Someone driving by or walking across might not even know that those crosswalks weren’t painted by the city.
Oh no, people might think they are real and look out for pedestrians!
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Mildly Infuriating
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I got a ticket for parking next to a red curb after the resident painted it. Had to go down to the city and get confirmation it was fake to get the ticket dismissed.
Not really angry about that one. Taught me good info about the government back then.
Or pedestrians might think they are real and get run over because they aren't up to proper spec for a crossing.
Besides being painted in reflective road paint, which these ones are, what else would cause a pedestrian to be run over?
As long as it looks like a crosswalk, and drivers can see it, I'm not sure what else you would need.
Depending on location there's additional stuff, mostly signage notifying drivers. With great variation in requirements depending on the road.
Signage is definitely important. You can't just throw shit down on the pavement and have it be treated as a sign itself.
This happens all the time in cities. The good cities take it as prompting to perform a traffic study and determine whether a crosswalk would be safe there, then implement one if possible. This happens in Seattle sometimes.
Drivers are required to stop for pedestrians when crossing the street at marked crosswalks and at intersections as well. That’s right it’s perfectly legal to cross the street at an intersection even without the aid of crosswalk striping on the pavement.
https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2014/09/12/crosswalk-law-1-0/
Not like anybody stops for pedestrians, but they're supposed to at least.
You might be talking about the case in Seattle where some people argued that the pride flag crosswalks in Capitol Hill weren't up to code.
No I'm talking about things that happen in the city I live in
Oh. I live in Seattle too. Wasn't aware of that story.
The Capitol Hill Seattle blog is a good one to subscribe to, lots of good local coverage
I'm more of a West Seattle blog person. :)
Just remember to read the Stranger, Seattle's only newspaper,
the city is sending crews to remove them.
The city seems to be overreacting. It's just a crosswalk, there's no reason to remove the families who painted them. Sheesh
Straight to El Salvador /s :(
Oh hey I used to live near Sawtelle. Honestly the city department there is fucking terrible.
I parked there once using street parking when I was first looking for apartments and I got ticketed for being in a no parking zone when there wasn't a sign or a red line saying no parking.
Went to the city's office and despite photo evidence we still got denied an appeal.
Huh. Sounds like an easy way for the city to generate revenue.
I think he might have had better success if he painted the crosswalks to the same specifications as the ones the city uses.
If it blends in with all the other crosswalks, nobody will likely notice, at least until it gets repaved and the lack of documentation would be written off as some sort of administrative error.
Anybody know where an individual (as opposed to a road construction company) can source the correct type of road-marking paint and/or thermoplastic?
Asking for a friend.
Does painting a crosswalk really increase safety? I feel like the type of person not pay attention and run someone over is the type of person to not care if there's a crosswalk, not pay attention, and run someone over.
I don't understand why you would expect it not to increase safety.
It gives a visual cue to drivers that it is more likely someone is intending to cross at this location.
Any time I see an intersection I assume there might be people. Downtown where I’m at there’s rarely crosswalks at intersections unless it’s a major through road.
Yeah. Our brains are conditioned to assume people are more likely to be in a crosswalk. It's also why I drive slowly past long rows of parked cars. I've been conditioned to assume a kid is going to jump out.
Most folks are not conditioned to be thoughtful.
It's probably incremental but, IMO, a crosswalk does imply a certain amount of pedestrian traffic that might encourage a smidge of extra attention and double checking from some drivers, vs a location that gives the appearance of having very infrequent pedestrian crossingsmay be far less frequent. That not to say that complacency is any kind of excuse. But it is how people are on average.
On a large scale I have no idea but it does for me when I’m driving.
A crosswalk at an intersection, especially an unmetered one, serves as a warning that there’s enough regular pedestrian traffic or a risk that dictated it was needed.
Helps me, personally, to be extra aware for crossers.
Checking Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_crossing#Safety
The safety of unsignalled pedestrian or zebra crossings is somewhat contested in traffic engineering circles.
Research undertaken in New Zealand showed that a zebra crossing without other safety features on average increases pedestrian crashes by 28% compared to a location without crossings. However, if combined with (placed on top of) a speed table, zebra crossings were found to reduce pedestrian crashes by 80%.
A five-year U.S. study of 1,000 marked crosswalks and 1,000 unmarked comparison sites found that on most roads, the difference in safety performance of marked and unmarked crossings is not statistically significant, unless additional safety features are used. […] This study only included locations where vehicle traffic was not controlled by a signal or stop sign.
Traffic accidents are reduced when intersections are daylighted, i.e. visibility increased such as by removing adjacent parked cars.
Research undertaken in New Zealand showed that a zebra crossing without other safety features on average increases pedestrian crashes by 28% compared to a location without crossings.
See, that's mostly what I was thinking. "Zebra stripes" make pedestrians feel safe to cross, and have virtually no impact on drivers who can easily just ignore them. But paired with other things they are a good addition, especially since it tells pedestrians where to cross.
I'd like to see the methodology. A zebra crossing also increases foot traffic compared to a location without crossings.
The quoted Wikipedia article has some source references which I chose not to include for conciseness/readability.
Isn't the government "we the people"? So you know the government DID paint them. Fuck those guys, they just mad because the contractor that paid them off didn't get their cut and now they are.
If the "government" can't be bothered to do the job they were elected to do the people will have to step in.
But the city said they never received a request for crosswalks in that area
Assuming this is truthful, at least submit the request first. Maybe save yourself a little work.
And specifically in this case, Angelenos can download the MyLA 3-1-1 app to make requests easily. I do it all the time.
Hard to paint them over if the cars driving thru the area dont stop or swerve to avoid the crew in them.