I agree with you, Beth. This is a really terrible ad. I believe Muni drivers and pedestrians have a joint responsibility to maintain community safety, but this ad places the brunt on pedestrians. A better ad would have been the Muni driver’s hand – rather than the dog’s paw – on the pedestrian’s knee, showing that Muni cares about us, too. And headphones? Really? Most of the accidents last year involved the elderly, and not because they were wearing headphones.

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The Muni Ladies agree: the rules of etiquette state that drivers should not mow down pedestrians!

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Unless you want your buses running at 3 mph, pedestrians not walking straight into their path needs to be part of the solution.

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The ad campaign didn’t really bother me all that much.

First off, as a pedestrian, you have to be aware of what’s going on around you at all times.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen a pedestrian completely jaywalk, either against the signal or in the middle of the street and then yell at the cars that nearly hit them.

Second, the implication I get from the ad is that the person walked into the side of the bus as the bus was driving by, not that the bus hit her and continued on.

Any sort of large vehicle, buses included, doesn’t have the immediacy of the car. If you’ve ever been in the front of a bus or a truck that has been rear-ended, you realize this. There’s a lot of metal and space between where the driver is sitting and where the bump occurs.

I think a lot of this behavior has to do with a really bad ‘me first’ attitude amongst American pedestrians. They, somewhere along the line, heard the sentence “Pedestrians have the right of way,” and have internalized that to mean ‘Everybody has to wait for me – cause I’m special!’

Having the right of way is one thing.

EXPECTING to have the right of way at all times is something else entirely.

And thinking that a loaded 43 Muni bus clipping along at 30 MPH will be able to stop in 20 feet and give you that right of way shows a dangerous combination of egocentrism and a lack of understanding basic physics.

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I’m often a pedestrian and I always obey traffic signals, but I’ve still unfortunately lost count of how many times I’ve almost gotten hit by a car making an unprotected left turn. Sometimes, it’s a Muni bus. There are tons of jaywalkers, true, and I’m close to thinking they deserved what they got if they get clipped by a bus. But not everyone’s a jaywalker, and I feel like the onus should be on the driver…your car will kill a pedestrian, not the other way around.

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Hi.. could the person who found that MUNI ad please contact me?

Linda Yee
Reporter
CBS 5
lcyee@kpix.cbs.com

415-765-8610

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I’ve seen this ad for a while now. I think it started last December.

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Tony — if that person walked into the side of the bus, howcome s/he has the license plate bent across his/her face?

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Beth — because they had just walked into the back of a bus being tailgaited by the bus in the ad.

Seriously, though. To get all bent out of shape, no pun intended, over a public-awareness campaign is a little silly, don’t you think? How about some equal responsibility? It doesn’t do MUNI any good to run ads on the sides of its buses telling its drivers to be more aware of pedestrians.

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I think part of the problem with this particular campaign is that it puts all the burden on pedestrians. I realize that, coming from Muni, we shouldn’t expect anything else — it would be weird if the campaign were, “Hey, we have some crazy fucking drivers, so pedestrians, get the hell out of the way.” Yes, pedestrians, especially those who insist on wearing headphones, need to combine common sense and lawfulness when crossing all streets in this chaotic city, bus or no bus.

Also, pedestrians are more nimble and able to respond more quickly to dangerous situation that a multi-ton bus.

But a balance has to be struck here.

I can’t count the times I’ve seen buses and light-rails run red lights. And I don’t have handy statistics to tell me how many accidents have happened because of that. But it happens, and it shouldn’t.

And to Jenny’s point, above, many Muni accidents involve elderly pedestrians.

Perhaps the bigger lesson here is that we all, pedestrians, automobile drivers, bicyclists, bus drivers, need to slow down and pay attention.

Also, I refer you all to the work-in-progress hierarchy of urban mobility.

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“I think part of the problem with this particular campaign is that it puts all the burden on pedestrians.”

Correction – it puts burden on pedestrians who pay so little attention they end up hurt, or almost hurt. The ads don’t say “we don’t care about human lives so get out of the damn way”, and as Lionel said, it wouldn’t make sense to try to combat bad Muni drivers (which are, of course, a valid concern) with ads on the sides of Muni buses.

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I think we all agree that Muni and pedestrians have a shared responsibility for safety. But maybe Muni can enlighten us about what it’s doing to educate the drivers, rather than run pedestrian-finger-pointing ads. The use of headphones is poor symbolism to a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.

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Why can’t people simply watch where they are going? Why is it only the responsibility of the driver? Give me a break. It is just an ad campaign. People need to take their earphones out, get off of their cell phones or other electronic hand held devices, and watch where they are walking/running. Very simple. Be observant and look at what is 5-10 feet ahead of them.

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Donald, sometimes Muni operators are incoherent. I remember walking in the Richmond and nearly got hit by a bus – and did I have headphones on? NO! I was paying attention to the road, and when the bus came, he did a half-stop and then continued on! So both pedestrians and bus operators have to pay attention to the rules of the road, but why would the bus drive off from the pedestrian that got hit? Doesn’t seem right to me.

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The drivers, for the most part, are very much aware of what’s going on around them. I see near misses at West Portal Station EVERY DAY. The reason it’s always a near miss is because the driver ALWAYS anticipates that people will ignorantly walk right in front of them as they are exiting/entering the subway. Pedestrians need to wake up. If a humorous ad makes them think about paying attention, even for just a day, it may save their lives. There’s nothing offensive about it at all.

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I have little more to say than this thought: California law states that pedestrians have the right of way. Always. With out exception. If you are piloting a vehicle and you hit a pedestrian you are at fault. Provided they were in the road first. Headphones are not the issue here.

Second perhaps MUNI should put money into correcting driver behavior instead of a questionably worthwhile add campaign aimed at randomly at pedestrians and riders. Come on didn’t our mothers and kindergarten teachers always tell us to look both ways? Why does MUNI think their adds will be any better?

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“But maybe Muni can enlighten us about what it’s doing to educate the drivers, rather than run pedestrian-finger-pointing ads.”

Chances are pretty good it actually can’t under the terms of the agreement with local 250A.

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I wouldn’t have given this ad another thought if the ad was simply about “look both ways before you cross the street, period.”

But because we’ve seen a lot of recent reports about Muni accidents and how much that is costing the city, it doesn’t feel quite right when Muni comes out with an ad that basically suggests that Muni accidents are caused by pedestrians who are not paying attention.

And I agree with Hattie. Pedestrians have the right of way, bottom line.

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This ad comes with a video ad that shows the guy wearing huge headphones, text messaging or looking at his iPhone, and running out into the street. The dog follows from behind and stops. The bus comes right at him, operator honks, but bus couldn’t stop in time. The jogger basically had no idea what happened but the dog did.

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