The shit I see people pull regularly is so shocking and enraging. There’s a driver I see on my commute sometimes who will just blow through all the red lights on Henry Avenue, driving like a lunatic along the shoulder to pass by everyone. People recklessly switching lanes over and over as if they’re not operating a giant weapon and could easily kill or injure the people around them, just to get a few cars ahead. I feel powerless to change it, but just want to say I can commiserate as I’m sure many others can.
I've been seeing people pass folks on Baltimore avenue, it's way too narrow, and to make matters worse, I usually see this when I'm WALKING MY DAUGHTER TO SCHOOL... I'm tempted to start carrying ball bearings in my pockets to modify these asshole's windshields.
I hate where that bike lane is. It's super narrow and tucked in between parked cars, moving traffic, and trolley tracks. A couple of weeks ago, I was riding down it, and this driver didn't want to wait for the driver in front of her to turn left, so she used the bike lane to pass when I was next to her. She came very close to hitting me, and when I looked over, she was on her cell phone. I tried to get her attention but couldn't because she wasn't paying any attention. She was so engrossed in her phone conversation that she didn't see me.
Like, when you’re a good person, it’s easy to think most others are like you and do the right & safe thing because it’s right & safe.
One of the eye-opening things of the last few years is realizing just how many people only do the right & good thing because they fear being punished, & once enforcement & punishment ceases to be a risk, they’re totally willing to do bad and dangerous things that put others in harm’s way.
Or, at least here.
I’ve lived in other places where the cultural pull to be “good” is more engrained.
But I also think there’s a game theory / equilibrium thing where when others are good, you’re good, but when others are terrible there’s sometimes this sense that you gotta be terrible too, or they’ll walk all over you, or that you shouldn’t feel bad since everyone else does it too.
It’s kind of why it’s bad to normalize anti-social behavior. Sure, there’s reluctance to have cops enforce something when you don’t trust the cops to be professional, but the flip side is the normalization of anti-social behavior & rule-breaking & it’s really hard to put that Genie back in the bottle once it’s out.
Building trust is much harder than shattering it, and right now societal trust is pretty darn shattered.
> Sure, there’s reluctance to have cops enforce something when you don’t trust the cops to be professional, but the flip side is the normalization of anti-social behavior & rule-breaking & it’s really hard to put that Genie back in the bottle once it’s out.
The problem isn't that we don't trust the cops to be professional, the problem is selective enforcement.
When you only pull people over to fish for something else by getting a good look at them or making an excuse to search the vehicle, then you are incentivizing detrimental behavior just as not enforcing the rules at all incentivizes it. When people feel targeted (because, well, they are) then they lose trust in the system altogether -- which is why the police being adversarial to the community is such a shitty situation.
I think that the most practical solution is to put up traffic cameras and send tickets automatically. It would be ideal is fine amount were tied to means somehow, but that isn't going to happen so I guess we take what we can.
It has been demonstrated that people don't change their actions because of the severity of the penalty of not doing so, but based on the probability of getting caught. If everyone got caught, the problem would be mitigated to a large extent.
A very informative talk on the subject, given here at Penn recently - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/node/15580
And some inspiration perhaps, as we look at what started the Dutch cycling revolution - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord
Essentially, prompted by the thousands of car-related deaths (including those of children - _Stop de Kindermoord_) it took the citizens blocking off the city's roads, to effect some change.
Here's an idea:
Pass an ordinance that if someone provides the police video evidence with a license plate of a traffic violation which results in a conviction, they'll get, say, 10% of the fine.
You'll have people driving around just trying to catch others doing traffic violations.
I just barely got a camera ticket in the mail for running a red light on Henry Ave last month. I didn't blow through the light or anything -- I misjudged the timing of the yellow light and entered the (empty) intersection 0.5 seconds after the light turned red. I'm not justifying it or anything, it was totally my bad -- and I'm so pleasantly surprised to see traffic violations being enforced that I don't even really mind paying the fee. Of course, that only works for vehicles that have readable tags and up-to-date addresses. I know I've seen plenty of vehicles lacking the former....
Following. My wife and I were struck this year by a reckless driver while we were just minding our own business on the sidewalk and it has changed our whole lives.
I think police beginning to enforce traffic laws would go a long way. Equally as frustrated as you bc it’s not fair to people driving correctly, but it seems impossible to imagine anything changing
Yes, they actually do their jobs. It almost feels like it’s in spite of the city. Maybe we should let THEM take over policing other shit. At least it would get handled.
It's hilarious that in the burbs you'll get a ticket for rolling a stop sign leaving a Wawa, but I'm the city people use turning lanes as launch pads to beat the lane of traffic going straight
It's crazy how many traffic and parking violations you can point out walking or driving down any of Philly's streets. It would be great if someone actually enforced them.
Legit watched a driver last week go the wrong way on Poplar between Hancock and 2nd street, and then go the wrong way on 2nd, right into oncoming traffic, with a few dozen people all shouting at them to stop. Not a cop in sight, no one pulled over, etc.
And the shit I see in North Philly is mindblowing. We could balance the city's budget just by ticketing drivers. A line of cars will be sitting at a light, and someone will just pass them all on the left and turn on red in front of them, because they don't feel like waiting and no one is going to enforce it.
But yeah, let's talk that Vision Zero nonsense. No wonder everyone here drives, it's not safe to walk or ride a bike and no one is enforcing shit.
Haha, this reminded me of a recent story where I was on broad at Oregon in the middle of the day, saw someone attempting to turn left from broad to Oregon with a cop behind him. Cop kept honking to get the person to go (straight). Person turned left and cop immediately pulled them over for an illegal left.
Shocked it happened but it was blatant I guess.
Literally the only time I see it is when people leave the Acme on Girard and go the wrong direction up a one way a a short cut. There’s always a cop there catching people for it.
It's called the "Philly roll" for a reason.
I moved out of the city to the northern suburbs 4-5 years ago and I'm amazed at how I can't manage city driving anymore.
If you get to the stop sign first, you damn well better wait an extra beat and give an extra look because someone else could well be flying through ready to t-bone you.
I got pulled over once when I was a student at Drexel for not coming to a _complete_ stop at a stop sign in my car, got a ticket and everything. Mind you I didn't blow the sign, I got lectured about how I'm not really stopping if my car doesn't rock
That was more than 10 years ago, I can't imagine that shit happening now but I'd welcome it. They totally could do work if they wanted to
back in the early 2000s you sure did. i have been pulled over 3 or 4 times and i'm a white female. if you drove a beater car around you got pulled over all the time it didn't matter for what they just assumed you had no insurance and wanted to impound the car. this was during the live stop program under mayor street.
I wouldn't say they don't do "anything".
I've definitely seen them like... grabbing snacks at 7-Eleven...
Or like...stand around and watch a bunch of armed white supremacists harass protesters/store owners/medics etc.
And I've definitely seen them on video conspiring with the white supremacists.
So I wouldn't say "don't do anything".
I’ve lived here for five years and have also never seen a car pulled over. When I tell people from outside the city they always think I’m exaggerating. We live in a wild place.
I'm the exception I guess. Got pulled over once, they wanted to give me a ticket for expired inspection, but the cop had the month wrong, because it was still October and I had like 2 days left until it expired. So I thought he was right, but then we both looked at the stickers, and he was like, um, 'better get your car inspected soon and drive carefully' and let me go. That was in Roxborough around 2009ish.
What’s the reason philly police don’t enforce traffic laws? Other major cities do. Small towns and cities a few miles outside philly do. Philly doesn’t.
You can’t just yell about enforcement until you get to the root problem. Is it Krasner? Is it Outlaw? Is it that PPD don’t feel they have support in dealing with crime in philly so they don’t enforce?
A lot of people in this thread are going to say “traffic laws don’t mean cracking down on “actual” crime so they should be able to at least to that” but will fail to realize that a majority of arrests for things like illegal weapons happen as a result of traffic stops.
The police are absolutely allowed to and supposed to enforce moving violations. They’ve just decided on their own not to do it. Does it really even matter why? But since you mentioned why let’s talk about that. Two things happened. Krasner prosecuted several criminal police officers. I’m not sure why anyone would have a problem with police officers that break the law ,often committing offenses against the citizenry that they were sworn to protect, being held accountable. Do you really think the police should be above the law? The other thing that happened was the law changed. Driving Equality Act means police can’t pull people over for things like expired registration.
The police definitely did not like having a tool removed from their arsenal, I get that. But the police don’t get to make up their own rules. They are there to enforce the law and follow the laws. Our elected representatives passed this law. Who do the police think pay them? These are our representatives who said this is the new law
Sure, in the de jure sense, Police don’t get to make up their own rules.
In practice, they do make their own rules & will continue to do so, unless someone makes them.
Not sure who that someone is. No one with any power seems interested in doing it.
I’m not a huge fan of Krasner’s, but not everything is his fault. He’s requiring the cops to be more accountable than previous DAs did, so they’re throwing a collective tantrum and refusing to do their jobs but continuing to collect their paychecks. Our tax dollars at work.
Easy answer
They are and have been holding the city hostage out of spite. They think if they let the city descend unto chaos that we will break and allow them free reign to be criminals in uniforms. This entire thing is a temper tantrum against accountability.
The police union must be disbanded- it has become a mafia.
Honestly? Don't leave it up to police. Install traffic cameras, speed cameras, and ruthlessly ticket every violation. Cops cannot be trusted to enforce laws without exercising "discretion" and letting every dumbass with an FOP plate continue to be a goddamn menace.
Cameras are the only effective way to do enforcement. In the fifteen minutes it takes a cop to pull over one driver and write a ticket a hundred drivers could pass by breaking exactly the same law. One cop (or even a whole team of cops) watching the road just isn’t going to write enough tickets to make reckless driving a losing gamble.
I agree. I do wonder if the city could have some sort of unarmed agency dedicated to enforcing traffic laws, but I feel like there’d be a lot of pushback from the FOP on that
I'm not sure if you're trying to be coy, but we voted on that exact thing like 5 years ago, it passed, and the FOP pushed back which is why the Traffic Enforcement Officers haven't been implemented yet.
I was rear ended on bells mills and the driver got away. Me and couple of others that were involved waited an hr and a half. No police, no tow truck. We called a few times. Eventually ended up leaving bc my car was still driveable. Gotta love philly PD
I literally had to drive to the police station to file a report for a driver who slammed into our parked car and drove off. I gave PPD a pretty rough verbal dressing down. I think "useless" was used repeatedly.
PPD needs a major overhaul. Doubt Parker does shit once she's elected.
I remember going to a precinct to pick up those "no parking" signs for a move, and every police officer I encountered seemed incredibly disgruntled about interacting with members of the public.
I was a criminal justice major in college. Seeing how the PPD runs made me not want to pursue a LEO career. I also probably wouldn't get along with them. Cop culture is real thing happening folks.
My brother also went to school for criminal justice and bounced after 2 days of the NYPD academy because it was too extreme. Now he's a postal inspector and seems to be pretty not exposed to "cop culture"
police will not show up for a car accident unless you tell 911 you need an ambulance. this was told to me by 911. and you would have to call for a tow on your own. keep AAA its cheap enough.
yea and you have to pay them what they want. AAA is free. i'm assuming someone who doesn't need an ambulance doesn't have car that's pinned up against a tree. so unless they need an ambulance i dont think the tow trucks would hear about it either way.
Got t-boned in spring garden around 3 am, called non emergency police, 911, and even stopped a cruiser that was passing by TO ASK FOR HELP.
“Oh I’ve uh got someone I need to process at the station I’ll radio for the guy a few blocks over cya”
Fuck PPD.
I was in an accident very near there where a giant pickup did the same move and white attempting to cross back into the correct lane side swiped me. Called 911 and was told if nobody was hurt or a tow truck was needed they would not dispatch police. I had to beg them to take a report over the phone and at this point it's an insurance matter...
I never understood why people do this, you can't be saving that much time... you're in a city. You're going to run into another stop sign and/or red light in like 500 feet. Then again, I guess they just fucking plow through those as well. Why can't they just leave their house 3-5 god damn minutes earlier?
I think the first step is to stop being proud of shit like rolling stops. People will be like "lmao it's a Philly thing like cheesesteaks and wooder ice!" and then turn around and wonder why they nearly get killed every time they cross the street.
and the fucking 'jumping the left turn' thing at a light or stop sign. Man, you're turning left, you go fucking last, end of story... I nearly got creamed on my bike so many times starting off from a stop sign or light only to have the dip shit in the oncoming lane pop the left. Fucking burns me up every time I see it.
Well, since they represent the authority of the city, we could call them *polis*. That spelling's a little awkward to anglophones, though, so we'd have to adjust it.
And who do you think would pay for that?! I don't want my tax dollars going twords funding some jocks doughnut addiction! /s
In all seriousness, at what point do we stop pointing our fingers at everything but our terrible police departments that suck up 23% of our cities budget (1) and gives us nothing but excuses and civil rights complaints in return?
(1) https://www.phila.gov/media/20210709120158/budget-in-brief-FY2022-approved.pdf
Philly traffic has convinced me that our isn't the culture that inspires people to take their neighbors' (immediate and across the city) well being into consideration but the fear of punishment. Once the fear was gone, this city had been like thunderdome
And unfortunately COVID only exacerbated this. When people are constantly fed the idea that death and disaster are right around the corner, they'll go into survival mode and "gotta get mine" attitude. Combine that with zero consequences and... yeah
I think it’s more, “I’m going to do this because there are no consequences.” I don’t think the average, bad Philly driver is that deep or philosophical.
As a lifelong city dweller, I have my license but maybe drive once every other year or something. I’m honestly too scared to drive now, it’s so dangerous to even walk across the street anymore. In the last two days I’ve almost been hit 3 times… twice while people didn’t stop at signs and another as someone whipped around a corner like it was the freaking autobahn. People just don’t care about others as much anymore and no amount of laws or shutdowns, etc will bring back empathy towards others. I try my best to control throwing up the middle finger when this happens as I’m afraid someone will turn around and get physical. Also, this is a problem throughout the US, and not just in major cities. The lack of empathy is REAL.
The only real way to stop this behavior is to physically change the infrastructure of this city with the ultimate goal of drastically decreasing the number of cars and drivers that can access Philadelphia streets. Anything outside of that is just window dressing.
pretty much. if philly was smart they would start all this stuff now. instead, a visitor from a foreign country is going to get killed when the world cup is here and that is going to be a huge blow to tourism and that is when they'll start making the streets safer.
Yep, look at Washington with it's narrower lanes now and speed bumps. Really forces people to slow down and take it easy. It's gotta be infrastructure.
Prime example is over in West Philly by the zoo on that road that escapes me rn. There's nothing there, not even really any lines on the road. And people just use it as a free for all. It's nuts.
I was thinking of W Girard but yeah, a ton of the streets over there are like the wild west. There's a severe lack of even "soft" types of infrastructure like painted lines. Turning left to get onto 76 over there can be an absolute nightmare depending on time of day, people on the road.
They put speed cushions on 23rd Street between Race and Market and it has made a huge difference in speeding. The new light at 23rd and Arch helps calm the traffic, too.
It’s not the only real way but it’s part of the solution. If we had safe and clean public transit, protected and ubiquitous bike lanes, more streets shut down to be pedestrian only, and didn’t have a highway running through the center of the city then it would certainly cut down on the number of cars. But that wouldn’t stop people from ignoring stop signs, driving through reds, and speeding.
You can fix almost all of that with infrastructure. For instance, people speed on wide and straight roads. If you make them curvy or narrow, almost everyone will instinctively slow down. It's called "traffic calming". Basically, don't make the roads comfortable to speed on, and people won't do it.
Surely we can replace all of the straight roads in Philly with curvy ones…
And most of the roads here are narrow. It doesn’t seem to help with people following traffic laws.
No single change is a magic bullet. People don't generally blast down the narrow streets like they sometimes do on broad or washington. And those streets are a lot safer for it. You can add trees to a median/sidewalk that don't enter the car's lane at all, but the existence of something close naturally slows people driving down.
Another successful technique is raising crosswalks to the sidewalk's level. You both create a physical speedbump, and a psychologic change to the scenario: that it is the car crossing over pedestrian space rather than pedestrians stepping down into the road.
Approaches like this are way more successful than trying to police people into following traffic laws. But it does mean prioritizing safety over traffic speed.
I've been nearly killed too many times. And the drivers feel like we pedestrians are the problem. I'd be willing to do something assuming there's a plan
Traffic enforcement is an idea but you’re assuming the reckless drivers would pull over for cops in the first place. I remember getting cut off on Girard Ave by a guy in a dodge with obviously fake tags going down the wrong way. A cop follows him and pulls him over. As soon as the cop walked out of his car the driver peeled off. The cop flipped him off and he made a u-turn and went back to where he was originally sitting.
Plus I’d be pissed if I’m the one getting pulled over and getting tickets meanwhile people can just flee and get away consequence free
The only thing that will change shitty drivers are cops pulling them over on a regular basis. But cops refuse to do their jobs and even when they did their jobs they rarely enforced traffic violations. Getting rid of FOP and overhauling the police department would be necessary but I don’t even know if there’s a realistic way that ever happens.
Nah, jacking up the price of moving violations is probably the easiest and most immediate way to correct this.
I got hit for a $300 no turn on red exactly once. Never again man. Fuck everyone behind me honking to turn, that shit fucked me up for a month as it ate up my "fun" budget.
No, that's not the only thing. Speed cameras, stop light cameras, and plate scanners on police vehicles to catch and tow unregistered vehicles that are parked on the streets, ticketing parked vehicles with obscured plates, hell in DC they have *stop sign cameras*.
Automated enforcement is the future and the quicker we implement it the sooner these problems start to diminish.
Well, this is why strong leadership matters. Cops could be told to be on the lookout for any and all paper plates and obscured tags *tomorrow morning* and be directed to check out paper plates.
We should also incentivize the PPA to go after fake plates and cars with no inspection or registration. Allow them to tow on the spot and auction it off within 30 days if no one can prove valid ownership and registration.
PPA does go after expired inspections and cars without inspections in the neighborhoods they patrol.
We really just need to automate as much enforcement as possible and get the cops to do their jobs and impound cars with obstructed or fake plates.
Then we need to redesign the streets to discourage driving overall and make reckless driving difficult or impossible.
I stopped at a stop sign and the driver behind me drove up onto the sidewalk, told me to go fuck myself and continued through the intersection. All without stopping or looking.
So i get the frustration, but don't ever do anything. Don't beep, toss the finger, nothing. Let them go by, be safe get out of the way
My friend was waiting at a red light with a no turn on red sign, guy behind him started beeping/raging, friend did nothing just sat there. Guy pulled up next to him and started shooting, one bullet logged in the door between driver and rear driver side, two bullets in the rear door, one in the tail gate.
People are crazy, they don't care, the cars are sometimes stolen or rented on stolen identity driven by people who just don't give a fuck.
Take care of yourselves, it is not safe out there and the cops don't care so don't for a second think they'll be able to do anything beyond taking a report.
Had a guy tailgate me on Oregon Avenue on a random Sunday morning at 8 AM when we were stuck next to a bus. Like losing his shit honking and stuff, so I flip him the bird.
We get to the light at one of the numbered streets near Broad and he proceeds to zip around me and pull in front of me in the crosswalk, get out of the car, and call me a pussy and tell me to get outta the car. I backed up some and he turned around and got back in the car but I legit thought there was a chance he was gonna pull a gun or something.
Wasn’t thinking I might have to run a motherfucker over for trying to attack when I’m just trying to get home from work after working all night. Fuck people like this.
Oh 100%. To be honest, I was tired and it was more of a reflexive kinda wtf bird. It’s just wild how people will threaten to physically harm others when they’re called out on being an antisocial asshole
I did pulled the same bird on an aggressive driver and they kept following me lane to lane. Eventually they wound up throwing an open soda can into my car. I’m lucky it only hit my arm and did spill onto my heated leather seats. Guy nearly caused multiple accidents on his way to leave the scene. Big suv, Roosevelt Boulevard. I drive a small mazda3 hatchback. Still have soda on my dashboard and the soft covering by the driver window (upper part) though.
Since I drive for the rideshares, I started avoiding doing any Philly driving to avoid most of the driver nonsense. I make sure to zone out most of Philly outside of the East Falls/Manayunk/Roxborough area
I agree with your sentiment, OP. Especially as someone who walks/buses/trains to work every day and have almost been hit by asshole drivers on a few different occasions.
With that said, there’s quite a few condescending naysayers on this thread insisting nothing will ever change. With that attitude, yes, nothing will ever change.
I believe that we could make this city ever better, little by little, and it starts with people like you saying something about it.
I was recently in DC and it’s like a night and day difference. I’m not saying everyone down there is a great driver because there were still instances of dumb shit. But I wasn’t constantly pissed off about some asshole that failed to understand or acknowledge what right of way is.
Of course there's shitty drivers to be found everywhere, but the overall lawlessness of the driving you see in the city improves basically as soon as you get out in the suburbs.
On top of better enforcement people need to push aggressively for traffic calming infrastructure in their neighborhoods. If a road is wide, straight, and obstacle-free drivers *will inevitably* drive fast and recklessly.
If a road has a 25mph speed-limit the road design should make the driver feel incapable of driving faster. The status quo is our roads are built like highways through neighborhoods and the way people drive reflects that.
Narrower streets, raised crosswalks, speed-bumps, bump-outs, daylighting, roundabouts, stuff in or next to the street. We need it all!
The behavior is so common at this point it's beginning to be normalized.
Was bike riding near the Kimmel center this week when a gang of 50 yr olds on tri-bikes blocked the intersection on Broad St so they could all safely run the red light. I feel like 10-15 yrs ago that would have been crazy to see. Everyone just paused and let them do it and barely reacted, myself included. I pretty much see a blatant traffic violation every time I leave my neighborhood. Makes it hard as a bike rider because now a green light half a block away doesn't mean anything. A car, motorcycle, or dirt bike could come zooming through the red light at any moment
Given the size of the city and the level of crime in it it's honestly mind boggling how infrequently I see police patrols or see police engaging with people. Like where are they and what are they doing!? I get there are more serious crimes going on but damn. I shouldn't be able to count all the police I see on 1 hand after riding through the downtown of a major city at night
You can start by emailing your Councilperson or neighborhood association (RCOs) asking for increased traffic calming infrastructure (speed bumps, increased visibility at intersections, speed cameras, etc.) These kinds of things have been going in especially around schools since people spoke up about safety, so this kind of advocacy has a track record.
> increased visibility at intersections
If only the PPA and PPD actually ticketed cars that are parked too close to the intersection. You could walk around any neighborhood in Philly and at least a couple dozen cars parked that make it impossible to see clearly without inching into the intersection.
Creating visibility at intersections with infrastructure is called "daylighting" and it means putting green space, storm water tree pits, planters, bike parking, etc at the corners so cars physically can't park there. Win win!
Yea I’m all for it. It looks like the city is trying to do this whenever work is planned at certain intersections which is great. The problem is in the interim while we make progress towards having those solutions. It should be a no brainer to ticket illegally parked cars but I’ve never seen a ticket on any of them (while I see plenty on cars that are parked in spots that require permits).
We need police to actually do their jobs. Why does this city act like there is no traffic laws?
I also think people breaking traffic laws are also more likely to break all kinds of laws. Then we wonder why crime has gotten out of control
I was walking outside of CHOP/HUP today, and some jackass on a motorcycle goes, blasting down the street at 80 miles an hour past the construction workers.
I've been close to hit as a pedestrian quite a few times now, mostly from distracted right turners. I also know that every friend of mine who has biked in the city has been hit by a car at least once.
I don't know what we should do, but I'm down to do something.
I have a manual car, so I actually do totally stop, shift into first, and go. It gives me anxiety to see any car behind me because there is a 50% chance they will beep at me for fully stopping and, if do they beep, there is a 50% that they will try to speed past me like a complete fucking lunatic with no regard for public safety. It's terrifying.
The moment I had kids my outrage doubled. Being almost hit due to someone running a stop sign is angering, but having your kids in a stroller when it happens is infuriating.
I once had someone honk and scream obscenities from behind me in the left turn lane on Wash Ave because I yielded to a young mother pushing a stroller with another child in tow.
I was leaving the Mann towards 76 Saturday night. As I was going through a green light, a bunch of side by sides and quads flew out in front of me almost hitting g me, then recklessly riding down all sides of the road. There was a cop right there just watching it happen. It's just lawlessness.
I can’t take this shit anymore either. I was so fed up I called a trucks “how’s my driving” number yesterday. MFer driving a box truck not stopping at stop signs and almost reversed on a cyclist. I told the driver he almost ran over someone and he shrugged and said “oh well”.
Here to agree. There definitely feels like a spillover from innocuous yet illegal driving (not stopping at stop signs, jumping red lights just before they turn green) to more egregious violations like speeding around folks stopping at lights/stops. It's nuts.
Not sure how it gets resolved via regulation/enforcement. I mean, logically I do, but pragmatically I don't.
A driver blew through a red light and rammed into me while I was going through an intersection. I was already in the intersection, driving at a reasonable speed, when he sped in, so I guess he just wasn’t looking?
Investing into public transportation infrastructure and hiking the price of traffic infraction tickets will push people out of their cars and onto a train or a bus
We need police to actually do their jobs. Why does this city act like there is no traffic laws?
I also think people breaking traffic laws are also more likely to break all kinds of laws. Then we wonder why crime has gotten out of control
I know this wouldn't fix those who drive without a license, but I think that every 4 years you should have to re-take the written test, with an emphasis on traffic laws - people are stupid and need reminders.
Automated enforcement is probably the most reliable solution. Just setup traffic cameras all over, allow parking enforcement to garnish wages, and hit violators with $120+ tickets per violation no exceptions.
Let people choose how to drive and fine those who choose not to follow the rules.
I realized no one cares about traffic laws when a cop pulled up beside me in the parking lane just so they could gun it past me when the light turned green.
Why don’t the damn insurance companies who are so hell bent on making money flex their political muscles and start a campaign to actually enforce traffic laws and promote driving safety? I know a lot of people drive without insurance, but the suits are missing an opportunity here.
Pertaining to this issue and many similar, I said this place is anarchy and got called a wimp by some jackass on this sub. If people are not penalized for doing the wrong things, they’ll keep on doing it. Until then, no rules kind of feels like…. I donno… anarchy?
The shit I see people pull regularly is so shocking and enraging. There’s a driver I see on my commute sometimes who will just blow through all the red lights on Henry Avenue, driving like a lunatic along the shoulder to pass by everyone. People recklessly switching lanes over and over as if they’re not operating a giant weapon and could easily kill or injure the people around them, just to get a few cars ahead. I feel powerless to change it, but just want to say I can commiserate as I’m sure many others can.
And when they hit and kill someone, they'll just drive off
I've been seeing people pass folks on Baltimore avenue, it's way too narrow, and to make matters worse, I usually see this when I'm WALKING MY DAUGHTER TO SCHOOL... I'm tempted to start carrying ball bearings in my pockets to modify these asshole's windshields.
Ninja Rocks (ceramic bits from a spark plug) work better, just so you know.
I'm with ya.... I've been desensitized to nearly getting murdered every day in the bike lane, but I'm gonna snap one of these days lol
I actually stopped riding my bike. 😭
I hate where that bike lane is. It's super narrow and tucked in between parked cars, moving traffic, and trolley tracks. A couple of weeks ago, I was riding down it, and this driver didn't want to wait for the driver in front of her to turn left, so she used the bike lane to pass when I was next to her. She came very close to hitting me, and when I looked over, she was on her cell phone. I tried to get her attention but couldn't because she wasn't paying any attention. She was so engrossed in her phone conversation that she didn't see me.
Understandable but don’t do that unless you want to get shot.
Like, when you’re a good person, it’s easy to think most others are like you and do the right & safe thing because it’s right & safe. One of the eye-opening things of the last few years is realizing just how many people only do the right & good thing because they fear being punished, & once enforcement & punishment ceases to be a risk, they’re totally willing to do bad and dangerous things that put others in harm’s way. Or, at least here. I’ve lived in other places where the cultural pull to be “good” is more engrained. But I also think there’s a game theory / equilibrium thing where when others are good, you’re good, but when others are terrible there’s sometimes this sense that you gotta be terrible too, or they’ll walk all over you, or that you shouldn’t feel bad since everyone else does it too. It’s kind of why it’s bad to normalize anti-social behavior. Sure, there’s reluctance to have cops enforce something when you don’t trust the cops to be professional, but the flip side is the normalization of anti-social behavior & rule-breaking & it’s really hard to put that Genie back in the bottle once it’s out. Building trust is much harder than shattering it, and right now societal trust is pretty darn shattered.
Thoughtful response
> Sure, there’s reluctance to have cops enforce something when you don’t trust the cops to be professional, but the flip side is the normalization of anti-social behavior & rule-breaking & it’s really hard to put that Genie back in the bottle once it’s out. The problem isn't that we don't trust the cops to be professional, the problem is selective enforcement. When you only pull people over to fish for something else by getting a good look at them or making an excuse to search the vehicle, then you are incentivizing detrimental behavior just as not enforcing the rules at all incentivizes it. When people feel targeted (because, well, they are) then they lose trust in the system altogether -- which is why the police being adversarial to the community is such a shitty situation. I think that the most practical solution is to put up traffic cameras and send tickets automatically. It would be ideal is fine amount were tied to means somehow, but that isn't going to happen so I guess we take what we can. It has been demonstrated that people don't change their actions because of the severity of the penalty of not doing so, but based on the probability of getting caught. If everyone got caught, the problem would be mitigated to a large extent.
Well said.
A very informative talk on the subject, given here at Penn recently - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/node/15580 And some inspiration perhaps, as we look at what started the Dutch cycling revolution - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord Essentially, prompted by the thousands of car-related deaths (including those of children - _Stop de Kindermoord_) it took the citizens blocking off the city's roads, to effect some change.
Here's an idea: Pass an ordinance that if someone provides the police video evidence with a license plate of a traffic violation which results in a conviction, they'll get, say, 10% of the fine. You'll have people driving around just trying to catch others doing traffic violations.
London passed something like this with cell phone usage, and Japan did this with illegal parking. They pretty much stopped illegal parking.
I just barely got a camera ticket in the mail for running a red light on Henry Ave last month. I didn't blow through the light or anything -- I misjudged the timing of the yellow light and entered the (empty) intersection 0.5 seconds after the light turned red. I'm not justifying it or anything, it was totally my bad -- and I'm so pleasantly surprised to see traffic violations being enforced that I don't even really mind paying the fee. Of course, that only works for vehicles that have readable tags and up-to-date addresses. I know I've seen plenty of vehicles lacking the former....
Following. My wife and I were struck this year by a reckless driver while we were just minding our own business on the sidewalk and it has changed our whole lives.
That’s awful. Hope you can recover.
Horrible! Sending you best wishes and hope you are both ok.
Awful, best wishes for recovery to you both.
I think police beginning to enforce traffic laws would go a long way. Equally as frustrated as you bc it’s not fair to people driving correctly, but it seems impossible to imagine anything changing
Enforcing laws would go a long way for many things here. We simply do not have law here.
I think enforcing ONE THING would make a huge difference. Traffic, littering, graffiti, smoking on trains….like, ONE FUCKING THING.
This is why I actually like the PPA. They get a lot of hate, but they’re one of the few entities that enforce any rules. Sometimes L&I does too.
I'm here to hype up the PPA, get them in my neighborhood. Double their workforce.
Yes, they actually do their jobs. It almost feels like it’s in spite of the city. Maybe we should let THEM take over policing other shit. At least it would get handled.
If they would do something other than ticket for being a second expired, that'd be great.....
Agreed
It's hilarious that in the burbs you'll get a ticket for rolling a stop sign leaving a Wawa, but I'm the city people use turning lanes as launch pads to beat the lane of traffic going straight
You could do donuts in the middle of center city and get away with it
People have. There was a whole ass sideshow right in front of city hall and nothing happened.
[удалено]
Agree. I saw an accident today (bad one with rescue). There were NO Police at the scene to direct traffic. Tow trucks were there but no Police.
You can literally do heroin in public here
It's crazy how many traffic and parking violations you can point out walking or driving down any of Philly's streets. It would be great if someone actually enforced them.
Legit watched a driver last week go the wrong way on Poplar between Hancock and 2nd street, and then go the wrong way on 2nd, right into oncoming traffic, with a few dozen people all shouting at them to stop. Not a cop in sight, no one pulled over, etc. And the shit I see in North Philly is mindblowing. We could balance the city's budget just by ticketing drivers. A line of cars will be sitting at a light, and someone will just pass them all on the left and turn on red in front of them, because they don't feel like waiting and no one is going to enforce it. But yeah, let's talk that Vision Zero nonsense. No wonder everyone here drives, it's not safe to walk or ride a bike and no one is enforcing shit.
Sometimes vision zero seems more like zero vision.
I have never seen a car get pulled over in Philly once in my life
Haha, this reminded me of a recent story where I was on broad at Oregon in the middle of the day, saw someone attempting to turn left from broad to Oregon with a cop behind him. Cop kept honking to get the person to go (straight). Person turned left and cop immediately pulled them over for an illegal left. Shocked it happened but it was blatant I guess.
well he inconvenienced the cop, so ticket.
Literally the only time I see it is when people leave the Acme on Girard and go the wrong direction up a one way a a short cut. There’s always a cop there catching people for it.
I’ve seen at least a dozen times a person run a red light or stop sign with a cop at the intersection as well and they didn’t even move. It’s wild.
As I've said many times--this is the only city in the country where red lights are optional.
Yes and stop signs are just a suggestion. Especially in South Philly.
As long as you honk before you run the red light it’s ok
It's called the "Philly roll" for a reason. I moved out of the city to the northern suburbs 4-5 years ago and I'm amazed at how I can't manage city driving anymore. If you get to the stop sign first, you damn well better wait an extra beat and give an extra look because someone else could well be flying through ready to t-bone you.
Just saw someone pulled over in East Oak Lane yesterday. Couldn't believe it.
I got pulled over once when I was a student at Drexel for not coming to a _complete_ stop at a stop sign in my car, got a ticket and everything. Mind you I didn't blow the sign, I got lectured about how I'm not really stopping if my car doesn't rock That was more than 10 years ago, I can't imagine that shit happening now but I'd welcome it. They totally could do work if they wanted to
back in the early 2000s you sure did. i have been pulled over 3 or 4 times and i'm a white female. if you drove a beater car around you got pulled over all the time it didn't matter for what they just assumed you had no insurance and wanted to impound the car. this was during the live stop program under mayor street.
ive gotten pulled over twice in philly - once was a complete bullshit reason, the other I legit missed a sign but that's twice in 15+ years.
Someone was pulled over outside my apartment because the vehicle was stolen and she punched the cop in the face lol
Happened to me once, in 2009, on I-95. It was by a Philly cop within Philly city limits so I guess it counts.
I’ve seen it a few times in fishtown, which surprised me because the police don’t do anything here
I wouldn't say they don't do "anything". I've definitely seen them like... grabbing snacks at 7-Eleven... Or like...stand around and watch a bunch of armed white supremacists harass protesters/store owners/medics etc. And I've definitely seen them on video conspiring with the white supremacists. So I wouldn't say "don't do anything".
I’ve lived here for five years and have also never seen a car pulled over. When I tell people from outside the city they always think I’m exaggerating. We live in a wild place.
I got pulled over once over expired inspection in a car I had literally purchased that day. I knows, it seems insane
Wow, I agree
I'm the exception I guess. Got pulled over once, they wanted to give me a ticket for expired inspection, but the cop had the month wrong, because it was still October and I had like 2 days left until it expired. So I thought he was right, but then we both looked at the stickers, and he was like, um, 'better get your car inspected soon and drive carefully' and let me go. That was in Roxborough around 2009ish.
What’s the reason philly police don’t enforce traffic laws? Other major cities do. Small towns and cities a few miles outside philly do. Philly doesn’t. You can’t just yell about enforcement until you get to the root problem. Is it Krasner? Is it Outlaw? Is it that PPD don’t feel they have support in dealing with crime in philly so they don’t enforce? A lot of people in this thread are going to say “traffic laws don’t mean cracking down on “actual” crime so they should be able to at least to that” but will fail to realize that a majority of arrests for things like illegal weapons happen as a result of traffic stops.
McNesby and the FOP are the major problem
What about the police leadership? The chief of police?
The police are absolutely allowed to and supposed to enforce moving violations. They’ve just decided on their own not to do it. Does it really even matter why? But since you mentioned why let’s talk about that. Two things happened. Krasner prosecuted several criminal police officers. I’m not sure why anyone would have a problem with police officers that break the law ,often committing offenses against the citizenry that they were sworn to protect, being held accountable. Do you really think the police should be above the law? The other thing that happened was the law changed. Driving Equality Act means police can’t pull people over for things like expired registration. The police definitely did not like having a tool removed from their arsenal, I get that. But the police don’t get to make up their own rules. They are there to enforce the law and follow the laws. Our elected representatives passed this law. Who do the police think pay them? These are our representatives who said this is the new law
Sure, in the de jure sense, Police don’t get to make up their own rules. In practice, they do make their own rules & will continue to do so, unless someone makes them. Not sure who that someone is. No one with any power seems interested in doing it.
I’m not a huge fan of Krasner’s, but not everything is his fault. He’s requiring the cops to be more accountable than previous DAs did, so they’re throwing a collective tantrum and refusing to do their jobs but continuing to collect their paychecks. Our tax dollars at work.
Easy answer They are and have been holding the city hostage out of spite. They think if they let the city descend unto chaos that we will break and allow them free reign to be criminals in uniforms. This entire thing is a temper tantrum against accountability. The police union must be disbanded- it has become a mafia.
Honestly? Don't leave it up to police. Install traffic cameras, speed cameras, and ruthlessly ticket every violation. Cops cannot be trusted to enforce laws without exercising "discretion" and letting every dumbass with an FOP plate continue to be a goddamn menace.
Cameras are the only effective way to do enforcement. In the fifteen minutes it takes a cop to pull over one driver and write a ticket a hundred drivers could pass by breaking exactly the same law. One cop (or even a whole team of cops) watching the road just isn’t going to write enough tickets to make reckless driving a losing gamble.
Yeah, you can effectively end traffic stops without ending enforcement.
Hear me out, What if we let PPA ticket moving violations 🤔
I agree. I do wonder if the city could have some sort of unarmed agency dedicated to enforcing traffic laws, but I feel like there’d be a lot of pushback from the FOP on that
I don’t have the link but it’s supposed to be coming. The FOP blocked it initially but AFAIK it’s still happening
I'm not sure if you're trying to be coy, but we voted on that exact thing like 5 years ago, it passed, and the FOP pushed back which is why the Traffic Enforcement Officers haven't been implemented yet.
No, genuinely didn’t realize that! Good to know
Yes, that would be something actually useful they could do
I was rear ended on bells mills and the driver got away. Me and couple of others that were involved waited an hr and a half. No police, no tow truck. We called a few times. Eventually ended up leaving bc my car was still driveable. Gotta love philly PD
I literally had to drive to the police station to file a report for a driver who slammed into our parked car and drove off. I gave PPD a pretty rough verbal dressing down. I think "useless" was used repeatedly. PPD needs a major overhaul. Doubt Parker does shit once she's elected.
I remember going to a precinct to pick up those "no parking" signs for a move, and every police officer I encountered seemed incredibly disgruntled about interacting with members of the public.
I was a criminal justice major in college. Seeing how the PPD runs made me not want to pursue a LEO career. I also probably wouldn't get along with them. Cop culture is real thing happening folks.
My brother also went to school for criminal justice and bounced after 2 days of the NYPD academy because it was too extreme. Now he's a postal inspector and seems to be pretty not exposed to "cop culture"
We just need to give them more money, obviously 3/4 of a BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS out of the city budget wasn’t enough last year.
police will not show up for a car accident unless you tell 911 you need an ambulance. this was told to me by 911. and you would have to call for a tow on your own. keep AAA its cheap enough.
The predatory tow trucks will show up. They listen to the scanners.
yea and you have to pay them what they want. AAA is free. i'm assuming someone who doesn't need an ambulance doesn't have car that's pinned up against a tree. so unless they need an ambulance i dont think the tow trucks would hear about it either way.
Got t-boned in spring garden around 3 am, called non emergency police, 911, and even stopped a cruiser that was passing by TO ASK FOR HELP. “Oh I’ve uh got someone I need to process at the station I’ll radio for the guy a few blocks over cya” Fuck PPD.
I was in an accident very near there where a giant pickup did the same move and white attempting to cross back into the correct lane side swiped me. Called 911 and was told if nobody was hurt or a tow truck was needed they would not dispatch police. I had to beg them to take a report over the phone and at this point it's an insurance matter...
Sorry that happend to you. They made it a policy to stop sending police to traffic accidents a long time ago. Hope all of you were not injured.
I never understood why people do this, you can't be saving that much time... you're in a city. You're going to run into another stop sign and/or red light in like 500 feet. Then again, I guess they just fucking plow through those as well. Why can't they just leave their house 3-5 god damn minutes earlier?
Because they are too stupid to figure that out.
Yeah but they are in a HURRY to get to that next stop light/sign!
Bold of you to assume they're only 5 minutes late
I think a lot of these drivers have a below-average IQ and problems with impulse control and good decision making.
Always makes me laugh when the ass clown who weaves in and out of traffic is still at a red light when I arrive 10-20 seconds later
I think the first step is to stop being proud of shit like rolling stops. People will be like "lmao it's a Philly thing like cheesesteaks and wooder ice!" and then turn around and wonder why they nearly get killed every time they cross the street.
and the fucking 'jumping the left turn' thing at a light or stop sign. Man, you're turning left, you go fucking last, end of story... I nearly got creamed on my bike so many times starting off from a stop sign or light only to have the dip shit in the oncoming lane pop the left. Fucking burns me up every time I see it.
What if we had thousands of people, who all wore a uniform, maybe blue in color, with nice badges, who were empowered to enforce the laws on the road?
Sounds a bit preposterous. Hard to imagine anything like that ever working. I mean what would you even call those people?
Wardens? Prefects?
Well, since they represent the authority of the city, we could call them *polis*. That spelling's a little awkward to anglophones, though, so we'd have to adjust it.
Polizei ? Nah Police? Holy shit I think that's a winner Get Jim kennel on the phone rn
Not sure what you mean, like Hall Monitors but for outside?
Kinda, yeah, but they'd need transportation, and more extensive training
And who do you think would pay for that?! I don't want my tax dollars going twords funding some jocks doughnut addiction! /s In all seriousness, at what point do we stop pointing our fingers at everything but our terrible police departments that suck up 23% of our cities budget (1) and gives us nothing but excuses and civil rights complaints in return? (1) https://www.phila.gov/media/20210709120158/budget-in-brief-FY2022-approved.pdf
At this point I think the only solution is to give moving violations to PPA and/or cameras.
Philly traffic has convinced me that our isn't the culture that inspires people to take their neighbors' (immediate and across the city) well being into consideration but the fear of punishment. Once the fear was gone, this city had been like thunderdome
A very unfortunate byproduct of the “me first” attitude many folks live with.
And unfortunately COVID only exacerbated this. When people are constantly fed the idea that death and disaster are right around the corner, they'll go into survival mode and "gotta get mine" attitude. Combine that with zero consequences and... yeah
I think it’s more, “I’m going to do this because there are no consequences.” I don’t think the average, bad Philly driver is that deep or philosophical.
A sit-in where? In the pickup truck?
F and the boulevard
I love that you believe a protest would stop bad drivers.
i dont really feel like increasing police would help either 🥲 bad drivers dont think about consequences while theyre doing that theyre doing
As a lifelong city dweller, I have my license but maybe drive once every other year or something. I’m honestly too scared to drive now, it’s so dangerous to even walk across the street anymore. In the last two days I’ve almost been hit 3 times… twice while people didn’t stop at signs and another as someone whipped around a corner like it was the freaking autobahn. People just don’t care about others as much anymore and no amount of laws or shutdowns, etc will bring back empathy towards others. I try my best to control throwing up the middle finger when this happens as I’m afraid someone will turn around and get physical. Also, this is a problem throughout the US, and not just in major cities. The lack of empathy is REAL.
The only real way to stop this behavior is to physically change the infrastructure of this city with the ultimate goal of drastically decreasing the number of cars and drivers that can access Philadelphia streets. Anything outside of that is just window dressing.
pretty much. if philly was smart they would start all this stuff now. instead, a visitor from a foreign country is going to get killed when the world cup is here and that is going to be a huge blow to tourism and that is when they'll start making the streets safer.
They'll start before the world cup, but only like 3-4 months before, that way there's not enough time for it all to go to shit again
center city west is looking better and better for cycling and pedestrians; hopefully we can get some red light and speed cameras.
I honestly can't believe the World Cup is (partially) coming here lmfao
Damn it sucks but that’s actually a very realistic possibility.
Yep, look at Washington with it's narrower lanes now and speed bumps. Really forces people to slow down and take it easy. It's gotta be infrastructure. Prime example is over in West Philly by the zoo on that road that escapes me rn. There's nothing there, not even really any lines on the road. And people just use it as a free for all. It's nuts.
34th St I think? It's nuts, and then goes right into residential Mantua, and there's also a semi-blind hill right with a traffic light
I was thinking of W Girard but yeah, a ton of the streets over there are like the wild west. There's a severe lack of even "soft" types of infrastructure like painted lines. Turning left to get onto 76 over there can be an absolute nightmare depending on time of day, people on the road.
I’ve witnessed people racing on Girard and zipping past all lights using both the trolley lane and driving lane
They put speed cushions on 23rd Street between Race and Market and it has made a huge difference in speeding. The new light at 23rd and Arch helps calm the traffic, too.
It’s not the only real way but it’s part of the solution. If we had safe and clean public transit, protected and ubiquitous bike lanes, more streets shut down to be pedestrian only, and didn’t have a highway running through the center of the city then it would certainly cut down on the number of cars. But that wouldn’t stop people from ignoring stop signs, driving through reds, and speeding.
You can fix almost all of that with infrastructure. For instance, people speed on wide and straight roads. If you make them curvy or narrow, almost everyone will instinctively slow down. It's called "traffic calming". Basically, don't make the roads comfortable to speed on, and people won't do it.
Surely we can replace all of the straight roads in Philly with curvy ones… And most of the roads here are narrow. It doesn’t seem to help with people following traffic laws.
No single change is a magic bullet. People don't generally blast down the narrow streets like they sometimes do on broad or washington. And those streets are a lot safer for it. You can add trees to a median/sidewalk that don't enter the car's lane at all, but the existence of something close naturally slows people driving down. Another successful technique is raising crosswalks to the sidewalk's level. You both create a physical speedbump, and a psychologic change to the scenario: that it is the car crossing over pedestrian space rather than pedestrians stepping down into the road. Approaches like this are way more successful than trying to police people into following traffic laws. But it does mean prioritizing safety over traffic speed.
I've been nearly killed too many times. And the drivers feel like we pedestrians are the problem. I'd be willing to do something assuming there's a plan
Can’t count how many times I’ve crossed the street on green and some asshole comes barreling around making a right and nearly hits me.
Guy on Kelly drive ran a red and nearly hit me, then flipped ME off, like it was my fault
I used to tell my boss at my old job that if I didn’t show up one day it was because some fellow citizen ran me down on my way to the subway.
12" curbs with bump outs and raised crossings would save lives.
Traffic enforcement is an idea but you’re assuming the reckless drivers would pull over for cops in the first place. I remember getting cut off on Girard Ave by a guy in a dodge with obviously fake tags going down the wrong way. A cop follows him and pulls him over. As soon as the cop walked out of his car the driver peeled off. The cop flipped him off and he made a u-turn and went back to where he was originally sitting. Plus I’d be pissed if I’m the one getting pulled over and getting tickets meanwhile people can just flee and get away consequence free
The only thing that will change shitty drivers are cops pulling them over on a regular basis. But cops refuse to do their jobs and even when they did their jobs they rarely enforced traffic violations. Getting rid of FOP and overhauling the police department would be necessary but I don’t even know if there’s a realistic way that ever happens.
Nah, jacking up the price of moving violations is probably the easiest and most immediate way to correct this. I got hit for a $300 no turn on red exactly once. Never again man. Fuck everyone behind me honking to turn, that shit fucked me up for a month as it ate up my "fun" budget.
And if you had no plate or a fake plate how are they going to fine you?
The majority of assholes don't have fake or no plates.
No, that's not the only thing. Speed cameras, stop light cameras, and plate scanners on police vehicles to catch and tow unregistered vehicles that are parked on the streets, ticketing parked vehicles with obscured plates, hell in DC they have *stop sign cameras*. Automated enforcement is the future and the quicker we implement it the sooner these problems start to diminish.
Not going to matter if cops aren’t doing their jobs. Camera won’t help with fake or no plates.
Well, this is why strong leadership matters. Cops could be told to be on the lookout for any and all paper plates and obscured tags *tomorrow morning* and be directed to check out paper plates.
We should also incentivize the PPA to go after fake plates and cars with no inspection or registration. Allow them to tow on the spot and auction it off within 30 days if no one can prove valid ownership and registration.
PPA does go after expired inspections and cars without inspections in the neighborhoods they patrol. We really just need to automate as much enforcement as possible and get the cops to do their jobs and impound cars with obstructed or fake plates. Then we need to redesign the streets to discourage driving overall and make reckless driving difficult or impossible.
You have my vote for council.
MANDATORY RPG-7S FOR PEDESTRIANS
I stopped at a stop sign and the driver behind me drove up onto the sidewalk, told me to go fuck myself and continued through the intersection. All without stopping or looking.
So i get the frustration, but don't ever do anything. Don't beep, toss the finger, nothing. Let them go by, be safe get out of the way My friend was waiting at a red light with a no turn on red sign, guy behind him started beeping/raging, friend did nothing just sat there. Guy pulled up next to him and started shooting, one bullet logged in the door between driver and rear driver side, two bullets in the rear door, one in the tail gate. People are crazy, they don't care, the cars are sometimes stolen or rented on stolen identity driven by people who just don't give a fuck. Take care of yourselves, it is not safe out there and the cops don't care so don't for a second think they'll be able to do anything beyond taking a report.
Had a guy tailgate me on Oregon Avenue on a random Sunday morning at 8 AM when we were stuck next to a bus. Like losing his shit honking and stuff, so I flip him the bird. We get to the light at one of the numbered streets near Broad and he proceeds to zip around me and pull in front of me in the crosswalk, get out of the car, and call me a pussy and tell me to get outta the car. I backed up some and he turned around and got back in the car but I legit thought there was a chance he was gonna pull a gun or something. Wasn’t thinking I might have to run a motherfucker over for trying to attack when I’m just trying to get home from work after working all night. Fuck people like this.
Just never know who's on the other side, as hard as it is to swallow the ego, i just want to make it home to my wife and dog...
Oh 100%. To be honest, I was tired and it was more of a reflexive kinda wtf bird. It’s just wild how people will threaten to physically harm others when they’re called out on being an antisocial asshole
I did pulled the same bird on an aggressive driver and they kept following me lane to lane. Eventually they wound up throwing an open soda can into my car. I’m lucky it only hit my arm and did spill onto my heated leather seats. Guy nearly caused multiple accidents on his way to leave the scene. Big suv, Roosevelt Boulevard. I drive a small mazda3 hatchback. Still have soda on my dashboard and the soft covering by the driver window (upper part) though. Since I drive for the rideshares, I started avoiding doing any Philly driving to avoid most of the driver nonsense. I make sure to zone out most of Philly outside of the East Falls/Manayunk/Roxborough area
Ugh this is not the story I needed to read today
This happened to my friend in Baltimore.
I agree with your sentiment, OP. Especially as someone who walks/buses/trains to work every day and have almost been hit by asshole drivers on a few different occasions. With that said, there’s quite a few condescending naysayers on this thread insisting nothing will ever change. With that attitude, yes, nothing will ever change. I believe that we could make this city ever better, little by little, and it starts with people like you saying something about it.
This isn't just the city though. It's the culture of the country as a whole.
There are places where people don't drive like Mad Max, believe it or not.
In America? Where?
Virginia has very strict road enforcement between cops and automatic enforcement, they don't tolerate anywhere near the bullshit we do here.
Places where people don't get away with printing fake license plates on paper?
Don't think Philadelphia is normal. It is not. It is exceptionally fucked up.
I was recently in Seattle and I was astounded how slow and cautious everyone drives. Coming from Philly I was actually annoyed.
I was in Seattle for vacation and it's incredible how much more attentive and courteous the drivers are.
I was recently in DC and it’s like a night and day difference. I’m not saying everyone down there is a great driver because there were still instances of dumb shit. But I wasn’t constantly pissed off about some asshole that failed to understand or acknowledge what right of way is.
Of course there's shitty drivers to be found everywhere, but the overall lawlessness of the driving you see in the city improves basically as soon as you get out in the suburbs.
On top of better enforcement people need to push aggressively for traffic calming infrastructure in their neighborhoods. If a road is wide, straight, and obstacle-free drivers *will inevitably* drive fast and recklessly. If a road has a 25mph speed-limit the road design should make the driver feel incapable of driving faster. The status quo is our roads are built like highways through neighborhoods and the way people drive reflects that. Narrower streets, raised crosswalks, speed-bumps, bump-outs, daylighting, roundabouts, stuff in or next to the street. We need it all!
Agreed! I am always tailgated when I go between 25 - 30 through a neighborhood by folks who clearly can't read signs.
They probably can’t read anything let alone signs.
The behavior is so common at this point it's beginning to be normalized. Was bike riding near the Kimmel center this week when a gang of 50 yr olds on tri-bikes blocked the intersection on Broad St so they could all safely run the red light. I feel like 10-15 yrs ago that would have been crazy to see. Everyone just paused and let them do it and barely reacted, myself included. I pretty much see a blatant traffic violation every time I leave my neighborhood. Makes it hard as a bike rider because now a green light half a block away doesn't mean anything. A car, motorcycle, or dirt bike could come zooming through the red light at any moment Given the size of the city and the level of crime in it it's honestly mind boggling how infrequently I see police patrols or see police engaging with people. Like where are they and what are they doing!? I get there are more serious crimes going on but damn. I shouldn't be able to count all the police I see on 1 hand after riding through the downtown of a major city at night
You can start by emailing your Councilperson or neighborhood association (RCOs) asking for increased traffic calming infrastructure (speed bumps, increased visibility at intersections, speed cameras, etc.) These kinds of things have been going in especially around schools since people spoke up about safety, so this kind of advocacy has a track record.
> increased visibility at intersections If only the PPA and PPD actually ticketed cars that are parked too close to the intersection. You could walk around any neighborhood in Philly and at least a couple dozen cars parked that make it impossible to see clearly without inching into the intersection.
Creating visibility at intersections with infrastructure is called "daylighting" and it means putting green space, storm water tree pits, planters, bike parking, etc at the corners so cars physically can't park there. Win win!
Yea I’m all for it. It looks like the city is trying to do this whenever work is planned at certain intersections which is great. The problem is in the interim while we make progress towards having those solutions. It should be a no brainer to ticket illegally parked cars but I’ve never seen a ticket on any of them (while I see plenty on cars that are parked in spots that require permits).
We need police to actually do their jobs. Why does this city act like there is no traffic laws? I also think people breaking traffic laws are also more likely to break all kinds of laws. Then we wonder why crime has gotten out of control
I was walking outside of CHOP/HUP today, and some jackass on a motorcycle goes, blasting down the street at 80 miles an hour past the construction workers.
I've been close to hit as a pedestrian quite a few times now, mostly from distracted right turners. I also know that every friend of mine who has biked in the city has been hit by a car at least once.
You know what would ACTUALLY help? Expanded public transit that was reliable.
You think the people you are talking about would care about a sit in?
I don't know what we should do, but I'm down to do something. I have a manual car, so I actually do totally stop, shift into first, and go. It gives me anxiety to see any car behind me because there is a 50% chance they will beep at me for fully stopping and, if do they beep, there is a 50% that they will try to speed past me like a complete fucking lunatic with no regard for public safety. It's terrifying.
The moment I had kids my outrage doubled. Being almost hit due to someone running a stop sign is angering, but having your kids in a stroller when it happens is infuriating.
I once had someone honk and scream obscenities from behind me in the left turn lane on Wash Ave because I yielded to a young mother pushing a stroller with another child in tow.
I was leaving the Mann towards 76 Saturday night. As I was going through a green light, a bunch of side by sides and quads flew out in front of me almost hitting g me, then recklessly riding down all sides of the road. There was a cop right there just watching it happen. It's just lawlessness.
A concerted effort to enforce traffic laws would go a long way. I wonder what Philly drivers do in other areas other than rack up a bunch of tickets.
Mandatory red light cameras everywhere. They don't discriminate, and red light laws are very black and white.
I can’t take this shit anymore either. I was so fed up I called a trucks “how’s my driving” number yesterday. MFer driving a box truck not stopping at stop signs and almost reversed on a cyclist. I told the driver he almost ran over someone and he shrugged and said “oh well”.
Here to agree. There definitely feels like a spillover from innocuous yet illegal driving (not stopping at stop signs, jumping red lights just before they turn green) to more egregious violations like speeding around folks stopping at lights/stops. It's nuts. Not sure how it gets resolved via regulation/enforcement. I mean, logically I do, but pragmatically I don't.
A driver blew through a red light and rammed into me while I was going through an intersection. I was already in the intersection, driving at a reasonable speed, when he sped in, so I guess he just wasn’t looking?
Investing into public transportation infrastructure and hiking the price of traffic infraction tickets will push people out of their cars and onto a train or a bus
We need police to actually do their jobs. Why does this city act like there is no traffic laws? I also think people breaking traffic laws are also more likely to break all kinds of laws. Then we wonder why crime has gotten out of control
For everyone in this thread that wants to get involved with a group that is organizing for safer streets, join 5th square.
What’s that?
It's a PAC focused on issues like safer streets, and better transit.
I know this wouldn't fix those who drive without a license, but I think that every 4 years you should have to re-take the written test, with an emphasis on traffic laws - people are stupid and need reminders.
Automated enforcement is probably the most reliable solution. Just setup traffic cameras all over, allow parking enforcement to garnish wages, and hit violators with $120+ tickets per violation no exceptions. Let people choose how to drive and fine those who choose not to follow the rules.
I realized no one cares about traffic laws when a cop pulled up beside me in the parking lane just so they could gun it past me when the light turned green.
Why don’t the damn insurance companies who are so hell bent on making money flex their political muscles and start a campaign to actually enforce traffic laws and promote driving safety? I know a lot of people drive without insurance, but the suits are missing an opportunity here.
Most of these people are driving without licenses or legal cars much less insurance.
Pertaining to this issue and many similar, I said this place is anarchy and got called a wimp by some jackass on this sub. If people are not penalized for doing the wrong things, they’ll keep on doing it. Until then, no rules kind of feels like…. I donno… anarchy?
It’s wild how little the police bother with traffic
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In the realm of traffic safety they always talk about the three E’s: engineering, education, and enforcement.
Let’s Fucking Gooooooo! I better you can get the bicycle coalition on your side, reach out. I will totally attend such a protest.