I’m still so pissed at the moment that I can hardly type. I’m driving along River Road in Minneapolis, right at the 25 mph limit, when I see a guy and his dog approach the side of the street at the crosswalk. I’m very close the walk at this point so I’m glad to note that there is no stop sign. So now I’m very close to the crosswalk when this asshole pops off the side walk and out into the street, requiring hard braking. Hard enough in fact that everyone in the car is thrown forward, though no squealing of brakes is heard. I understand that it is not only courteous, but required by law to stop for folks in a cross walk, and I always do. However, only fucking idiots step out in front of moving cars that are right on top of said crosswalks! Mr. Depthperception needs to send the retriever to the pound and get a seeing eye dog if he’s going to make it through too many more winters. He’s damned lucky that the roads are dry. Asshole.
Oh, and givng the finger to a nice nuclear family with a 2 year old and 5 year old in the car speaks to a ton of class.
As a pedestrian, I have to say I agree with you, cj finn. Here in NZ, it’s drilled into people that they should check the road before crossing. Even if a pedestrian has the right-of-way, the speed of traffic coming towards the crossing should be taken into consideration.
That guy was a danger to himself, as well as to others.
I always say, “Right-of-way doesn’t make you invulnerable to a ton or more of steel and rubber.”
College towns are the worst for this, though, because of the sheer number of “I’m young and unbreakable” pedestrians. I used to live in State College, PA, and if they arrested every jaywalker in town they’d have to convert Penn State dorms to incarceration centers.
To be honest, I was thinking of starting my first Pit thread over something like this.
In Washington State we have a number of I’m-so-green bicyclists who are given bike lanes on our main roads. Two nights ago, as I was turning left (with a green left-turn arrow) into the parking lot of a grocery store, I saw a bicyclist coming the opposite way.
hey look at me I’m a tiny bicycle without lights driving after dark through an intersection zip ha ha I’m in the crosswalk I’m a pedestrian now I don’t have to stop zip now I’m in the bike lane again I’m a vehicle ha ha ha
Damn near killed him.
What kind of an echo-filled, cavernous skull must one have in order to think that you can zip from the street to the crosswalk against the light and it magically keeps people from hitting you? I still can’t believe people do that.
We’ve been down this road before. You stopped, it was your fault. All you did was encourage this kind of behavior. You were in 1500 to 3000 lbs of steel, you had the right of way by virtue of your size and invulnerability in this situation, and you wimped out and stood on the brakes.
As long as drivers continue to stop, pedestrians will continue to act like that.
Not that you’d want to run the guy and/or his dog(s) over. Especially with your kids in the car.
No, no, no, no, no.
I almost had a similar experience today. Driving down the road just outside my townhouse complex. I’m the third vehicle in a row, just coming up to a stop sign. Old guy with two small rat-like dogs walking down the left side of the road. Just after the van in front of me passes him, he starts angling across the road right in front of me, without ever looking back to see if the road was clear.
And damn, but my horn is broken. (found that out a couple of days ago).
He’s seriously lucky that his dog noticed me as I swerved.
Add in some icy road conditions on top of the pedestrians who think their right to cross supercedes the laws of physics, and you’ve got…Calgary! Hello, pedestrians? When the roads are icy, you still have the right to cross at the crosswalk, but if you think a car can stop in the five feet you’ve given them, you’re seriously in need of some pedestrian training. And we’re not even going to go into the ultra-cool teenagers who think the entire world revolves around them…
I’ve spent years of my adult life without a car. I never relied on people hitting the brakes to keep from running me over. That’s just stupid.
Here in Atlanta, you really have to watch out for pedestrians. Roads such as Buford Highway may have a mile between crosswalks, and no sidewalks, and you’ll see entire families walking down the center lane. A few of them get run over every year.
Forgive me for using buzzwords, but I believe the Paradigm Shift has not yet been achieved.
I work on the East Side of Seattle, which is far ahead of Seattle itself in promoting the idea of The Pedestrian Has the Right-of-Way in marked crosswalks. As a pedestrian, I fully expect that the minute I set foot in a marked crosswalk, everybody will stop and wait for me. Most people do, but since I’d like to stay alive, I do assess the situation before stepping out into the road.
But the people who make me nuts (as a driver) are the ones afraid to assert their pedestrian rights. They linger on the sidewalk near the crosswalk, and I’m never sure if they intend to cross or not. Much of the time they wait till the road is entirely clear, and then they cross. Unless they were just hanging out near the crosswalk, in which case they continue just hanging out.
We need a Paradigm Shift towards feeling that the Crosswalk might at any time contain a pedestrian – possibly old, feeble, and slow – who has the absolute right-of-way, and whom I need to be on the alert for whenever approaching a crosswalk in my car. Right now, because of the obliviousness of a lot of drivers and the fully justified hesitation of most pedestrians waiting to cross, the situation is murky.
I’m thinking (as a driver) Do I stop, or don’t I? Are they waiting to cross, or are they just standing there? And they’re thinking, does this person see me? Does he intend to yield the right-of-way to me? Will he hit me if I enter the crosswalk now?
Communication is the issue. That, and having cops lurk near crosswalks, waiting to ticket those who just blast through them without knowing or caring if there are pedestrians nearby. We need to settle once and for all just how inviolate crosswalks are.
What the OP seemed to be trying to say was that he was driving too fast to react properly when the pedestrian asserted his right, and got surprised that the pedestrian realised the OP was wrong.
Assuming, of course, that his jurisdiction is the same as the one here.
Pedestrians have right of way over vehicles at all times. If I want to run naked windsprints through the Harbour Tunnel, I may be guilty of obstructing traffic, but all vehicles are obliged to give way to me while I’m trying to beat my PB over 200 metres.
A pedestrian crossing is a guide to all drivers that if someone even looks like they might think about trying to cross, you give way. If you have to brake hard, it’s because you were travelling too fast.
I know someone who was ticketed for dangerous driving because they braked hard to avoid hitting someone who “stepped out of nowhere” on a crossing, and rightly so. If you’re coming up to a pedestrian crossing, then for gods’ sakes slow the fuck down, arseclown, or get out of the car and leave the driving to someone who can do it without posing a danger to the innocents around them.
Now this is just fucking stupid. It assumes that pedestrian crossings are fairly rare things, all in logical spots, and all clearly marked. In the city, every corner is a pedestrian crossing.
This is bullshit. Do you seriously think that all drivers are supposed to slow down to a crawl near every single corner on the off chance that a pedestrian might all of a sudden jump into the road? Maybe you should leave the walking to people who have a little bit more realistic view of the driver vs. pedestrian situation.
