It is mostly all about speed and kinetic energy and the protection of having a cage vs. having protoplasm. That creates an asymmetry, and cars need to not be treated fairly. They need to be discriminated against. You need to be ten times more careful around people when you're driving than pedestrians need to be around cars.
And if you're worried about someone throwing themselves on your car, have a dashcam and/or get security cam footage. And I live in Seattle where we get a lot of people jaywalking indiscriminately who one way or another don't seem to care about their own safety and I've never come close to hitting any of them either.
There's a real simple tactic to avoiding issues like that which is that if you see someone do anything erratic that you slow down and don't assume that just because you've got a legal right of way that you don't need to react at all. I've seen some videos of truly unavoidable accidents involving vehicles, but I don't think I've seen any unavoidable accidents involving pedestrians, other than the people who hurl themselves on the hood of stopped car to try to insurance scam. Those people aren't dead though.
And I don't see where you've offered any evidence that we have an issue with pedestrians being irrational and you seem to be very transparently trying to flip the blame without any evidence. Find that evidence if it exists. I doubt any traffic safety experts will agree with you though. Most will cite speeding, distracted driving, drunk driving and size of vehicles as the predominant factors behind pedestrian deaths. Everything else is pretty much whataboutisms unless you have evidence and not argument. You don't have the default position here, the default position needs to be that car drivers need to change.
Depends on your definition. They don't need to be treated equally, but if the system isn't "fair" then what's the point of anything? Nobody will follow a system they don't believe in and that doesn't make sense. Cars aren't treated equally, and are held to a higher standard.
"And I live in Seattle where we get a lot of people jaywalking indiscriminately who one way or another don't seem to care about their own safety and I've never come close to hitting any of them either."
If the police enforced the law, then perhaps we could protect those people from themselves. That's the way the system is designed - to have all parties be alert and responsible so as to reduce the probability of two irresponsible parties meeting, resulting in an accident.
"And I don't see where you've offered any evidence that we have an issue with pedestrians being irrational and you seem to be very transparently trying to flip the blame without any evidence."
Do you have any evidence of me flipping blame, or are you just attacking me now? I'm not trying to "flip" blame. You can look up contributory negligence if you'd like. You can look up just about any city you want and you will see a significant number of accidents show at least partial fault on the part of the pedestrian. Now, we could look at redesigning infrastructure to be safer, but as it stands pedestrians not following the law account for a large part of the problem under the current system. Simply changing the system to shift the blame around, as you propose, is not going to result in a safer system (you've shown no proof). Link at bottom
"You don't have the default position here, the default position needs to be that car drivers need to change."
There is no "default position" here, and to assume one is uncharitable and detracts from the discussion.
My position is that we need stricter testing for drivers. It's also in opposition to assuming a driver is guilty of manslaughter - I believe in innocent until proven guilty.
In an effort to explore your position, I've repeatedly asked for what proof would absolve a driver under your proposed system of guilty until proven innocent, yet you haven't provided any. We need criteria.
I've given examples of when pedestrians could be at fault by breaking the law. It appears you are the one engaging in whataboutism since my statements are backed up by law and fact, yet you have provided neither.
Having read this entire comment sub-thread I think you should spend some time operating some small and nimble piece of equipment in an open pit mine, a rail yard or a harbor. The rules on the road are not perfect but they are not arbitrary and exposure to even bigger size differences makes the reasons slightly more obvious.
It does. Have you read it? It shows that pedestrians are at fault in a large percentage of accidents. If we want to change that, then we have to change the infrastructure design. Not just shift blame within the existing system. Just look at their positive example in their article of Toronto having 67% of pedestrian deaths due to driver error. 33% is still a large number worth addressing.
And if you're worried about someone throwing themselves on your car, have a dashcam and/or get security cam footage. And I live in Seattle where we get a lot of people jaywalking indiscriminately who one way or another don't seem to care about their own safety and I've never come close to hitting any of them either.
There's a real simple tactic to avoiding issues like that which is that if you see someone do anything erratic that you slow down and don't assume that just because you've got a legal right of way that you don't need to react at all. I've seen some videos of truly unavoidable accidents involving vehicles, but I don't think I've seen any unavoidable accidents involving pedestrians, other than the people who hurl themselves on the hood of stopped car to try to insurance scam. Those people aren't dead though.
And I don't see where you've offered any evidence that we have an issue with pedestrians being irrational and you seem to be very transparently trying to flip the blame without any evidence. Find that evidence if it exists. I doubt any traffic safety experts will agree with you though. Most will cite speeding, distracted driving, drunk driving and size of vehicles as the predominant factors behind pedestrian deaths. Everything else is pretty much whataboutisms unless you have evidence and not argument. You don't have the default position here, the default position needs to be that car drivers need to change.