I actually think this is a great idea. Often in a crowd, I want to either stop and not be run into by people, or I'm rushing and people often obstruct and I have to dodge all of them to make on my way.
Having an actual place to chill out and walk slowly (cellphone or not) would help immensely.
I wish they would do this in San Francisco. Or just teach people to step to the curb when they aren't walking on the side"walk".
When I moved here from South Florida 10 years ago I noticed something very different about public customs in SF. People are inconsiderate when it comes to public spaces. In my hometown pedestrians will shoulder check you or pass aggressively close if you take up the sidewalk. It's just fucking rude to hog a public thoroughfare.
In SF people don't give a shit about others around them. They walk down a sidewalk, slowly, 3-4 wide. They stop right in the middle of the sidewalk and peck at their phone. They congregate across the sidewalk outside restaurants and stores. It's almost like a contagious passive-aggressive behavior you pick up after being here long enough.
I still pass people and invade their personal space if they're blocking the sidewalk. It's an innate aggressive behavior that I have to indulge. Hopefully some scooter-pedestrian collisions will fix this shitty behavior.
Wait for the scooters. But, of course, "To get the permits, each company has to demonstrate that it'll provide user education on wearing helmets and not riding on sidewalks, as well as best practices for safe scooter parking." I'm sure that will work.
I think we're on the same side as you have a similar sentiment to mine, but I don't think what you're describing necessarily intentional. People just act differently in densely populated areas. I walk differently when I'm in DC or Singapore or Ohio.
One of the things is you get used to people being close in dense places in general. In fact, what you're describing might not even be interpreted as "aggressive" by the people you're walking close to in order to, I guess, communicate they're in the way. They may not even process it.
I have the same problem when I visit Melbourne. One of the reasons I love living in Brisbane is that there’s less people, so less crowding on sidewalks. Death to all who “walk” (slower than a toddler who’s just learned the damned skill) 3/4-wide!
I don't live in the Bay Area, or in the US for that matter, but visited multiple times and the reason for this behavior is that people in the Bay Area are usually more relaxed than in other regions I've been to, like New York or other big and crowded cities, like Bucharest where I live.
IMO it's also "fucking rude" to "shoulder check or pass aggressively close".
I should be able to walk at my own pace and I don't freaking care that you're late somewhere. What can I say, leave earlier, take some other route or get a scooter. Not my problem and whenever I get "shoulder checked" I do get aggressive and I punched somebody once.
It doesn't work really well for car lanes, not sure if it would work any better for pedestrians... around here, the right lane is often the fastest lane but slow traffic is supposed to be in that lane. I think joggers and fast walkers would end up using it a lot.
I mean, are you just talking about exceptions or is it generally worse? If most slower cars take the right lane and most faster drivers take the left then it works generally better than if there were no such rule no? There will always be exceptions, but a little infrastructure can always help the typical situation.
far too common in my experience... some states have laws to try to prevent that, but in most places, they just ask you to do the right thing and it doesn't really work.
"低头族" is a phrase for smartphone addicts, can be translated to something like "a group of people who have their heads down." (Unfortunately Google is translating literally character-by-character instead.)
"Dedicated channel/passage" sounds about right though.
I wouldn't jump to any conclusions on that one yet. Both the statement that smartphone use is increasing the number of accidents and that this would be caused by people not looking at traffic lights are somewhat suspect.
Especially since I routinely see people simply crossing the street disregarding the traffic lights altogether regardless of smartphone use (here in Eindhoven at least).
There is a least one study that showed smart phone users were more careful.
It seemed because they knew they were shifting to a different activity they were more careful.
I'm suspect on it, but yes, there needs to be more than the lame, lets bag on people different to us and fit them into some sort of troublemaker cliche.
I wonder if pavement lights would be beneficial in other ways, e.g. for training guide dogs you could have the red light to indicate stop and the absence of a light for go ahead. I think it would be useful for self-driving wheelchairs to detect floor lighting strips, too. Why not then have smartphones detect the lights as you're walking and looking at your phone, then they can vibrate to let you know something in the real world needs your attention.
Interesting, my guess as to why this doesn’t fly is the US is a mix of aggressive tow truck companies that prowl every downtown looking for cars to tow as they often get paid per car and the frequency of police that are all too happy to slap a $100-$300 fine on your windshield to help meet their monthly quota.
Either the reality of these two things or the successful perception of them is what would keep me from just rolling up on a sidewalk because I couldn’t find parking.
Does China not have fines and/or towing providing individual incentive to behave?
China doesn’t really have rule of law like the west does. Unless they are doing their once a year crackdown or it is a very important place, you won’t get a ticket or get towed.
Some cities are worse than others. Shanghai has much more enforcement than a lesser tier city like Beijing.
Most developing countries have a... loose notion of rule of law and following the rules. Even the ones with all-powerful dictatorships (China, Egypt), or relatively far along in their economic development/consolidation (Israel when I was growing up, Turkey).
There's a sort of critical mass you need to get people to follow rules like this, since enforcing them against an uncooperative majority requires impractical amounts of policing resources, whereas once most people are following the rules it's easy to deter the smaller number of rule-breakers. Similar to the concept of "tax morale".
In my corner of Shanghai there are also designated parking spots that can only be reached by driving onto the sidewalk first. There is usually enough space for a car to drive past parked cars and pedestrians at the same time (those sidewalks are wide), but you still need to pay a bit of attention to avoid getting honked at.
China has mechanical barriers on paid parking spots in some cities.
Believe me or not, even they don't deter a surprising amount of people who don't mind scratching their paint and getting few dimples on the hull (and those drive expensive cars.)
Hopefully the next thing is roving gangs with baseball bats that have, “Pay Fucking Attention You Self-Absorbed Prick!” engraved on the barrel. That, or snipers with tranquilizer darts that just take down irresponsible pedestrians.
The comment is a bit over the top, but the people engaged in this "zombie" behavior are behaving terribly and their self-centered behavior creates obstacles and frustrating delays for everyone else.
They also present a clear danger in spaces that are shared with cyclists (for example) in the same way a cyclist does if he rides without care for auto traffic in the street. I usually don't think of violence, but "zombies" in the shared cyclist paths come close to making me consider it sometimes. They're a danger to themselves and others.
Depends on what the data have to say. What fraction of pedestrian-cyclist collisions/incidents are the result of "zombie" pedestrians? How many per person-mile traveled? How do these compare to the same figures for drunk driving?
For me it is the notion that these boondoggles contribute to the normalization of walking in a public space oblivious to your surroundings; pandering to what is for a good percentage of people downright addictive behaviour detrimental to their own mental health.
It's as if the government stimulated smoking rather than aim for a society where smoking is exceptional and not accepted in public spaces.
Eventually one of these walkways will have to cross a road. Do they have an alarm or something that alerts the phone users to actually look up before they cross?!
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadHaving an actual place to chill out and walk slowly (cellphone or not) would help immensely.
When I moved here from South Florida 10 years ago I noticed something very different about public customs in SF. People are inconsiderate when it comes to public spaces. In my hometown pedestrians will shoulder check you or pass aggressively close if you take up the sidewalk. It's just fucking rude to hog a public thoroughfare.
In SF people don't give a shit about others around them. They walk down a sidewalk, slowly, 3-4 wide. They stop right in the middle of the sidewalk and peck at their phone. They congregate across the sidewalk outside restaurants and stores. It's almost like a contagious passive-aggressive behavior you pick up after being here long enough.
I still pass people and invade their personal space if they're blocking the sidewalk. It's an innate aggressive behavior that I have to indulge. Hopefully some scooter-pedestrian collisions will fix this shitty behavior.
One of the things is you get used to people being close in dense places in general. In fact, what you're describing might not even be interpreted as "aggressive" by the people you're walking close to in order to, I guess, communicate they're in the way. They may not even process it.
Which, ironically, makes you the passive-aggressive one.
IMO it's also "fucking rude" to "shoulder check or pass aggressively close".
I should be able to walk at my own pace and I don't freaking care that you're late somewhere. What can I say, leave earlier, take some other route or get a scooter. Not my problem and whenever I get "shoulder checked" I do get aggressive and I punched somebody once.
Yet, in doing so inconsiderately, you're denying others the right to do the exact same thing.
> I do get aggressive and I punched somebody once.
Ah, so the problem is you, thanks for confirming.
(translate.google.com for the phrase is also mildly amusing: "Lower family dedicated channel")
"Dedicated channel/passage" sounds about right though.
It seemed because they knew they were shifting to a different activity they were more careful.
I'm suspect on it, but yes, there needs to be more than the lame, lets bag on people different to us and fit them into some sort of troublemaker cliche.
Uh, what? Cars come on to the...pavement? Do they mean the sidewalk? How is this supposed to work?
Either the reality of these two things or the successful perception of them is what would keep me from just rolling up on a sidewalk because I couldn’t find parking.
Does China not have fines and/or towing providing individual incentive to behave?
Some cities are worse than others. Shanghai has much more enforcement than a lesser tier city like Beijing.
There's a sort of critical mass you need to get people to follow rules like this, since enforcing them against an uncooperative majority requires impractical amounts of policing resources, whereas once most people are following the rules it's easy to deter the smaller number of rule-breakers. Similar to the concept of "tax morale".
Believe me or not, even they don't deter a surprising amount of people who don't mind scratching their paint and getting few dimples on the hull (and those drive expensive cars.)
Found a picture on my phone. https://i.imgur.com/9BIjZmW.jpg
They also present a clear danger in spaces that are shared with cyclists (for example) in the same way a cyclist does if he rides without care for auto traffic in the street. I usually don't think of violence, but "zombies" in the shared cyclist paths come close to making me consider it sometimes. They're a danger to themselves and others.
It's as if the government stimulated smoking rather than aim for a society where smoking is exceptional and not accepted in public spaces.
1: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smombie
How hard it is to take your eyes of your phone to be a human being and pay attention to what matters?