I’m currently living in Pittsburgh, and even here, where almost everything is car-centric and most places barely have sidewalks, every intersection with a pedestrian signal either uses an LPI or a Barnes-Dance sequence.

Ped and car traffic get go-lights in the same direction at the same time. By law, drivers are supposed to yield, but if everyone’s waiting for the light, then when the light goes green, there’s no one in the crosswalk. So the driver steps on the gas.

At the same moment, the first peds step into the crosswalk. Now everyone’s “on their accelerator” and the driver’s turning into the peds. If he obeys the law, he moves his foot to the brake, during which time his car is still moving forward.

If the driver is quick enough, he can beat the ped into the crosswalk, at which point he legally retains the right-of-way or at least can intimidate the ped into staying out his way.

Everyone is encouraged to rush into the intersection to acquire the “lock”.

I think this is what killed Seth on 9ave, and most everyone else who’s died in a crosswalk with the light.

LPIs /everywhere/ please, of at least three seconds.

Traffic design in many situations simply doesn’t work with the way we as people are hardwired – maybe it would be nice if we were hardwired to be robots and follow the letter of the law always, but that’s not realistic. That’s where good design comes in. Good design works with human nature to give all traffic participants a better way to not come into harm or cause harm to others.