Car horns can seem like part of the New York soundtrack, and it’s not just your imagination.
Drivers here honk at pedestrians more often than in any other state, according to a new report.
New Yorkers are known to be a bit intense, and that aggression often comes out when people are commuting. Road rage doesn’t only extend to other cars, of course, but also to the thousands of pedestrians on New York City streets
So how well do the two groups of commuters get along? Auto-insurance resource insuranceQuotes.com recently released its Drivers Vs. Pedestrians report, in which 500 drivers and 500 pedestrians talked about their roadway behavior in 2017.
Overall in New York state, 91 percent of pedestrians say that drivers have honked at them. Illinois came in second, with 74 percent of pedestrians there saying that they’ve been honked at.
Seventy one percent of New York pedestrians say that drivers here have yelled at them, as well. Florida comes in behind New York for this statistic, with 60 percent of pedestrians there saying they’ve been yelled at by someone behind the wheel.
But it’s not just drivers that have road rage. Pedestrians in New York strike more cars than those on foot in any other state, according to the report, with 27 percent of drivers here saying someone walking by has aggressively hit their vehicle.
Though they may strike the cars, at least pedestrians here don’t throw things at them often. Texas came on top for that statistic, with 18 percent of drivers there saying that a pedestrian threw something at their moving car. In New York, only 4 percent of drivers reported such an instance.
Pedestrians here may get honked at a lot because they also frequently step into a crosswalk without looking, the report found.
In New York, 85 percent of pedestrians go to cross a street without looking. They’re actually not the worst offenders, though — that honor goes to Illinois, where 90 percent of pedestrians enter crosswalks without checking for oncoming cars.
Pedestrians and drivers can’t seem to agree on who’s at fault, either. More than two-thirds of pedestrians said that they’ve nearly been hit by a car, citing bad driver behaviour. On the driver’s side, though, more than 90 percent of those behind the wheel said they’ve seen pedestrians jaywalking, laying the blame on them for not obeying the rules.
Ultimately, both are to blame, because both pedestrians and drivers make errors and have “extreme emotions,” according to insuranceQuotes. Maybe every New Yorker should seek out some anger management, at least just concerning their commute.
