These San Franciscans blame pedestrians for traffic deaths
sfstandard.com
San Francisco’s Vision Zero data suggest that in recent years, motorists were at fault in most pedestrian deaths by car. Still, some readers think city safety measures do more to inconvenience drivers than to protect those on foot.

Daylighting, which involves removing parked cars from around crosswalks in order to improve visibility and just wiped out about 14,000 street parking spaces, has proved especially controversial.

“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer,” Nina Geneson Otis wrote in an email to The Standard. The real estate broker said daylighting is the kind of policy that makes Democrats lose elections.

Others say the city’s actions remove responsibility from pedestrians to look out for their own safety. “A pedestrian can do anything, and be irresponsible, and no harm will come to them?” Brandi said, describing the policies as “idiot-proof.”

  • eRac@lemmings.worldEnglish
    2·
    22 days ago

    I don’t think she’s complaining. She is making the very good point that the benefit of the bill is invisible, while the downsides are visible. Making policy decisions based on what’s right instead of what’s marketable makes a party unpopular because the electorate is dumb and shortsighted.

    FWIW, it’s not allowed in Chicago but people tend to use the space for short-term parking and pulling over. The city has started blocking the road surface near corners to make this impossible, both with curb bump outs and simple flexible reflective posts.