So yesterday I am coming home just as the elementary school lets out. I am the third car back as we come around a blind curve and what is in the middle of the road?
Some dumb bitch sending her kids diagonally across the road ahead of her.
The cross walk with a crossing guard is half a block up the road.
Why would anyone ignore the crosswalk with a crossing guard to walk a half block and cross diagonally at a bend in the road? Why would you want to teach your young children to ignore the crossing guard?
Today I drive past the school again.
What do I see?
Some woman crossing in the same place, while pushing a stroller with one hand, trying to hang onto a toddler with the other hand, with another child who looked to be about 5.
WTF is wrong with these women? The cross walk is clearly marked, it’s where the road is straight, you can’t miss it, nobody is going to run you down there. Instead they would rather cross where cars are coming out of a blind curve?
Granted it’s a neighborhood road, it’s not a turn you’re going to speed through, but nobody is expecting somebody to be in the road there either.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are stupid. I see parents jaywalking with their kids all too frequently, too. Somewhere along the line some parents got the idea that society was responsible for their kids’ safety, and they didn’t have to do a thing to contribute to their safety any longer.
Seriously, I blame the school bus laws. Children are conditioned from birth that any time they feel like stepping into the road all traffic will draw to a halt. Mostly it will. Mostly.
I was driving through a school zone, and a stupid mother, on the opposite side of the street with her car, was yelling at her kid, and waving him across the road. She didn’t see me and neither did the kid as he darts between cars to cross. I stop quickly (thank GOD for good brakes) and the kid stops too, like a startled squirrel, not knowing which way to go. You never saw eyes as big and round as his were.
Eh, that’s a pretty wild accusation. At least 20 years ago they taught us that we had to wait for the school bus driver to tell us it was ok to cross. If you didn’t, they would get pretty mad at you. Kids on my bus were always getting chewed out for not waiting.
Thankfully I never had to cross…it always seemed so scary!
At least one of the school districts around here seems to make students wait for the driver’s approval even if they don’t cross. I was behind one once, and at every stop the kids got out and stood along the side of the road until the driver said they could walk away.
Pedestrian crossing? What’s that? No car in Montreal has ever stopped just because there is a pedestrian in a cross walk. I was astonished by a city bus that stopped for me two days ago, but the car coming up behind him just went around him. So you are on your own; why not cross in the middle of the block where there are only two directions of traffic to worry about?
When zebra stripes appeared maybe 20 years ago, there was no explanation of what they meant and there still hasn’t been.
Also, school and playground zones - they also increase the conditioning that it is the responsibility of automobile drivers to look after the safety of kids on the roads, not the responsibility of kids or parents. We have a school zone around at least one school here that is for junior high kids - 12 to 14 year olds. I find it very hard to believe that 12 - 14 year olds can’t be taught how to cross a road safely, that is must still be the drivers’ responsibility to keep kids that age safe. The other problem with putting in school and playground zones is that once they’re in, they basically can’t be removed - no politician is going to be the guy who wants kids to be “less safe.”
When did the street become a frictionless conduit for automobiles? If there’s a blind curve, don’t go around it so fast you can’t stop in time—whether it’s a UPS truck or a schoolchild that you find occupying the space.
I love Chicago, but the driver who stops for pedestrians at clearly marked crossings is a rarity. One of LA’s handful of redeeming qualities is that drivers stop at crosswalks (possibly they are just stunned at seeing actual pedestrians).
In Thailand, crosswalks serve one purpose and one purpose only: To funnel pedestrians into one convenient location for drivers to run your fool ass over if you even think about crossing the street.
My daily commute takes me down a fairly busy road with an elementary school on it. Last year the city put up this fancy new crosswalk signal that has a red light to stop traffic. Do the kids, or anyone else for that matter actually use this crosswalk? Heck no, it’s more fun to step out in random places and hope the cars stop. I’ve only seen the crosswalk stop light used once or twice.
I saw a kid mosey out into the street last week, he nearly got smeared by a truck. One of these days someone is going to get hit on that street. There are a bunch of big dump trucks that speed along that street. The speed limit is 30, but most people just consider that a suggestion.
Yeah, what ever happened to natural selection? Why make it easy for the less fleet kids to survive?
I work at a middle school. They’re spacey, those pre- and early teens, but some of them actually grow up and turn out to be pretty okay human beings. IF, that is, no one runs over them before they get old enough to have some sense. If that means making commuters slow down a little here and there, I’m okay with it, even when I’m the commuter who’s inconvenienced.
In our city, the school zone speeds are graduated. Elementaries get 15-mph zones, middle schools get 20-mph, and high schoolers are expected to be able to dodge cars going 25 mph. It works pretty well, and if there’s a school zone, that means we can concentrate on yelling on the kids (and parents) who try to cross outside of that zone.
When I was in third grade, a fifth-grader from our school was hit and killed by a car as he crossed a busy street a couple of blocks outside the school zone. That had a lasting impression on me (and on my kids, who I can feel right now are rolling their eyes and saying, “Yeah, yeah, kid got hit by a car…” even though they’re miles away from me and have no idea I’m telling the story yet again).
You make it sound like kids have to take their lives into their hands darting across the streets with no recourse to things like crosswalks and traffic lights. That might be the case where you are, but it isn’t the case here - cars are expected to and most often do stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and there are frequently controlled crosswalks and traffic lights to aid pedestrians with crossing. I walk all the time in the same places where kids walk; it isn’t the bloodbath that you’re implying. Hell, as far as that goes, the crosswalk where I’ve almost been hit two times now isn’t near a school, and isn’t in a school zone - I cross all streets very carefully, because I assume my safety is in my own hands. Kids would do well to do the same, and not rely on school and playground speed limits.
You’ve got a good point there, Cat Whisperer. I live in Albuquerque, and it’s a lawless frontier for pedestrians around here. If traffic hasn’t already slowed down before the crosswalk, no one’s likely to stop for (or even notice) a child trying to use it. And I do just want the speed limit to be lower in the area immediately surrounding the crosswalk. That’s what the crosswalk is for, and I want the kids - hell, all the pedestrians - to use it instead of trying to beat the traffic.
(Of course I really didn’t think you’d be in favor of kids being run over.)
I’m always amazed at all the pedestrians that assume because they HAVE the right of way every single person is going to give them the right of way (or notice them for that matter). I act like people in cars are actively trying to run me down.
I have never seen a news article like this: Driver runs over pedestrian. Car totalled and driver killed. Pedestrian escapes with minor scratches.
Yeah, you got the legal right of way. But the laws of nature sure as shit tell me who is going to win the actual real world contest.
Dead or mangled but technically right is no way to live son.
I know - when I cross a street, my head is going back and forth all the time, making sure that all the cars have seen me and aren’t going to kill me (which is how I noticed two times that a car didn’t notice me in the crosswalk and wasn’t stopping, so I could run out of their way and not get hit). I see people crossing all the time while talking on phones or texting or messing with their ipod or riding their bikes. Quite often these unaware pedestrians are young people who have grown up with school and playground zones - I haven’t done a study or anything, but I think it does contribute to their idea that a crosswalk is some kind of magical zone where you can’t get hit, where you don’t have to take responsibility for your own safety.
I may be old fashioned, but it bugs me when people cross when the sign says “Don’t Walk.” You may see no cars, but don’t assume no cars are turning on the road you are crossing or that the car way down the road isn’t speeding to make a yellow light.
The worst offense of this I saw a few weeks ago. I was at what may be the busiest intersection downtown (major bus stop, surrounded by office buildings, etc) at rush hour. The sign had turned to “Don’t Walk” before this lady got to the corner and she decided to cross anyway while pushing a stroller and pulling another boy.
If you do something stupid that only endangers your life, fine. If you endanger other people’s lives, especially kids who don’t know better and are expecting you to keep them safe, that pisses me off.
