I have a real beef with pedestrians at cross walks, intersections and other “Ped-X” type walk ways.
Just because the signs say you have the right of way - why do you step out into the road without looking?
Do you not know that I, as a driver, cannot stop in a flash just because you choose to step in front of me?
But, you say, I am the pedestrian and have the right to this piece of real estate.
This may be true, but does it give you the right to step out in front of me, the driver, giving me a split second to try to stop because you think this is your right to walk over this road?
I ask this question as in the last few weeks I have had cause to drive in a university area and I swear - nobody seems to heed traffic.
I drive the posted limit (quite slow) but am constantly hitting my breaks as people step off the curb in front of me without looking.
When did not looking out for traffic supercede common sense?
This. This. Good Lord, this. It’s hard enough when you (the pedestrian) is sober, but when you’re a good two sheets to the wind… it happened to me as a pedestrian in DC, and I was perfectly within my rights, crossing with the signal, the whole nine yards. Some dude came peeling into the intersection on a right turn and I ended up with my knees on his bumper and my hands on his hood. I was sure I was gonna die.
God, this is one of mine. A lot of pedestrians here in Los Angeles are complete morons. You never know when they are going to step off the curb. They are blabbing on a cell phone, don’t notice the walk signal, and I am waiting to make a right on red. Are you going? Are you not going? Dare I try to make my turn? Ah! Now the signal says “Don’t Walk”, I can proceed… At which point the pedestrian starts to cross, without so much as an over the shoulder glance. We kill a lot of pedestrians here. And guess what, dumbass pedestrian, most of the times the driver is never charged with anything because it was YOU that was being the asshat. Enjoy your multiple surgeries and years of physical therapy. Or your grave.
For what it’s worth, there was a street that I used to have to cross multiple times per day when I was in school, and the only way to get the steady stream of traffic to stop for you when trying to use the crosswalk was to watch with your peripheral vision while you pretended to be walking out into traffic without looking.
Here is an addition to what you complain of. In this town they press the button which isn’t needed for the walk lights because they work without. After they press the button they face the wrong corner, and then turn 90 degrees to the other corner and just step out into the crosswalk. They fake out the drivers who are already going over the crosswalks at 25 mph. They ride bikes without reflectors and lights against traffic in this town at night too. We have some really stupid kids in this town.
Excellent thread. As a habitual pedestrian, I must agree.
On the flipside, drivers: When pulling out into an intersection, can you please look out for pedestrians and not just other cars? If there is an accident, I have far more to lose than you do. If I don’t make eye contact with you, I am going to automatically assume that you are out to kill me.
And bicyclists: Yes, you are considered to be traffic, and no, you are not above the law. Last night, I waited for the crosswalk signal, looked both ways before crossing, and… nearly got plowed by a cyclist who came out of nowhere and ran the red light.
Sometimes the only way to get cars to stop in and around the UIUC campus is to just step out into the street. Obviously keep an eye on them to see if they slow down, but standing waiting on the sidewalk won’t get you too far.
I wish more people would just step out into the street. It’s annoying when I slow down to let a pedestrian cross, and they wait until I come to a stop before crossing. If they’d just gone, I would have only had to slow down to allow them space.
This is not to say an unexpected 90 degree turn into traffic is wise, which seems is the point of the OP.
The cell phones make people blind and deaf, don’t they? I work at a college campus and regularly have to slam on the brakes because some dumbass on the phone goes skipping off the curb and into any lane in any parking lot without looking to see if there are any vehicles coming.
Crosswalks and cell phones make 'em doubly immune, no?
I’m driving a 19,600 pound (empty weight) armored truck at 30mph on a one-way city street. Woman blindly steps off the curb into the street a very short distance in front of us, without looking in any direction, let alone in our direction. Man standing next to her YANKS her back onto the curb. She starts to give him the evil eye and her mouth starts to open, when we flash through the space she had been occupying.
Looking back in my rear-view mirror, the look on her face as she stared after us was priceless.
Yup, you were about to scream at that guy for yanking you off the street.
But it turns out that he saved your life.
I have to drive down one street almost every day, and often will see a pedestrian waiting on the curb to cross, as I’m two blocks from them (going at the posted 25MPH). They only start crossing once I reach the intersection and come to a stop. If, instead, they had just started to make their way across, they’d have been safely on the other side by the time I got there. Drives me nuts.
I’ll second this. It’s a bluff. We pedestrians see you but it’s the only way to get you to stop. I’m more agile on my feet than you are in your car. I’ll just keep walking until I’m juuuuuust about in your path. You always stop for me. On the off chance you don’t, I’m still not in your path and I’ll jump back a little to be sure.
So we have the main Cathedral of Learning in between two major, 5-lane one way streets. Many many students cross this regularly and often, it’s against the light. So one day, I’m about to jaywalk. I look up the street and the oncoming traffic has a red light. There’s no traffic coming from the tiny side street that has the green. Should I go? Should I go? Yeah, I’m late and there’s no one coming. I do this all the time. I start to lean forward to begin walking and A BUS FLIES PAST ME FROM THE OTHER DIRECTION! I about died from a heart attack. You see, it’s not actually a one way street. There’s a bus-only lane that goes the opposite direction, which people frequently forget to check. They even have signs that say “CAUTION: LOOK LEFT. BUS LANE” and yet students still get run down at least twice a year. Of course it’s the student’s fault, but it’s such an easy thing to do. Hopefully someone will shut that lane down soon.
There is a crosswalk in River Falls, WI at the UWRF campus. Students make a point of not looking either way or even hesitating before stepping off the sidewalks to cross. Some even read books while crossing. It’s almost the single dumbest thing I’ve seen, as it places an inordinate amount of faith in one’s fellow humans, in the forebearance of assholes, and in the attention span of drunks.
I always told my children: you don’t want “I had the right of way” to be on your tombstone.
You know what’s annoying… when there are 2 cars going in opposite directions, with plenty of space behind them for me to dart across without anyone even having to slow down for me, but the guy in the near lane decides to slow down to let me cross, thus screwing up the timing completely. If I crossed in front of him, I would have to stand in front of him and wait for the other car to pass… But I know I can’t do that because the moron thinks slowing down is enough, so he just slows more and more and finally creeps to a stop just as I turn away in annoyance since by this time, the other lane is filled with a steady stream of traffic. So all he succeeds in doing is closing the window in which I might have crossed!
