Android
The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: !android@lemdro.id
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
📰Our communities below
Rules
-
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
-
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
-
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
-
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
-
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
-
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
-
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
-
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
-
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
-
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Quick Links
Our Communities
- !askandroid@lemdro.id
- !androidmemes@lemdro.id
- !techkit@lemdro.id
- !google@lemdro.id
- !nothing@lemdro.id
- !googlepixel@lemdro.id
- !xiaomi@lemdro.id
- !sony@lemdro.id
- !samsung@lemdro.id
- !galaxywatch@lemdro.id
- !oneplus@lemdro.id
- !motorola@lemdro.id
- !meta@lemdro.id
- !apple@lemdro.id
- !microsoft@lemdro.id
- !chatgpt@lemdro.id
- !bing@lemdro.id
- !reddit@lemdro.id
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
view the rest of the comments
Shit, it really feels like his point is spot on. If engineers are trying to design for safety, they're doing a horrible job at it.
I can't think of a single road I've driven down in the US that felt safe for anyone. Too much traffic weaving in and out and through merges and intersections, basically no safe bike lanes, and foot paths so close to fast-moving traffic that you feel like you're in a wind tunnel.
How does something so endemic like this get fixed?
That's a very good question. Ultimately, the standards of practice in traffic engineering need to change. Speaking of which: to put a finer point on just how much of an uphill battle that is, consider the fact that even the name itself^1^ -- "traffic engineering" -- is biased towards narrow concern for the routing of cars at the expense of holistic consideration of the street as a place. (See also: confessions #2, #20, and #28) There's a huge amount of institutional inertia supporting the bad status quo, including everything from university curriculum, to standards documents like the AASHTO Green Book and the MUTCD, to the fact that young Engineers-In-Training (EITs) are required to work under existing licensed Professional Engineers (PEs) for about half a decade (it varies depending on circumstances) before being allowed by law to strike out on their own -- which on balance is almost certainly a good thing because we definitely don't want unqualified people stamping plans, but also could lead to being inculcated into old ways of thinking and having latent new urbanist inclinations beaten out of them.
Fun fact: the biggest US traffic engineering research group, one which has an outsize influence in writing those standards documents, is none other than the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). In Texas. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but yea.
Anyway, one way for non-engineers to try to help that happen faster -- other than bitching about it on social media like I'm doing right now -- would be to educate yourself on New Urbanist/Strong Towns/Fuck Cars/etc. ideas, then get involved with your local politics and lobby for said ideas to be implemented. More concretely, read Jane Jacobs and Shoup and watch a bunch of Not Just Bikes videos, then call up your city councilperson, county commissioner and state rep, join whatever citizen planning groups happen to be around (e.g. my city has "NPUs"), and start bitching at those people about it. You can also go to public hearings for road projects and bitch at the engineers directly (they love that sort of thing, LOL).
^1^ It's a totally different subject -- albeit one I'm also passionate about -- but I like to cite this article as a good demonstration of how framing matters. It really can't just be dismissed as "mere semantics."