Pedestrian culling.

We saw this on the back of a bus yesterday and I took particular offence to it. I absolutely do not hold with the common myth that it's always the driver's fault when a pedestrian gets hit. Especially in the case of the example they've chosen on this poster. If some idiot pedestrian wanders across the road without looking, concentrating on their iPod or cellphone, and they get hit by a car, it's called Darwinism. The argument is always "as a driver it's your responsibility to avoid an accident." That's true, but as a pedestrian, it's their responsibility to not jaywalk into the road like a total cock and get themselves killed. You simply cannot levy all the blame on the drivers.
This sort of advertising just persists the arrogant attitude that as a car driver, we're responsible for everything bad that happens to pedestrians. You know what? By the logic implied in this advert, I could drive on the sidewalk and mow pedestrians down left right and centre and it would be their responsibility for me hitting them.
Of course that's a fallacy - the sidewalks would be empty in real life because all these morons are wandering around in the bloody traffic!
Now if that poster had said "hang up your fucking cellphone and concentrate on actually driving", I would be totally in favour of that.
The real problem here is that putting a poster like this on the back of a bus assumes that it will be read. That's a faulty assumption given that 99.99% of drivers can't see any further ahead than their own windscreen.
Oh and before anyone gets all high-and-mighty trying to take the moral high ground about me taking a cellphone photo whilst driving, you'll notice it's taken from the passenger seat, by my passenger, and we were stopped which is why we're so close to the bus.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I remember it being drilled into my head as a kid "Look both ways before you cross the street!"

I guess in today's society, you don't have to pay any attention at all, and it's still someone else fault! WTF

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