrians at a dozen crosswalks cross. It is civil, it's the law, it's the thing to do. If you don't like waiting, find another route. What a great city it would be if we were that civil to one another instead of seeing what we can get away with.

And if you make the argument pedestrians needs to do their job first and cross correctly or whatever the argument will be on this thread that pedestrians have to do their part. Nope. Cars are BIG. Cars are HEAVY. Cars can kill. Let the cars start being polite and letting people cross. We can teach our pedestrians after, why? Because then they are still ALIVE to learn how.

Kelcey wrote:
I agree that we all need to drive cautiously and safely, but we also need to recognize when trying to be nice/generous creates dangerous driving conditions. One of my best friends does this all the time--it's not that she doesn't 'get' the right of way rules at four-way stops, she just thinks she's being nice to let other drivers go. I tell her over and over that by violating the rules, she's causing confusion for other drivers and is more likely to cause an accident.

I can't tell you how many times I've stopped for someone on the curb, waved them on, and had them indicate they're not actually crossing the street, just standing there. Or they are crossing the street, eventually, after they futz with their phone or kid or whatever.

brewster wrote:
I can't tell you how many times I've stopped for someone on the curb, waved them on, and had them indicate they're not actually crossing the street, just standing there. Or they are crossing the street, eventually, after they futz with their phone or kid or whatever.

The new "west coast" style law IS hard to get my NY born and bred head around, I try to be conciencious driving around here, as a parent I'd be crazy not to, but sometimes there's just too much going on. Like, you're trying to make a left from 7th onto Erie, the view is obstructed and it's a high traffic time, you have to wait for a small opening and have a but a moment to make your turn and glance to see that someone hasn't stepped off the curb of the NW corner in either direction. Yes of course they have right of way, but the close calls can be harrowing.

trambone wrote:
Laws do not have to be posted widely. Ignorance of a law is not the governments responsibility.

matt07302 wrote:

The new law isn't a drastic change requiring any adapted driving behavior. Before it was yield and now it is stop, but in the end it is essentially same thing

Simple. This is not a "basic driving law in every state" and it is a relatively new law in New Jersey. The law was changed a year ago. Used to be "yield", now it is "stop".

And I do not remember any big announcements about the change either. And it is not just me. Judging by your unequivocal pronouncement, it is as much news to you as to the person you blame.

CatDog wrote:
oh bullshit from all of you. I'd like to see how many of you, driving down a major road, take notice of everyone on the sidewalk to see if they're waiting to cross or not.

matt07302 wrote:

You shouldn't have been given a drivers license.

This is basic driving law in every state. How is this news to you? ...

socialgal wrote:

Apparently the law in JC is that you have to come to a full stop at every crosswalk that is *painted* (with or without a light or stop sign) if there is a pedestrian waiting to cross. I will concede that it is a just and reasonable law in such a densely populated area and one that I am good about - not that I knew about it! Not posted anywhere.

However I logged in to pay my ticket (yes, I pay my tickets) and it is 230 dollars! You have absolutely got to be effing kidding me. That's more than the ticket for speeding more than 20 mph over the speed limit! I would end up paying less than if I floored it down Erie (which I never do).