If you drive down Cherokee Avenue in Atlanta's Grant Park neighborhood and see a car precariously balanced on two wheels atop a concrete divider, don't
This is a driver failure of paying attention, not a failure of design. People would complain about freaking guard rails and concrete posts in front of stores if someone hits it.
There will always be a problem with people not paying attention though. You only need to be distracted for a second to kill a pedestrian or a person on a bike.
But the design doesn’t need to be this invasive. Copenhagen which is a top-tier bike city does three levels of “roads”: cars lowest, bikes 10 cm (3 inches) up, and pedestrians at the top level a further 10 cm up. That’s more than enough to catch even the most distracted drivers, and it keeps pedestrians clear of the bikes so they can go full speed too.
That would be effective against most commuter cars in in the USA. But then there’s the trucks they make now where anyone directly in front of it is invisible. Those 6 inches would do nothing with the asshats that drive those distracted.
Yeah you’re right, those trucks are stupidly big. I’ve seen a few of the smaller variants in Sweden recently (and they enrage me to the point of plotting murder), but they’re nowhere near an F-150.
This is a driver failure of paying attention, not a failure of design. People would complain about freaking guard rails and concrete posts in front of stores if someone hits it.
There will always be a problem with people not paying attention though. You only need to be distracted for a second to kill a pedestrian or a person on a bike.
But the design doesn’t need to be this invasive. Copenhagen which is a top-tier bike city does three levels of “roads”: cars lowest, bikes 10 cm (3 inches) up, and pedestrians at the top level a further 10 cm up. That’s more than enough to catch even the most distracted drivers, and it keeps pedestrians clear of the bikes so they can go full speed too.
That would be effective against most commuter cars in in the USA. But then there’s the trucks they make now where anyone directly in front of it is invisible. Those 6 inches would do nothing with the asshats that drive those distracted.
Yeah you’re right, those trucks are stupidly big. I’ve seen a few of the smaller variants in Sweden recently (and they enrage me to the point of plotting murder), but they’re nowhere near an F-150.
I’m six foot and I have to literally climb up into them now. It’s obscene, where as my 1988 truck did the same job for like 1/3 the height.
I saw someone drive into one of the large red concrete spheres at a Target once. Stopped their car quite effectively.