Correct. Cars need to be separated from people by barriers. But that goes both ways. Deaths by pedestrians getting into places they shouldn't are very common even absent roads (ie railroad crossings). Some have called for all railroads to be fenced off. But few want to live in a world with fences around every possible dangerous area. When I went to school there was no fence. Now schools are surrounded by so many that they look like prisons. Barriers can go too far.
It's an article about bollards and how they stop vehicles from hitting pedestrians. Fences to keep people out of places where they can easily kill themselves is very important, but doesn't have anything to do with the article. A trend I see on Twitter is that someone will bring up an important issue and comments will highlight that it's very important, but what about this other thing that is somewhat related but also unrelated. Not saying that you intended to do that here, but be aware that fences provide no security against cars and that the whole point of bollards is to stop cars from killing pedestrians who are not on the road.
>> the whole point of bollards is to stop cars from killing pedestrians
Except all those bollards that have nothing to do with pedestrians. Many are there to prevent cars deliberately accessing protected areas with absolutely zero thought about stopping a crashing vehicle. The most common use of bollards is to stop vehicles from parking where they shouldn't. Some bollards are even soft so that they can be driven over without damage to either party.
Wikipedia does actually bring them up as a type of bollard. They don't really fit in with the origin of bollards though, which were to moor ships to.
I think that "soft bollards" are made to look like bollards because most people assume that a bollard is a rigid structure and as such treat them in that manner. It's basically just an elaborate traffic cone. A sign is to a "soft bollard" as a "soft bollard" is to a bollard.
People in general are pretty good at assigning blame - pedestrian hit by car is usually blamed on the car unless the pedestrian was doing something exceptionally stupid - pedestrian hit by train is usually blamed on the pedestrian.
The job of government should be to evaluate and require safety equipment where it makes sense - to protect the innocent and reduce issues. And part of that is recognizing when people are using something regularly “against the law” and fixing the underlying issue, not just make it “more illegal” (for example, people using a railroad bridge to cross a river).
