How long until someone tries to park their car on top of this "solution"?Submitted by Arsenault185 t3_10r02fk in Maine
EngineersAnon t1_j6vgi2y wrote
Reply to comment by Dirty_Lew in How long until someone tries to park their car on top of this "solution"? by Arsenault185
>At this point it’s negligence on the part of Walmart the driver's hitting the pole.
FTFY
Dirty_Lew t1_j6wrnko wrote
It’s obviously bad design if this many people have hit it.
EngineersAnon t1_j6ws2gx wrote
That doesn't change the fact that hitting a stationary object is always and solely the responsibility of the driver.
Dirty_Lew t1_j6wsbts wrote
It legally does though. They would share responsibility because Walmart created the hazard.
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j6xxg7w wrote
The “hazard” in this case is not the pole. It’s nothing more than good, old-fashioned human stupidity. The people who hit it were turning so early, that you can’t even say they were aiming for the wrong side of the road. They’re not even in the intersection yet, and they’re already turning.
If this were the corner of a residential block, they’d practically be steering toward someone’s porch. If they don’t know enough to pull toward the middle of an intersection before turning their wheels for a left turn, then they need to go back to driving school. It’s not Walmart’s fault people don’t know how to drive!
Dirty_Lew t1_j6ykwl2 wrote
There are definitely things Walmart can do to prevent more accidents from happening. The planning board has the right to require those. If Walmart didn’t comply they would be negligent. One of the biggest purposes of design standards is to prevent, protect, and mitigate human error.
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j6yzb6j wrote
The very reason for that pole’s existence is to protect the people who are not in their cars from human error.
If that pole weren’t there, these muppets would be mowing down pedestrians or crashing into parked cars.
Dirty_Lew t1_j6z5bhf wrote
It’s a stop sign at the end of a parking row, that’s the poles purpose. It does not protect pedestrians. Walmart could put a curb or raised median around the striped area, like many parking lots have, that people would feel before hitting the pole. I don’t dispute that human error is mostly to blame, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not hazard given so many people have hit it. A pole shouldn’t be this infamous.
[deleted] t1_j6zt6g0 wrote
[deleted]
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j6zco70 wrote
Bullshit it doesn't protect pedestrians! That's a pedestrian only area that these dipsticks are trying to cut through, except they're being foiled by the pole. If they're not seeing that pole, then they're not seeing wheelchair users going from the handicapped spaces to the entrance either.
It's not Walmart's job to protect fools from the consequences of their own folly. It's a bright yellow pole that is easily visible to anyone who bothers to drive correctly and pay attention. They put those up in all kinds of places to stop vehicles from driving in areas where vehicles don't belong. Regular stop sign poles are not rugged enough to flip over an SUV.
Once again, the pole is not the hazard. The stupid muppets who keep running into it are the actual hazards.
Dirty_Lew t1_j6zt9e3 wrote
It’s purpose is not to protect pedestrians, it’s purpose is a stop sign rugged enough to survive bumps. The striped area indicates no parking, it does not designate a pedestrian zone. It is not a bollard designed to protect pedestrians from vehicles, it would suck at that job because it keeps getting plowed over. If you cared to notice before talking out your ass, all the yellow poles at Walmart are for signs, they are not bollards.
Walmart does have a responsibility to design and maintain their parking lot in a way to prevent excessive accidents. People get sued for icy driveways for example.
How many commercial site plans have you reviewed or been involved with? You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j71arkc wrote
>The striped area indicates no parking, it does not designate a pedestrian zone
And why is it a no parking zone? Oh yeah, because people need access to get to the entrance. In particular, wheelchair users who are parking in the handicap spaces that are right nearby that pole.
That pole has prevented them from getting hit by people who are too damn lazy or incompetent to turn properly.
How many times have you actually been to this Walmart in question? I go there often. There is no excuse for being numb enough to hit that pole from the direction people keep hitting it. It's not a problem with the design of the parking lot. It's a state-wide (really, nation-wide) problem of giving driving licenses to people who are too incompetent to have them, because the required tests don't actually require any real demonstration of driving skill or to be able to pass.
>If you cared to notice before talking out your ass, all the yellow poles at Walmart are for signs, they are not bollards.
So they serve a dual purpose.
>It is not a bollard designed to protect pedestrians from vehicles, it would suck at that job because it keeps getting plowed over.
From the pictures I've seen, it does a wonderful job of stopping most of them dead in their tracks when they hit it. Takes their cars off the road for a bit, too, which at least temporarily increases the safety on public roads while they hitch rides with other people.
>How many commercial site plans have you reviewed or been involved with? You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.
You know some things I do know? How not to smash my car into a bright, yellow, plainly-visible pole. I also know how to turn my car so that I end up on the correct side of the road. Auburn clearly has a problem with people who don't know these very basic driving skills, but were given licenses anyway. Their licenses should be revoked and the people involved sent back to driving school. Every single one of them turned well before there was actually any road for them to turn onto.
It's not just a minor mistake. This is an "I have never driven a car before and have no idea how steering works" level of incompetence. Engineering is not going to fix that. "Bravo!" to the pole for taking them off the roads, at least temporarily anyway.
Dirty_Lew t1_j71x06s wrote
It’s no parking because of the layout and angle of the parking spots, and handicap zone, it’s purpose is not a pedestrian safe zone. You’re pulling that claim out of your ass, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s only purpose is a stop sign. I go to that Walmart a few times a week, I live five minutes from there, I’m very familiar with it.
You obviously don’t know anything about site plans and what is required. It’s a very obvious design problem. People get in accidents, some responsibility definitely lies with property owners to design their spaces to prevent accidents, not cause them. You sound like a ranting middle schooler acting like they have the whole world figured out.
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j71yt4j wrote
And you sound like a person who can’t accept responsibility for your own faults and has to pass the blame off onto others.
Pay attention when you’re driving. Drive on the correct side of the road. And turn properly into the correct lane, without cutting corners. Do those things, and that pole is a non-issue.
You obviously know nothing about the responsibility that comes with operating a motor vehicle, and ensuring that you don’t endanger others around you, if you think a highly visible, stationary object that is not in any lane of travel, nor in any sensible path for a left turn down that aisle, is the problem here.
All the engineering in the world can’t fix stupid, and that’s the only thing that’s causing these crashes.
Dirty_Lew t1_j721jua wrote
I’ve said multiple times that human error is mostly to blame. You’re the one steadfastly denying that the poor design has anything to do with why so many people happen to crash into this one pole. No, it has to just be extremely coincidental that all these bad drivers happen to hit the same pole. The design is perfect.
Good luck on your crusade to make everyone a perfectly attentive driver. Meanwhile I’ll continue to operate in the real world.
FlyingUdonMonster t1_j74kxi9 wrote
>You’re the one steadfastly denying that the poor design has anything to do with why so many people happen to crash into this one pole.
It absolutely is perfect! That pole is a local folk hero at this point. It's taking dangerous drivers out, one by one, making the roads (at least temporarily) safer for the rest of us, and hopefully giving them a humbling lesson they won't soon forget about paying attention to what they're doing when driving.
>I’ve said multiple times that human error is mostly to blame.
This is well beyond the ordinary types of human error that lead to typical parking lot mishaps. These people are turning left so ridiculously early that, not only are they missing the correct lane, but they're also missing the oncoming lane.
The problem is less that they don't realize where that pole is, and more that they have lost track of where the actual road is that they're supposed to be driving on. They'd be on the sidewalk or in the ditch if this were a public road instead of a parking lot! That pole is not obscured by the A-pillar blind spot at any point where it makes sense to begin turning your steering wheel to the left to go around that corner. And they're not just scraping it because they get a little too close; they're mostly smashing into it head on! That one guy even managed to flip his vehicle over. How dangerously fast must he have been going in a congested parking lot to manage that‽
I've driven through that entrance and made that very left turn many times. It's blatantly obvious what path you need to take to make that left if you have the most basic understanding of how cars steer, and have even a small amount of spatial awareness.
>Good luck on your crusade to make everyone a perfectly attentive driver. Meanwhile I’ll continue to operate in the real world.
The crusade isn't to make everyone a good driver, but to get the bad ones on the bus, or some other form of public transit, instead. Our country made a grave mistake when it built all of its infrastructure around the assumption that everyone should drive their own private cars, and its going to take generations of work to undo that foolishness.
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