NYC, its like Frogger...literally [video]

[Gnnr]

’3 Way Street’: Artist video tracks scary traffic | The Upshot Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20110610/od_yblog_upshot/3-way-street-artist-video-tracks-scary-traffic)

Warning: The video below may cause you never to want to leave your house again. A School of Visual Arts thesis project by artist Ron Gabriel, named "3-Way Street," tracks a camera at the Manhattan intersection of 28th Street and Park Avenue. The New York mayhem known as street traffic ensues.

The video of traffic behaving badly has gone viral on the Web. No surprise: What you see is pretty hair-raising.

As the artist puts it on his website, the point of the study is to show the "interconnected role in improving the safety and usability of our streets." Mission very much accomplished.

With the master student's helpful graphics added to the clips, it's almost like watching the video game Frogger: Pedestrians dodge bikes, run into oncoming traffic, and barely escape with their lives. An 18-wheeler makes a tight U-turn. Cars jump lights. Pedestrians jaywalk. Bikes do everything but follow the rules of the road. Riding on the sidewalk? Check. Riding on the wrong side of the road? Check. Nearly colliding with people on foot? Check. Check. Check.

Aside from the arresting visuals, the stats from the artist are scary: This is just one intersection of 12,370 in the city. And 74 percent of the city's accidents that kill or seriously injure three to four people a day usually happen at an intersection, which causes collisions of bikes, cars, and people.

You can watch the video below. And please be careful out there.

24572222

Crazy ass shit. :eek3:

[Steinkrunk]

whhhuuuu. Holy shit people in NYC are nuts. Dude at the end was ready to just plow people over!

[LoneStarSilvia]

Lesson learned, stay the fuck outta NYC.

Reminds me of the crazy bike messenger videos.

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[enkei2k]

half the time, it's the bikers. they seriously think they rule the streets and can disregard all the lights and stop signs. i've seen my fair share of them on a daily basis.

this is why i never drive into the city and just take public transportation at all times when heading into the city.

take it from someone who's here. it's just another day in NYC. it's really nothing special...everything here is all about fast pace, bang bang in your face.

[Steinkrunk]

wth is that dude smoking out of in the beginning?

[Gnnr]

half the time, it's the bikers. they seriously think they rule the streets and can disregard all the lights and stop signs. i've seen my fair share of them on a daily basis.

this is why i never drive into the city and just take public transportation at all times when heading into the city.

take it from someone who's here. it's just another day in NYC. it's really nothing special...everything here is all about fast pace, bang bang in your face.

Are there any bike lanes? Even here, where no one bikes, we got a shit ton of them on all the main streets. Also, I'm guessing you guys are lucky enough to not have red light cameras, people no longer make turns on red in my area. lol

Edit: nevermind, I saw video above. I see you have lanes that are blocked by pedestrians and taxis lol

[BOROSUN]

i used to walk @ nyc with bus and car 5inches in front of me. i usually didnt wait for the walk sign. i was too gangsta for that shit.

[aziankingz]

It might look scary walking by watching videos, but when you are actually walking on those streets, you will have no problems going with the flow.. Some bikers are assholes and don't follow the street rules, thinking they are pedestrians - fuck them and Bloomberg!

[Phlip]

I am so glad we have bike lanes and asshole cops who MAKE people use them and ticket people who park on them in my city.

[enkei2k]

we have bike lanes in the city, and some places have bike lights also (ex: herald square 34th street), but lots of male bikers (surprise surprise), choose not to use them. they're the ones that fly on by even when they have the red light and then curse at YOU even though you have the right of way.

sometimes whenever i see one that do that, i just want to kick them off their bike and send them flying for disregarding the rules.

just another day in NYC though, if you live here for a while, like many of us that are here,you get used to it lol.

[heavenboundkevin]

holy crap that was ridiculous

[Agamemnon]

As a motorist I hate pedestrians.
As a pedestrian I hate motorists.
But I will always hate bicyclists.

[BustedS13]

cyclists are such assholes. except for the ones with one gear no freewheel and no brakes, those guys are totally chill.

[madd ocx]

That is an example of why ny'ers are probably the best defensive drivers in the country.. but also explains why our auto insurance is so high.. but that's nothing special, happens everyday..

[Daniel.]

FN5BubxKtOI

[LimeLite Racing]

This video makes me want to punch something. Fuck NYC. Lol

[ronmcdon]

It's not just NYC, when I lived in San Francisco the bicyclists were really reckless and always got hit, or hit cars & pedestrians.
Same deal with a lot of college campuses.
They really have no business being in heavy urban areas, it's just not worth the trouble.

That being said, some of the pedestrians in NY are also just asking for it.

[Quail]

Same shit in London, and most traffic heavy cities. I have seen some seriously crazy cyclists in central London.

[gearhead55]

(video of crazy intersection)

where is this? I was in Vietnam recently and the traffic was literally crazier than this. We got into a cab leaving the airport and i was in absolute shock once we got onto the streets. The sheer density of scooters was baffling. I was doing work in a vietnamese hospital and talked to a few of the ER doctors there. One said that they see an average of ten fatal accidents EVERY DAY in that one hospital alone (which served a large portion of Saigon/Ho Chi Minh city). He said the most injuries he had seen resulting from traffic accidents in one day approached 100. Traffic anywhere in the US honestly doesn't even phase me anymore after experiencing the complete chaos and thrill of driving over there. In the ten days i was there vehicles in which i was a passenger were involved in two accidents. Luckily neither resulted in any injuries. Videos like the one starting this thread really don't hold a candle to traffic situations in other countries.

here are some pictures from my trip to give an example of the traffic and the hospital waiting room. I didn't have time to go through all of them to find the best ones, but these are an pretty good representation of the chaos.

http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz329/gearhead55/IMG_0384.jpg

http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz329/gearhead55/IMG_0481.jpg

http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz329/gearhead55/IMG_0497.jpg

[chato de shamrock]

LA is catching on slowly with the bike lanes and since gas prices have sky rocketted some years back you can notice a lot more bikes around, especially with the help of that one fad of those groups of cyclings in their skin tight jeans and plad flannel shirts that like to use different color wheels on their gynormis bikes. I really dont care until they decide to ride with you on the road during rush hour. Pisses me off driving on a road thats not wide enough to add a bike lane (Hollywood Blvd between Vermont and Fairfax) and the cyclists decide to share it with the traffic thats forming behind their slow asses, then you take a gander at the empty sidewalk and the line of cars behind on your rear view mirroe and think WTF!? You have to wait for a clear chance to cut into the lane on your left to pass them. Then at the next red light the cyclist catches up and your back to doing it all over again.

[captainfalco]

I've known this for years.

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[eh?]

Wow big friggen whoop you pansies. Lived in nyc for 25 years that shit is nothing and most of the video is slightly sped up.
Mean while Orlando just made most dangerous U.S. city for pedestrians again.
Bike safety (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_thechaingang/2011/05/orlando-most-dangerous-u-s-city-for-pedestrians.html)
Damn red necks and their lifted trucks.

[mr_eh]

live & bike in nyc - the video was not all that surprising or shocking - also there are not bike lanes on every street so sometimes it's easy to forget to look for one because you get in the mindset that there isn't... and no cars/peds respect the bike lanes... I commute 13 miles roundtrip daily and spend 1 of those miles in a bike lane... would love if the whole way was bike lanes.

[blueshark123]

taxi drivers and bicyclists mainly cause all the chaos in the city, I hate the city but driving or walking around is not that crazy as shown.

[slowvia]

Bicyclists suck everywhere, not just in NYC! They pull the same shit in my town, which is why I seriously believe we need to start issuing licenses for riding a bike on the street. Too many bicyclists think themselves to be pedestrians and have the right of way at all times.

[EhrikETFG]

woooooooooooooooow get over the bikes.