(12-06-2020, 05:35 PM)plam Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 01:53 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I believe "manslaughter" is the correct term, at least in Canada, both for the drunk driving and the drunk shooting scenarios. There is not necessarily an intent to kill a person (assuming the gun was being shot randomly) but there is no doubt that the person endangered and took the lives of other people.

I also believe manslaughter is the technically correct term in Canada.

(12-06-2020, 09:21 PM)0jeffster Wrote:

(12-04-2020, 08:43 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: The difference is geese aren't intimidated by drivers refusing to yield to them. You can intimidate a pedestrian into not crossing by refusing to stop, but a goose doesn't give a shit and will happily walk out and fuck up your vehicle. People literally have more respect for geese than other humans.

Something that perhaps people don't know about these geese is that they will actually move if you get close, and they move fast. In fact, I'd argue that they are more intimidated by drivers than people that jay-walk.

Duckings, on the other hand, I have no idea.

(12-06-2020, 09:29 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 05:35 PM)plam Wrote: I also believe manslaughter is the technically correct term in Canada.

You both are referring to the legal crime, not the lay meaning. “Technically correct” in only the literal meaning of technical.

(12-06-2020, 09:34 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 09:21 PM)0jeffster Wrote: Something that perhaps people don't know about these geese is that they will actually move if you get close, and they move fast. In fact, I'd argue that they are more intimidated by drivers than people that jay-walk.

Duckings, on the other hand, I have no idea.

Jay-walker is a slur, but the suggestion that people crossing legally, mid block or technically illegally on a countdown timer because our laws haven’t been updated or illegally against the light, are less intimidated by drivers is...is either playing into the toxic dominance belief on our roads (if you mean literally intimidated), which could be true—I don’t know for sure, or the common missbelief  that peds aren’t watching or don’t care to notice traffic which is almost always false in my experience.

(12-06-2020, 11:08 PM)jeffster Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 09:34 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Jay-walker is a slur, but the suggestion that people crossing legally, mid block or technically illegally on a countdown timer because our laws haven’t been updated or illegally against the light, are less intimidated by drivers is...is either playing into the toxic dominance belief on our roads (if you mean literally intimidated), which could be true—I don’t know for sure, or the common missbelief  that peds aren’t watching or don’t care to notice traffic which is almost always false in my experience.

To be clear, I said jay-walking, and no reference to people crossing legally. I don't consider jay-walking a slur either. I am intimidated to crossing roads legally, and actually feel safer jay-walking than crossing legally, as I have zero leverage when crossing legally. This was after a near-death experience when I was young, walking on a green light, with the white walking man still lite up, and some crazy woman drove through the red light, nor more than 2 feet from me. She nearly swerved off the road after she saw was she did. My brother-in-law was also driven over by some crazy lady turning right on a red, and my son go into an accident with his bike when a lady made a left on her green on HIS green (so she turned in front of him). That was the last time he biked to school.

From my personal experience, while driving, I have seen people walk into a live traffic lane mid-block. They have no right to be there, but I give it a pass if they can do it safely, as I "jay-walk" as well, as I already mentioned. However, if they jump into traffic especially with their back facing traffic, then it becomes as issue. While in the daylight you can see these people and slowdown, you can't always see them at night, especially if the roads are wet and the pedestrian is wearing low visibility clothing. This is not the fault of the driver if there is a collision.
Especially when they literally run into traffic.

I give anyone walking against a countdown timer as pass. If by chance I am turning left and I am already in traffic, we're all going to have to wait, and it is what it is. I would like to think that I am not a unique driver, and perhaps I am always thinking of the consequences of running over a person, even if I am not to blame, and it doesn't seem worth it, to save, maybe 5 seconds? But apparently not everyone has my thinking when it comes to our roads, that it's shared, and used, by everyone.

Also, folks, if you see geese, feel free to run right at them (at 10 kph -- that means slowly), they'll move 100% of the time. It's a qualified answer as I have worked with this horrible creatures over the past 10 years, and as arrogant as these birds are, they have the same proximity alert that flies have, only it's set to about 10 feet or so, and not 6 inches like a fly. While I can't guarantee that you'll not have to stop 5 feet from these buggers, I am very confident that they'll move, as they always have for me.

(12-06-2020, 10:41 PM)plam Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 09:29 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: You both are referring to the legal crime, not the lay meaning. “Technically correct” in only the literal meaning of technical.

Words have meanings, though, and I think there is value to differentiating "murder" from "manslaughter". But maybe I'm too much of a prescriptivist.

(12-07-2020, 12:04 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 10:41 PM)plam Wrote: Words have meanings, though, and I think there is value to differentiating "murder" from "manslaughter". But maybe I'm too much of a prescriptivist.

You are correct; however, this particular discussion was started by Rainrider22 objecting to mention of the word “murder” in connection with deaths caused by drivers. Now I can’t actually speak for them, but my impression, just from that one message and not assessing everything they’ve ever written, is that their objection is to associating a word that describes a criminal act with the perfectly natural act of occasionally killing a few pedestrians while innocently driving ones car. If danbrotherston had used “manslaughter” instead of “murder” I think we would be having pretty much the same discussion.

(12-07-2020, 12:14 AM)tomh009 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 12:04 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: You are correct; however, this particular discussion was started by Rainrider22 objecting to mention of the word “murder” in connection with deaths caused by drivers. Now I can’t actually speak for them, but my impression, just from that one message and not assessing everything they’ve ever written, is that their objection is to associating a word that describes a criminal act with the perfectly natural act of occasionally killing a few pedestrians while innocently driving ones car. If danbrotherston had used “manslaughter” instead of “murder” I think we would be having pretty much the same discussion.

Murder very clearly implies intent. And that, in turn, implies that the driver was intending to kill the pedestrians. Is that what we are trying to say?

(12-07-2020, 12:14 AM)tomh009 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 12:04 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: You are correct; however, this particular discussion was started by Rainrider22 objecting to mention of the word “murder” in connection with deaths caused by drivers. Now I can’t actually speak for them, but my impression, just from that one message and not assessing everything they’ve ever written, is that their objection is to associating a word that describes a criminal act with the perfectly natural act of occasionally killing a few pedestrians while innocently driving ones car. If danbrotherston had used “manslaughter” instead of “murder” I think we would be having pretty much the same discussion.

Murder very clearly implies intent. And that, in turn, implies that the driver was intending to kill the pedestrians. Is that what we are trying to say?

(12-06-2020, 11:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 11:08 PM)jeffster Wrote: To be clear, I said jay-walking, and no reference to people crossing legally. I don't consider jay-walking a slur either. I am intimidated to crossing roads legally, and actually feel safer jay-walking than crossing legally, as I have zero leverage when crossing legally. This was after a near-death experience when I was young, walking on a green light, with the white walking man still lite up, and some crazy woman drove through the red light, nor more than 2 feet from me. She nearly swerved off the road after she saw was she did. My brother-in-law was also driven over by some crazy lady turning right on a red, and my son go into an accident with his bike when a lady made a left on her green on HIS green (so she turned in front of him). That was the last time he biked to school.

From my personal experience, while driving, I have seen people walk into a live traffic lane mid-block. They have no right to be there, but I give it a pass if they can do it safely, as I "jay-walk" as well, as I already mentioned. However, if they jump into traffic especially with their back facing traffic, then it becomes as issue. While in the daylight you can see these people and slowdown, you can't always see them at night, especially if the roads are wet and the pedestrian is wearing low visibility clothing. This is not the fault of the driver if there is a collision.
Especially when they literally run into traffic.

I give anyone walking against a countdown timer as pass. If by chance I am turning left and I am already in traffic, we're all going to have to wait, and it is what it is. I would like to think that I am not a unique driver, and perhaps I am always thinking of the consequences of running over a person, even if I am not to blame, and it doesn't seem worth it, to save, maybe 5 seconds? But apparently not everyone has my thinking when it comes to our roads, that it's shared, and used, by everyone.

Also, folks, if you see geese, feel free to run right at them (at 10 kph -- that means slowly), they'll move 100% of the time. It's a qualified answer as I have worked with this horrible creatures over the past 10 years, and as arrogant as these birds are, they have the same proximity alert that flies have, only it's set to about 10 feet or so, and not 6 inches like a fly. While I can't guarantee that you'll not have to stop 5 feet from these buggers, I am very confident that they'll move, as they always have for me.

It doesn't matter if you consider it a slur, it *IS* a slur...the term "jay" is like hillbilly or redneck, and the car industry usurped it to described pedestrians in their successful 1920's campaign to steal our streets.

And mid-block crossings are 100% legal in Ontario, this is something most people don't seem to know, even the police have improperly given people tickets for perfectly legal behaviour, but outside of a midblock crossing (and court precedents have this at around 100 m, IIRC) you are allowed to cross the road anywhere.

And I agree, that in some places, our intersections are so poorly designed, that crossing mid-block may be safer.

As for pedestrians, I think the number of people jumping into traffic with their backs turned is smaller than you think. Most of the time people do look, but drivers being focused on scanning the road (or worse, their twitter feed), probably do not happen to be looking at the exact moment pedestrians are also looking.  If pedestrians didn't look, they'd be run over.

(12-07-2020, 09:15 AM)jeffster Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 11:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: It doesn't matter if you consider it a slur, it *IS* a slur...the term "jay" is like hillbilly or redneck, and the car industry usurped it to described pedestrians in their successful 1920's campaign to steal our streets.

And mid-block crossings are 100% legal in Ontario, this is something most people don't seem to know, even the police have improperly given people tickets for perfectly legal behaviour, but outside of a midblock crossing (and court precedents have this at around 100 m, IIRC) you are allowed to cross the road anywhere.

And I agree, that in some places, our intersections are so poorly designed, that crossing mid-block may be safer.

As for pedestrians, I think the number of people jumping into traffic with their backs turned is smaller than you think. Most of the time people do look, but drivers being focused on scanning the road (or worse, their twitter feed), probably do not happen to be looking at the exact moment pedestrians are also looking.  If pedestrians didn't look, they'd be run over.

Interesting, I never knew that history of ‘jaywalking’. By some, it seems that ‘jaywalking’ is described by people crossing the road without regard to traffic (and this is what I see sometimes). One of the articles I read, though, said that crossing the road that is not marked for pedestrians is 28% safer. Which was my point, that I feel safer crossing the road wherever rather than at the proper location. As I said, I have more control of the situation if I cross where I want, rather than designated spots. Pedestrians have right of way, obviously, but you might be dealing with traffic from 3 different ways, possibly four (as was the case when I nearly got run over), rather than just 2 ways.

(12-07-2020, 09:19 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: To be honest I'm ticked off we are having an argument about this word instead of road safety.

And I do think that a pattern of death as we see from drunk driving should qualify.  A person chose to intentionally drive drunk knowing they could easily kill someone while doing so. There is no other form of negligent homicide which kills hundreds of people every year.

But if you guys don't want to call that murder, fine but honestly, why are we talking about it. Why was that your take away from this issue? Why was that your priority.

(12-07-2020, 09:39 AM)jamincan Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 09:19 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: To be honest I'm ticked off we are having an argument about this word instead of road safety.

And I do think that a pattern of death as we see from drunk driving should qualify.  A person chose to intentionally drive drunk knowing they could easily kill someone while doing so. There is no other form of negligent homicide which kills hundreds of people every year.

But if you guys don't want to call that murder, fine but honestly, why are we talking about it. Why was that your take away from this issue? Why was that your priority.

We can talk about road safety (and we do, all the time) and at the same time also talk about how we can best advocate for safer roads. I personally don't think that the moralizing approach is particularly persuasive to most people. As an example, I don't find "Texting and driving kills people." an effective message, because people have far too many examples of where that is not true, and likely no examples where it is true (at least for them personally). It is also something that a lot of people have done, and framing their behaviour in a moral sense is more likely to lead them to be defensive, which leads to them being less receptive to the message that distracted driving significantly increases the risk of accidents. I personally think education is more important, as I think most people are simply ignorant of the potential consequences of their behaviour.

For me personally, the thing that I found most persuasive about how important speed is for safety was the chart showing the likelihood a child dies if they are hit at a certain speed. It's easy enough to imagine a scenario where a child might unexpectedly run out from behind a parked car in a neighbourhood and get hit. Regardless of blame, I would be devastated if a was driving a car and hit and killed a child. Is the extra 45-60s it might take to get home from the highway exit worth risking the life of a child? Not for me.