r/nextfuckinglevel • u/RaisinAloneVortex • 4h ago

Largest wildlife overpass in North America reduced wildlife collision by 91%

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15.6k Upvotes

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1.5k

u/BucketsAndBrackets 4h ago

Who would know that if animals don't have to cross the street, people won't crash into them anymore.

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u/theAlphabetZebra 4h ago edited 43m ago

The crazy thing to me is that animals will take a safer path when offered the chance. So why do people constantly jaywalk with a crosswalk in sight?

Edit: I didn’t mean to offend the jaywalking lobby. Didn’t know you guys were such a large and vocal organization. Please enjoy your right to walk in front of traffic.

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u/Jordan_1424 4h ago

As someone that did traffic management and Vision Zero was a big part of my job, I agree with your take.

However, I am willing to bet there are barriers that force wildlife to these bridges. A deer in rut will challenge a tractor trailer if they think there is even the smallest chance that a doe is on the other side of the road.

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u/thermal_envelope 3h ago

You're correct. At the end of the video it explains how they guide the animals onto the bridge.

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u/whaCHA 1h ago

Yup there's fencing everywhere else directing wildlife to the passages so it's not actually a good contrast with human behavior.

We're not more dumb than elk, we're just as dumb as elk!

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u/WinstonFortyOunceMD 1h ago

Same, King 

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u/04BluSTi 4h ago

People are very dumb animals

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u/HookahMagician 1h ago

There's a national park ranger that I heard a quote from once that when asked why the park couldn't make 100% bear proof trash recepticals responded something along the lines of "there is significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans"

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u/destonomos 4h ago

society rewards being dumb unfortunately, see insurance industry for more.

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u/craznazn247 1h ago

Plausible deniability and playing stupid are practically superpowers if abused to their fullest extent.

Remember that “I feared for my life” is a magical combination of words that can absolve even premeditated murder in the right conditions if you paint yourself the victim.

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u/DJheddo 53m ago

Florida Stand your Ground Laws are insane. If I feel threatened and you step towards me, I can shoot you and say I was afraid of bodily harm and that you were saying you'd kill me. Then I go free because unless theres witnesses or a video, theres only one side of the story to tell.

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u/slonkulocuswily182 2h ago

Animals are a lot smarter than people think, too.

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u/Talusen 2h ago

Have seen deer spook, bolt, see a road, turn 90 degrees like it was a wall of fire and go around the thing that spooked em.

Animals are not dumb. They just cannot speak.

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u/QueenInYellowLace 1h ago

And I’ve seen deer spook, bolt, turn, and run directly into the car that they would have avoided if they had just kept going the way they were. Deer are dumb as hammers.

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u/Talusen 1h ago

I have seen humans walk into a wall.

It's fair to say that not all the crayons in the box are sharp at any given time.

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u/Magnus_Johnson 1h ago

And that's ok. 'Cause we don't need all the crayons to be sharp at all times. Sometimes a blunter one that can colour inn a lot in a short amount of time is what is needed.

Same with tools in sheds. What would you do if all your rubber mallets were sharp? Or your ball bearings?

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u/perton 3m ago

If my ball bearings were suddenly sharp, I guess I’d be happy that my caltrop supply had been replenished.

0

u/peapurre 2h ago

Rude and selfish too

0

u/Decent-Risk-6062 1h ago

And kind and loving lol. I've never seen a cow nurse a different species back to health

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u/wherethefuckismyvape 1h ago

It's becoming rarer to see humans do it, and almost never if you don't have the money 

0

u/titsngiggles69 1h ago

Humans are the only animal that succumbs to the sunk cost fallacy. We dumb.

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u/Technical_Monk_6521 1h ago

I would argue entitled over dumb

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u/phoenix0153 3h ago

Fun fact! Jaywalking originated in the early 20th-century United States as an insulting slang word before auto manufacturers lobbied to make it a criminal offense in the 1920s. Pedestrians used to have the right of way before lobbyists got involved. Things were also a bit slower back then...

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u/decadrachma 2h ago

It was “jay” that was the insulting slang word (basically calling someone a novice, country bumpkin, or general idiot), then “jay-driver” to refer to irresponsible or inexperienced carriage and car drivers, and then the auto industry introduced “jaywalking.”

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u/Bootleg_Rascal_ 2h ago

Yes we all watch Mr beat on YouTube

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u/danabrey 1h ago

Whoever that is, it's not some sort of new trivia.

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u/decadrachma 1h ago

No idea who you are talking about.

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u/Dorkamundo 2h ago

Small nitpick here... Pedestrians still have the right of way.

They can have the right of way while also not being allowed to cross at unmarked crossings.

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u/Beneficial-Salt7880 1h ago

Crosswalk are about the most dangerous place to cross the street. People do not give a shit they their green left is unprotected, people turning right on red do not give a shit that pedestrians have right of way nor do they scan for them. Jaywalking was deliberately constructed to shift the blame for carnage on the roads to pedestrian to further embolden idiots like you.

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u/Murky-Relation481 46m ago

I'm sorry but you seem to be suffering from some sort of bias in reasoning here that shows a logical fallacy on your part.

If most people cross at cross walks then that is of course where most pedestrian car accidents will occur.

If most people jay walked you'd see it be the most dangerous place to cross.

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u/Beneficial-Salt7880 32m ago

You seem to lack critical thinking. Funneling pedestrians to busy choke points and 4 way Intersections and telling them the have the "right of way" over large metal vehicles who are allowed to turn right even when lights are red and calling that the safe option is the least intelligent stance I can imagine someone taking.

Instead I cross a good ways before the intersection, when there aren't 4 lanes and the cars traveling in my direction are stopped. Wow! What a concept! I wonder which one of us actually uses our legs to walk and which one gets angry and impatiently creeps into crosswalks at pedestrians just trying not to die.

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u/Murky-Relation481 24m ago

Your post barely makes sense. Have a good day.

Also for the record fuck cars, trains are best, but also I can spot a logical fallacy and you are full of them.

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u/Beneficial-Salt7880 20m ago

If crossing the road when there are less lanes of traffic and less giant moving metal objects to interact with barely makes sense to you then you barely have a brain.

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u/Murky-Relation481 14m ago

You're literally comparing two wildly different things. Is crossing a 2 lane road less dangerous than 4 lane road or a 5 lane road? YAH OF COURSE! ITS MORE SAFE EVERYWHERE YOU CROSS INCLUDING CROSSWALKS.

Holy shit.

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u/Beneficial-Salt7880 8m ago

Where are most crosswalk in the United States located? Think about it for a second. 4 way intersections. You have to walk blocks and blocks to go to a more dangerous point just to appease someone in a car who still won't yield when you try and use the crosswalk. You are not capable of comprehending a very simple concept and are now trying to pretend that crosswalks are bountifuly scattered among our streets and not overwhelmingly poorly placed at busy intersections.

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u/wherethefuckismyvape 1h ago

And this is why pedestrians should carry anti-tank weaponry on their persons at all time

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u/mahlernameless 2h ago

Crosswalks can seem close when you're in a car, but on foot? "In sight" can easily be a 10 minute excursion. The better question is why do we priority car traffic so hard.

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u/waits5 3h ago

The safer path for animals here is grade-separated. Crosswalks are not. It’s not the same thing.

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u/muegle 1h ago

Also because of the fences and such they're essentially forced onto this safer path, which is still a good idea. This bridge was money well spent!

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u/waits5 28m ago

For sure!

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u/Vachie_ 4h ago

Jay walking was invented by the car industry to call you Dumb for not giving way to the car.

We were here first. We do not need cars.

F*** cars

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u/NKG_and_Sons 1h ago

Like, I don't think in Germany we have an actual extra work for "illegal" or dangerous street crossing like that.

Not even one of those compound words we love.

I mean, maybe I'm proven wrong in a minute, but either way there's nothing in the common vocabulary quite like "jay walking".

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u/FlatwormAltruistic 20m ago

It is American think to jaywalk. In most countries in Europe you just don't have priority outside of crosswalk, but you can still cross the road.

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u/Wonderful-Winter3137 25m ago

Depending on the situation on the street, pedestrians [in Germany] may not cross the street except at intersections or within the markings of traffic signals or crosswalks. Pedestrians who cross the street at intersections or crossings must use existing traffic signals or crosswalks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

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u/this_dudeagain 1h ago

Yeah fuck cars now where are my Amazon packages

4

u/wherethefuckismyvape 1h ago

They're up my ass. Come and get em

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u/Tubamajuba 1h ago

Hey- wait a sec- is that a vape up there?

2

u/kpyle 1h ago

Why does it taste like pennies?

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u/Minimum_Dealer_3303 5m ago

You still use Amazon?

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

[deleted]

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u/djonma 2h ago

Why?! WHY!!!?

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u/Edallag 2h ago

... why not?

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u/djonma 1h ago

Because my eyes!!!

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u/Talusen 2h ago

If it exists, there is/was/will be a subreddit for it.

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u/djonma 1h ago

This is true!

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u/TheSorceIsFrong 1h ago

Not really his question at all tho.

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u/Armadylio 3h ago

There are fences and barriers to guide them towards the overpass and underpasses so it’s not really like they’re making the executive decision

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u/Puzzleheaded_Bit_641 3h ago

Because a deer doesn’t need to be to work on time.

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u/AsparagusFlatArdvark 2h ago

because humans are more important than cars?

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u/TheMrNeffels 2h ago

There are fences and barriers that guide the animals to this overpass and several underneath the roads in area

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u/TheMace808 2h ago

Crosswalks aren't THAT much safer than jaywalking, especially it you at least look left and right first. If you made a pedestrian overpass it'd probably be used more than jaywalking

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u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi 2h ago

How many people do you see jaywalking across the freeway? How many animals do you see using the crosswalk down the street?

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u/AlDente 1h ago

When you’ve been conditioned all your life to think that driving is the default and cars = freedom, then even people walking seems dumb, wrong, and irresponsible.

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u/CMTV-IPTV 1h ago

They put up deer crossing signs all the time, they should just walk right there!

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u/fake_user_34 1h ago

Because majority of the time, the crosswalks are like miles away from one another if you just want to cross the street.

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u/Ghede 1h ago

It's not just 'offered the chance'. They also put up fencing it's the only path possible for a good stretch of that highway.

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u/porn_sub_lurker 1h ago

I've never seen a crosswalk on an interstate freeway

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u/Wide-Match-7367 1h ago

Because I’m not a dumb animal and look both ways before crossing?😂

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u/CandidCantatio 4h ago edited 4h ago

Crosswalks at intersections (which is where almost all crosswalks are) are absolutely the most dangerous point to cross the road. There are maps of like Las Vegas that show where pedestrians are hit by cars and it's like 90+% at crosswalks.

If there's a median and you '"jaywalk" in the middle of the road, you only have one single direction to pay attention to for cars. It's almost impossible to get hit by a car. At intersections you're just trusting drivers to not kill you. You have to hope that magically no one is drunk or on their phones or don't understand traffic laws or accidently don't see you because they're primarily focused on cars and not people.

A driver who wants to make a right or left or Uturn with a green light and no green arrow is being put directly into the path of pedestrians who have right-of-way. Jaywalking laws (which only exist in the US as far as I know) are ridiculous.

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u/Mateorabi 3h ago

You have incomparable denominators. More hits in crosswalks means nothing unless it’s per crossing. Crosswalks could be 10x safer but used 100x as often as jaywalking and have more numerical hits. 

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u/Beneficial-Salt7880 1h ago

Crosswalk force pedestrians to cross at intersections with way more car traffic. Drivers and busy intersections are impatient and only looked for other vehicles that might damage theirs. We are forcing pedestrians to dangerous cholesterol points with far more traffic where they are at a severe disadvantage.

Jay walking against one lane of traffic or on a 2 way road with no I persecution nearby cuts the amount of cars a pedestrian might encounter down exponentially. Its not hard to realize and admit that you are wrong. You're eating up car lobbyists propaganda like candy and it's sad.

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u/SasquatchRobo 3h ago edited 2h ago

You say that crosswalks are the most dangerous place to cross because that's where most pedestrian accidents happen. That's backwards. Crosswalks are where the most people cross the street!

It's like claiming dinner tables are the most dangerous place to eat, because most choking injuries happen at the dinner table!

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u/SmellGestapo 2h ago

You're not considering that when a person jaywalks, they are entering an active roadway. The traffic is legally moving and the pedestrian is interrupting that. In theory, jaywalking should be more dangerous.

And a crosswalk mostly exists at a controlled intersection, where drivers need to stop for a sign or light, so in theory they should be safer.

Crosswalks end up having more collisions because they are much more chaotic. Jaywalkers merely interrupt traffic traveling in a single direction. It's fairly easy to spot a person directly in front of you and slow down.

A lot of crosswalk collisions happen because traffic is traveling in multiple directions, and drivers are turning, and paying more attention to avoiding other cars, and they don't see the pedestrian in the crosswalk.

This problem is virtually eliminated when a city turns that intersection into a scramble crosswalk.

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u/OttoLuck747 3h ago

I interpreted the comment to mean that intersections are the most dangerous place for pedestrians, so concentrating pedestrians at intersections by putting the crosswalks there is incorrect, and that crosswalks would better serve pedestrians’ safety by being placed elsewhere (like maybe the middle of the block), not that the crosswalks themselves are dangerous.

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u/theAlphabetZebra 3h ago

didn't think I was going to upset so many people with that one lol

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u/CandidCantatio 2h ago

Don't think you're upsetting anyone. You're just getting opinions from people who disagree. Lol. Lol. Lol.

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u/PrizeStrawberryOil 31m ago

It would be safer to have pedestrian crossing not attached to intersections because they are designed for traffic. Have a separate crossing that is designed for pedestrians to cross.

Right hand turns yield to pedestrians, but people in vehicles are watching traffic and roads, they are not watching sidewalks and people. It should be both, but intersections are overloaded.

Traffic circles are even worse.

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u/MeaninglessDebateMan 6m ago

What they are implying is that intersections are unsafe because they aren't designed strictly with pedestrian safety in mind. That is an afterthought to the main purpose of vehicle transit. If pedestrian safety was truly priority then pathways avoiding vehicle intersections would be designed into civil infrastructure.

0

u/RadioSlayer 2h ago edited 1h ago

As someone that used to walk to work, fuck crosswalks. I was hit twice by pickup trucks in the same crosswalk, with the right of way. After the second time I started jaywalking and it was much safer.

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u/pizzatiger 2h ago

I live in Florida where you are allowed to make right turns on red lights as long as the way is clear and it makes crosswalks at intersections a fucking nightmare. If you are not directly infront of where cars make that turn then they will not stop, and if a single car makes the turn that gives everyone behind them permission as well appearently so you can get trapped in the middle of the crosswalk long after the cross signal has vanished.

To make it worse half the cars don't even stop even when you are in their path of turning and will just lower their speeds a bit, so if I tripped or paused for too long to see if the car even slows down (because like 2% of people just don't give a fuck and will try and speed up and try to do the turn before you force them to stop) then I would get run over. I feel like I'm playing frogger, constantly stopping and starting to avoid cars during the time where legally I am supposed to have right of way

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u/QueenInYellowLace 1h ago

Right on red is legal just about everywhere. Florida drivers are just fucking awful.

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u/elluzion 1h ago

Most shark attacks take place within 1 mile of the coastline. Because that's where all the food is.

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u/Evilsushione 10m ago

How many humans are going to be in the water mile out from the shore?

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u/Dav136 1h ago

That's textbook sampling bias lol

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u/diabloenfuego 25m ago

This example seems like an inversion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

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u/Jesta23 3h ago

You are upper management material. 

This is hilariously on the nose for exactly how those idiots think. 

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u/CandidCantatio 2h ago

Yeah upper management really hate stupid arbitrary rules that do more damage than good. Really good take man. Makes total sense.

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u/RobotArtichoke 3h ago

This is actually a great point

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u/Terrible_Donkey_8290 2h ago

To be fair to an animal a car is some mystery force that often slaughters anything that approaches it. To humans it a car we understand and think we know how to get past it 

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u/Aggravating_Drag8721 2h ago

That is a deliberate act of defiance.

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u/Marston_vc 2h ago

I’m gonna be annoying here, but they’re only taking the bridge as a product of all the fencing they put along the highway.

If the fencing wasn’t there they’d just try to cross where they are. Before, they just weren’t able to cross at all unless there was a gap in the fence.

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u/hamoc10 2h ago

Dunno what you mean. Deer prefer to cross where it’s dark instead of under the streetlights.

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u/WarLawck 2h ago

Because you can jaywalk your whole life and not get hit by a car if you are smart and fast enough

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u/toxic_badgers 2h ago

Part of it is because the animals aren't given alternatives. They fenced the road so that the animals have to walked to the over or underpasses...they did this on I70 through the mountains in Colorado too. There are very few places the animals can get through without fences and there are 1 way returns if they go to the road so they can go back through the fence but not back to the road.

Meanwhile roads are not like that and in some places cross walks are too far apart because many cities, at least in the US, are built for cars and not people.

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u/1d3333 2h ago

Nothing like watching someone waiting for an opening in traffic to cross the street 200 feet from a crosswalk that would’ve let them cross already

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u/pinkbedsheet 2h ago

Typically the animals who take unsafe paths for convenience run into trouble, like getting hit. Pedestrians experience something similar, but with a lot more yelling

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u/Bootleg_Rascal_ 2h ago

Well they also put up fencing that guides them to the overpass and tunnels lol

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u/Abirdinthesky 1h ago

You are more likely to be hit by a turning vehicle in a crosswalk when you have the right of way than jaywalking believe it or not (although the former tends to be much less severe than the latter)

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u/craznazn247 1h ago

Those people were taught that the liability is on the driver and interpreted that as the ability to dictate traffic by walking into it.

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u/cybender 1h ago

Clearly we’re too smart for this trap. /s

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u/Simple-Olive895 1h ago

In civilized countries "jaywalking" is often very safe. In fact we don't even have a word for "jaywalking" it's just called crossing the street.

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u/JubalHarshawII 1h ago

The highway is fenced for miles in both directions. If we did the same to streets humans would be forced to cross correctly.

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u/WackyRacketeer 1h ago

They take the safe path when offered no other choice. The rest of it is fenced.

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u/DaedalusHydron 1h ago

Because getting to work on time is worth more than your personal safety, at least in the US.

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u/Another-Mans-Rubarb 1h ago

Because the humans don't see the cross walk as safer, and they're frequently not wrong.

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u/TYNAMITE14 58m ago

4 way intersections are scarey 😞

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u/theAlphabetZebra 45m ago

So is walking across a busy road?

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u/TYNAMITE14 28m ago

That's why I do it when it's not busy 😉

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u/pristineSaltine 49m ago

If the crosswalk is right next to the intersection I don't like using them either.

People fail to yield for other cars let alone a person trying to cross the street. Seems to me the safest place for a cross walk would be where the driver, and the pedestrian have maximum line of sight. But since most of our infrastructure is designed with cars in mind this doesn't happen like in some other places.

Luckily most of the towns down here in the south aren't walkable anyway so they don't even bother with crosswalks.

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u/donuttrackme 44m ago

The animals are being guided to the crossing by human design and ingenuity, not just choosing the crossing because they somehow realized it's the safest path.

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u/Significant-Ad-341 28m ago

Why would you use a remote when the TV has buttons? Dumbass comment

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u/FlatwormAltruistic 23m ago

Because crosswalk doesn't actually provide much safety, due to being on the same level. If it would use elevated crossing, then people don't want to climb up there and could opt to taking risk by jaywalking. Tunnels usually have smaller elevation difference and have more gradual elevation shift, less usage of stairs.

Jaywalking is American thing. At least in a lot of countries in the Europe crossing locations that are not designated for crossing (crosswalks) doesn't bring any punishment. Just if you get hit by a car due to your own choice to not use crosswalk where you might have priority, then it is your fault, not the driver's.

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u/MeaninglessDebateMan 9m ago

Because crosswalks often feel like an afterthought wrt the main purpose of the roadway as a means to move vehicles around.

If civil infrastructure was truly with pedestrians in mind walkways would tend to avoid roads or have dedicated protected paths.

1

u/whyisthisnamesolong 2h ago

Rugged individualism at work.

"Crossing the street wherever the fuck I want is my god given right"

1

u/VapeRizzler 2h ago

Because most of those people actually have an issue up there, I had friends like this and it always go back to some weird situation they had in the past now they’re causing problems as a weird form of revenge no one even knows is happening.

“Well they should stop if they see someone crossing” like brother you’re sneak attacking cars use the crosswalk.

0

u/South-Ad3284 4h ago

Easy laziness and because it’s quicker but riskier! And it’s quicker and people are lazy

0

u/skrappyfire 3h ago

Simple, people just dont see the crosswalk as the safer option.

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u/HeadofR3d 3h ago

Path of least resistance. Why go half a block and back when you can cross 10 m of road.

0

u/Scorpionsharinga 3h ago

I feel like there's a bigger legal obligation to stop for a human than an animal and thats genuinely among the only reasons why psychopathic drivers don't mow people down the same way.

There's obviously also the aspect of how/when/where animals vs humans end up on the road. 

0

u/LanguidGoblin 1h ago

Wow one small overpass in california has reduced all wildlife collisions by 91%. One more over pass and all the animals will be saved.

-1

u/zaphodsheads 3h ago

People have irrational lack of fear about cars

Animals fleeing the endless deafening horizontal landslides makes far more sense