[OSM-talk] Software goes on, brain goes off...

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Wed Jun 2 03:04:36 BST 2010


On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:38 PM, John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 2 June 2010 10:23, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> > You seem to have missed the rest of my post.  I was arguing that a road
> with
> > no pavement but with a shoulder is *not* unsafe.  OTOH, if the road has
> no
> > shoulder, and traffic traveling at 55 mph, and only 1 car a day, I'm not
> > walking down it.
>
> My mother often goes for walks on roads that have 3 or 4 times that
> amount of traffic at that speed, and she isn't the only one. It's
> perfectly safe to do so because there is room to get off the road and
> you can usually hear them coming, especially when it's a B-Double*
> instead of a car, I've never heard of any pedestrians being clipped or
> killed.
>

Room to get off the road.  That's what I was referring to as a "shoulder".

The amount of traffic nor the speed they travel at nor type of traffic
> doesn't inherently make walking on a road unsafe.
>

Agreed.  100%.


> I have no idea of the legality of walking along roads outside towns,
> but hitchhikers do it often and I don't think they get arrested.
>

Here's the (relevant) law in Florida: "Where sidewalks are not provided, any
pedestrian walking along and upon a highway shall, when practicable, walk
only on the shoulder on the left side of the roadway in relation to the
pedestrian's direction of travel, facing traffic which may approach from the
opposite direction. "

So, technically, here in Florida, walking on the roadway when there is a
shoulder available (and practicable) would be illegal.  Interestingly,
"shoulder" does not seem to be defined in the law, but I've always assumed
it meant the part of the right of way (paved or unpaved) which was able to
be walked upon and which was not part of the roadway.

However I think it would be a great idea to indicate the difference
> between legally disallowed and just not a good idea due to personal
> safety, I don't think re-using the foot tag is a good idea, because it
> might be legal, but not safe to do late at night because you'll get
> mugged etc etc etc.
>

Best case scenario, if we really want to be able to produce adequate walking
directions for people unfamiliar with the route, would be to map the entire
right of way as one or more areas with surface=* designations.  Anything
short of that is probably going to be insufficient, because there is so much
variation as to what people would consider safe enough (between different
people, and even between different times and scenarios - if I'm taking my
kids with me I might want a 30 ft. wide shoulder but if I'm walking alone a
much smaller one would be acceptable).
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