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Florida Deploys Police To Stare At Crosswalks, Stop Them From Being Painted Rainbow Colors
(www.erininthemorning.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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You could have stopped at dumbest. I believe I'm making a civil and reasonable comment.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors. For example, my mother, in her 80's is a surprisingly safe driver for her age, but her visual acuity is just not the same as before, and at night she may have trouble with a rainbow.
The crosswalk being painted to commemorate the Pulse tragedy is common knowledge and is described in the article body.
A rainbow is nonstandard but so was the murder that occurred in this community, which is why it's remembered this way. Anyone driving past this building, including your aged mother, should know about it for the reasons described above. And if she regularly struggles to see anything other than black and white, it may be time for her to retake her drivers' test.
Thanks for being civil.
What is non-standard here? Homophobia has been a constant through much of history. It's beyond disgusting and horrifying, but it's been there for ages.
If you read my post you may notice that I'm not against memorializing, or pro-police or town hall, and that I favor these actions, but where they are not a safety concern. Oh, and this isn't about my mother, but about the millions of drivers who may not have 100% vision, which is most of us.
Have you ever asked yourself why the vast majority of road markings worldwide are white on black, or yellow on black? Fancy? Fashion? whim?
Also, I 'd like to invite you to google "high contrast safety"
the person speaking doesn't get to decide how their tone is perceived. repeating "civil and reasonable" in the face of people who say you're acting oppositely in some way is unlikely to change their opinion. even if it did, there is no way to phrase "painting a rainbow onto a sidewalk makes it less visible" in such a way that your tone makes up for the fact that the claim is absurd on its face. doubly so when you're not providing traffic data to support the claim. also, 'reasonable' suggests you subscribe to some reasoning, but the 'reasoning' provided is "it’s not far fetched to think that casualties may occur." okay well, color me skeptical. why do you believe that. i'll give you civil for whatever you think that's worth on its own though.
Have you read the comment? My reply does not allude to content, but to the insult. Part of my job is ergonomics. I'm stating a fact. That there has not been a casualty yet, does not invalidate my point.
you aren't stating a fact, you're speculating that colorful chalk on the crosswalk could contribute to an accident in some unspecified way. I've asked for what data could support your opinion (by way of observing its absence) and- you'll correct me if i'm wrong here- you've just agreed that in almost the decade since the pulse shooting there have been exactly no incidents that can be traced back to this potentially dangerous political statement that you 100% agree with. do i have this about right?
The article says "Paint", a whole different ball game from chalk. Visibility aside, I'm a motorcyclist, and I can assure you that slick paint on the road is deadly. Pointing out that there hasn't been an accident yet, and declaring it safe is a textbook example of logical fallacy.
Want data? Ask google for "high contrast safety". Here is a result, in case your google-fu is not up to date
it's hard to be up-to-date with google fu these days. I tried looking for traffic data on that intersection (eg pulse nightclub traffic safety before:2025-01-01) only to find it either doesn't exist as such or is so obscure to me that it might as well not exist. visibility on the road is a very different thing than slickness i hadn't considered, granted full stop.
I still need to be convinced that whatever paint it is they're using is actually causing the road to be slick before i retract or make any edits to previous statements, but that's definitely a more serious point in my opinion and thanks for specifying. like i could see latex as an issue but i wouldn't agree spray paint is an issue. and then the problem would be how should we both allow these people to memorialize a tragedy in such a way as to safely allow for the passage of traffic, not unilateral denial of a precedented memorial on grounds that can not at this time be shown to be supported by evidence, whatever you may say about the fallacious nature of my skepticism.
and not for nothing, but i just actually checked and, only the headline could have its ambiguity be interpreted to suggest the memorialists were 'painting.' at least according to this article, the floridian state are the ones using paint and the pulse memorialists are using chalk, and despite the OP's headline referring to "repeainting," the images of the crosswalk show it 'painted' with chalk within that article, so actually, are you sure you didn't just read the headline and come to a 'reasonable' conclusion and 'civilly' express your '100%' support for the cause while actually thoughtlessly supporting the erasure of a tragedy's memorial for some reason?
then, from your source:
are you honestly suggesting a colorful pattern instead of black would tend to reduce visibility? this is the part i was saying is absurd on its face earlier. and i'm sure you'll forgive me as i return the accusation of "did you even read this?" i was not going to slap you with this earlier because it's such an obvious retort as to be insulting, but, how are you not constantly struggling with visibility on the road with all the different colors of car?
I'd like to hear what florida state law or traffic data or the people actually using the crosswalk have to say about the matter, not this unrecognizable messageworks public interest group on the first page of a "traffic visibility" google-fu session, or some ergonomical motorcyclist who i frankly suspect will never come across this intersection in their life.
I assume the original memorial crosswalk had reflective paint used on its markings, if people are just using chalk or regular paint now it would end up reducing the reflective properties of crosswalks which would effect low light visibility. Im not sure if people have been doing this for other crosswalks but if that is the case the person you are responding to does actually have a bit of a point, we are better off just painting walls, steps, or making signs as they originally suggested, considering the state isnt just going to accept and standardize rainbow crosswalks under this administration. That also removes the hiding of motivation for the police from this being a safety act to being purely bigoted which is important. Don't allow the fascists some reasonable cover to do what they do, force them to do it with their motivation on clear display.
The possibility that a random person would go to the lengths of adding micro-beads, or go to the trouble of procuring reflective pavement paint of the colors used seems a bit far-fetched to me. Could be, but unlikely in my view.
I have probably not explained myself well enough, or maybe you have not read, or understood correctly.
Here you clearly have a problem with reading comprehension.
Stating that something is safe because another event hasn't happened yet, is a logical fallacy. It's like stating that smoking isn't harmful because your grampa smoked until his 80's and didn't die of cancer.
It sounds like you made a point without thinking a whole lot about it, and now you're just doubling down instead of just saying "yeah you're right, my bad."
I made a thoroughly well though out point, and I'm replying with what I consider reasonable effort and arguments, which are countered with insults. Please re-read the thread.
Objectively?
Based on what?
Based on you thinking that a specific series of white lines on a black background amongst a large series of white lines on a blackground is more distinct than a completely different rainbow pattern?
You spend much time working in UX, psychology, or vision analysis?
You come across as a “well ackchyually” dipshit. You might think you are making a point, but think this one through, is it a good one in this context? Is it even a good one at all?
I think you may have anger issues. If that is the case (I'm not trained to diagnose) you may want to explore professional attention.
I rest my case.
It's funny how they're only replying to comments with a somewhat "aggressive" tone, to complain about the tone while ignoring the actual point.
I'm replying to many posts. The aggressive ones pretty much disqualify themselves. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" is very applicable here. People don't seem to read.
Which is? Please people, read.
Why is your mom, at 80, driving around the part of town where there are nightclubs, alone, at night..?
I dunno? Freedom?
Aren't we a wee opinionated and with fascist tendencies? Surprising how you defend some groups freedom but deny others.
If you bothered to look at the way these are painted you would know this isn't a problem.
As someone who deals with ergonomics as part of his job I KNOW there is a problem.
As someone who deals with UX and the psychology of recognizing and distinguishing things, I can tell you that you know jack shit about the situation here, and working in a field close to ergonomics is evidently not the expertise you think it is.
I did not say I work in a field close to ergonomics, I said that my work INVOLVES ergonomics. Also, pretending that someone who "deals with UX" has any serious knowledge of ergonomics, is like a chiropractic saying they are an actual medical doctor, or that a software "engineer" is anything near a real engineer.
The problem we're talking about is a UX one. The ability to quickly distinguish a visual sign / interface.
And I'm both an actual electrical engineer and a software engineer, I understand the distinctions between the two very well.
But do please cite your ergonomic data showing that rainbow crosswalks are hard to see, or you can admit that you're just baselessly pearl clutching.
Yet you have not been able to back up that supposed knowledge with ANYTHING
One of the first results from googling "high contrast safety".
There are a bajillion more, and many actual research publications. You really could benefit from reading.
It looks like reading AND comprehending isn't really your thing, bless your heart.