Construction vs. Human Safety

[@yowheeler]

I like this guy because he is angry and correct.

[@natehunter2961]

The difference is liability, if someone is killed on a job it’s going to cost the company over a million dollars most likely as well as risking their future business. If a person is killed biking along the road the road owner loses nothing. Also the average on the job injury costs 40k, with roads once again the road owner loses nothing if someone breaks a leg on the road.

[@tann_man]

An issue with public roads. The government is almost never held liable for the people it kills directly or indirectly.

[@nunyabidness3075]

Both excellent points. Disability costs are now paralyzing a LOT of businesses (especially small ones). What I don’t get is who is the constituency against fixing it?

[@Pystro]

Another factor is that construction workers are both the ones who are at risk and the ones who have access to marking material (cones, barriers, signs). And nobody questions their authority to put them up. Only a small part of all pedestrians and cyclists are traffic engineers. And traffic engineers are only part of the group at risk in a small part of their city; a very very small part if they drive everywhere. If I had access to paint and stencils and the legal authority to paint bike lanes wherever I deem necessary, you bet that there's more than one spot along my commute where I would mark new bike lanes or change how existing bike lanes are marked.

[@benjaminhigham3624]

I live in Tampa and it really bothers me when road construction is happening the bike lane is often blocked by cones but none of the car lanes are impacted.

[@benjaminhigham3624]

I live right next to a university too

[@lucascapistrant4049]

So true! The bike lane is always the first thing to go. Delivery? Bike lane. Temporary equipment storage? Bike lane. Etc. and at that point I’d rather just not have a bike lane and be in traffic full time cuz going from bike lane to car lane and back can be dangerous

[@benjaminhigham3624]

@@lucascapistrant4049 agreed. Mirrors make things a bit easier

[@mariusfacktor3597]

Brilliant insight, per usual. I detest "lawsuit culture" because it necessitates administrative overhead like lawyers to every organization, but in this case we need to have enormous lawsuits for every pedestrian fatality. That way the city manager would say we simply can't allow dangerous city streets and the state controller would say we simply can't allow dangerous state roads. Because the risk of their city or state getting hit with such a lawsuit is just too big to ignore.