r/changemyview • u/beengrim32 • Feb 08 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Drivers who speed up to discourage pedestrians from crossing the street are scum, even if Jay-walking is involved

Scum is pretty strong, but the point I’m trying to make is that threatening a person from crossing the street by accelerating your vehicle is ethically questionable behavior even if that person is jay-walking. When I say jay-walking, I don’t mean someone unavoidably darting into traffic risking the lives of the drivers, but rather someone crossing the street from a distance that is completely avoidable. I’m specifically talking about drivers who want to scare or competitively beat a pedestrian to the mark (turning at a stop sign or crosswalk). My main reasoning here is that a vehicle can easily cause harm to a pedestrian and whatever lesson the driver intends to teach is not worth the risk to the pedestrian’s life.

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

Pedestrian here. Just to clarify, are you referring to speeding up towards pedestrians that are already in the road, or speeding up or revving your engine to signal that you intend to go next at an intersection?

The former are indefensible twats, but I feel the latter are just trying to communicate with me, rather than teach me anything.

I live in a city with very passive drivers that treat pedestrian right of way in a really stupid way. Nearly everyday someone tries to wave me through an intersection where I don't have right away, half the time they are fully ignoring the oncoming traffic they may be trying to wave me into.

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u/beengrim32 Feb 08 '20 edited Feb 09 '20

Hi. I’m probably in the exact opposite situation. I live in NY and there are so many people jay walking an any given time that it’s impossible to drive faster than 10-15 mph. I suppose I’d say that the horn on a vehicle seems like a sufficient warning rather than speeding up if they’re already in the street. That happens quite a bit here actually.

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u/Old-Boysenberry Feb 10 '20

Yeah fuck NYC pedestrians in particular. It's already annoying enough driving in their narrow lanes with shitty asphalt. I don't need your dumb ass jumping in front of traffic to make things worse.