Comment on California father arrested after repainting crosswalk, adding stop signs near children’s park
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 18 hours agoTraffic engineering is an actual science - what he did was extremely well-meaning, but it’s also the pavement equivalent of alternative medicine. Sometimes you’re right, but even if you nail the diagnosis most of the time you’re so ignorant you don’t even understand the potential harm you’re doing in brewing up your own treatment. It is very possible that his traffic revisions have made the area less safe for pedestrians by ex: shifting traffic congestion onto surrounding roads.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 17 hours ago
It may be a science, but that doesn’t place it in some rarefied air of infallibility, any more than any other science. It’s only ever as good as how it’s applied, and how any science is applied is always subject to human fallibility. Traffic engineering is especially bad in that respect, routinely and as a matter of course being subverted by political considerations, not least by the fundamental choices about who and what matters, and who and what does not matter. It does not deserve much respect as a practice.
But with that said, in this case, even the traffic engineers agreed that a stop sign was an appropriate treatment for this intersection when they rejected it on the basis that the traffic volume wasn’t high enough to warrant installing one. Presumably, if there were more cars, it would be fine. So, yes, we can say confidently that this man made the area safer.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I’m not sure I follow your reasoning here.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 17 hours ago
They allegedly did a study to see whether there was enough traffic, a step which requires a certain commitment of resources. If the placement of a stop sign would’ve harmed safety by displacing traffic flow, then they could’ve cited that without spending time on a study. But they didn’t, from which we can conclude that a stop sign is okay there.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Ah, I understand. Thank you.
That’s a decent example of what I’ve been saying - basing a conclusion like that on the wording of an uncited press statement is pretty spurious. There simply may have been more reasons and this was judged the easiest to explain (which happens frequently), and without more information we aren’t simply equipped to make an informed judgement. Much as he wasn’t when he made the initial decision (but we admittedly court far less severe consequences)