This happens virtually every single day. Drivers in Chicago would rather commit vehicular manslaughter than wait 5 seconds for someone to cross.
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It used to be common in Poland where pedestrians didn’t have priority when crossing the street, they had to wait for a car to stop and let them cross (of course they had priority once on the crosswalk). There were couple of attempts to change this but some politicians claimed that it will cause more accidents because it will be confusing, people will think they have priority, drivers will not stop… Finally, couple of years ago it passed and… it just worked, accidents were down.
Not giving pedestrians priority when crossing the street is beyond stupid.
What do they think an already stopped car is doing there? Straight to jail.
Yeah that driver is clearly not paying attention to the road
“Surely this person is stopped for no reason and not because someone is in the marked crosswalk.”
Totally off-topic: the Viofo A119 Mini v2 is one of the best dashcams ever made (speaking as another user of it!). Good stuff.
Also, that driver is insane.
having a 20 mph speed limit or lower in urban areas frequented by pedestrians, people in wheelchairs & walkers,strollers etc, bicyclists, (anyone not incased in tons of hard metal) wanting to use & enjoy the streets of their city with minimal fear, would be a good start on addressing manic car drivers who don’t have the time to slow down or yield to anyone or anything in their way
and some method of enforcing traffic laws, which seems to be lacking in most places these days in the USA, anyway
It’s a pity the footage cant be used to report the driver and have them. prosecuted: (
I love watching Cycling Mikey in London, UK reporting endless drivers he records and the salty tears from drivers reported for breaking the road rules there.
No light, no stop sign, only the requirement to stop for pedestrians and not even a light for them. And, since it’s Chicago, I’m guessing that road always has cars on it.
I would never use that crosswalk.
There should be a light there. But, more than that, since it’s a residential street with a park, the speed limit should be 25MPH, and there’s no reason for it to be three lanes. Furthermore, that red car turning left needs to look past the trees and wall in the median on the right, and account for six lanes of traffic, again without a light.
I’m guessing that red in the road near the crosswalk is paint, but it might as well be blood.
Even in Chicago drivers are required to yield to pedestrians at marked crosswalks.
Set up a brick container on both sides holding hall passes.
Edit: See edit at the end. I was working on incomplete information.
Looked it up, and here’s what Illinois traffic law has to say:
A driver must come to a complete stop (and yield):
- When a pedestrian is in a marked crosswalk [notably, this one is marked as a “zebra crossing”].
- On school days, when children are in close proximity to a school zone crosswalk.
So you technically don’t have to stop until a regular pedestrian steps into the crosswalk, but once they decide to enter, you have to stop your shit.
Additionally:
A driver must yield:
- When a pedestrian is in an unmarked crosswalk on the driver’s side of the roadway, and there are no traffic control signals.
- When making a turn at any intersection.
- When making a lawful turn on a red light after coming to a complete stop.
- After coming to a complete stop at a stop sign or flashing red signal at an intersection.
- When a pedestrian enters a crosswalk before the traffic light changes.
- When a pedestrian walks with a green light, to a “walking person” symbol or to a “walk” signal.
- When a pedestrian leaves or enters a street or highway from an alley, building, private road, or driveway.
- When a pedestrian enters an intersection with a flashing yellow arrow.
- To a person with disabilities, including physical, hearing and visual disabilities.
Only the last person was driving illegally, but I think the other people who didn’t stop were being dicks.
Edit: I dug further (i.e. into the compiled statutes and not just a handbook) and found more:
Whenever any vehicle is stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway, the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass such stopped vehicle.
So actually, the second-to-last car was violating traffic law too. The other two could be debated given the middle car wasn’t yet “stopped”, but it sure was still a diiiiick move.
Perfect example of how legislation doesn’t really make roads safer when the designs directly encourage the illegal behaviour and there’s not enough police to enforce it everywhere.
Narrow the intersection to one lane, elevate the crosswalk to sidewalk height, block parking two car lengths before the crosswalk, and turn the beg buttons into hard-countdown crossing buttons.
Since pedestrians have right-of-way at crosswalks, we should be designing the crosswalks to reflect that. Otherwise we’ll continue seeing this kind of behavior from drivers.
Yeah, I really love these laws, and I follow them religiously when I have to be drive, but unfortunately very few Chicago drivers know/follow them. I live on a busy street near some pretty major tourist attractions, and we have a lot of out of town drivers so it’s really hit or miss, ahem.
I find I have to make sure I have caught the driver’s attention in some way before I venture in into the crosswalk, at least then if they hit me it’s out of choice not inattentiveness. Even a driver who thinks I’m breaking the law by crossing should stop if they see me in enough time.
Interesting. In California you are required to stop if someone else stops at a crosswalk for this exact reason. I’m surprised Illinois doesn’t have such a law.
I response to your comment, I looked in the compiled statutes, and such a law exists. I guess it just isn’t mentioned in the handbook.
625 ILCS 5/11-1002(d), which I quoted in an edit.
So it’s pointless then.
Literally they exist for one situation…
person walks onto street
“I’m gonna hit that idiot. Oh, dang! They’re on a crosswalk so I’m not allowed to.”
That’s the logic.
My area has a bunch of these crosswalks on six lane 40 MPH / 65 km/h streets and I never dare to use them.
We’ve got one that’s 45 mph, well known for pedestrian hits. Runs through poor housing areas where people tend to walk to places. But there are lights and crosswalks, so it’s got that over this place.
Yulp. Hasn’t changed a bit since I lived there.
Y’all need some crossing bricks.
This is why some city slap speed bump everywhere because asshole won’t slow down.
Raised crosswalks are getting more popular for the same reason
I don’t trust crosswalks at all. I’ll just wave the cars past and wait for no cars.
All the car waiting for them did is create a blind spot.
Why the fuck is there even a crossing without lights on a 3 lane road? America’s roads are all kind of fucked up.
That’s what I thought. Rarely I’ll see one on a two-lane, usually they are set up with lights. This six-lane avenue? That’s likely getting an overpass, lights as minimum.
This is road engineering so stupid, I wouldn’t have believed it were a real thing, but here’s a video.
Don’t do that. Don’t provide me with idiotsincars again. My blood pressure just settled from when last I was there.
If you stop, put your hazards on for the people in the cross walk.
