This is one of my real bugaboos. Crosswalks are for pedestrians NOT for cars.
My standard practice is to get in front of the car, then look at the driver and walk back a bit, then start out again, go back again a few times. I can do this little dance at least through two or three green lights.
Miss Manners says the pedestrian should rap on the car’s window and ask the driver if they would prefer you go through the front seat or over the hood.
This morning I saw a pedestrian calling a driver a “fucking ass” – in this case, the driver was fully straddling the crosswalk. In the driver’s defense, it was a very confusing situation.
People who do things like read magazines at stop lights understimate the importance of a continuous stream of situational awareness. If you bury your face in a magazine for 30 seconds at a light, and then try to take off in a hurry when the light has turned green because of the impatient people behind you, you’ve lost an amazing amount of information about your surroundings. Are there pedestrians still in either of the two sides of the box you’re about to drive through? Is there guy about to run a red light on the cross street, just waiting to T-bone you?
The fact is, once you’ve lost track of your surroundings for long enough to read Wired’s review of that new tablet, it will take several seconds—before you even think about moving—to reacquire enough information to resume driving in a manner any reasonable person would regard as safe. It’s just like waking up from a blackout, and you’ve got to give time for the “Where am I?” to subside. Take off before getting reacquainted with reality, and you’re just driving with tunnel vision.
Of course, that presumes you were driving with any situational awareness to begin with. Given the OP’s insistence that his behavior is acceptable, that may be asking too much.
I see a lot of referring to “bad things that might happen” and “dangerous things that might happen” and referrals to cars as deadly weapons (which I fully agree – provided they are MOVING) but not a lot of examples of actual dangers that one presents to others by reading at a stop light.
Will you look like an idiot and will everyone be annoyed when the light turns green and you don’t notice? Yes.
Actual dangers presented? Haven’t heard any yet.
You want someone to take evasive action by driving forward into the cross walk? I’d feel safer if the guy was reading.
So, you didn’t really want opinions, at all. It seems what you wanted was agreement.
It’s pretty clear that most people would feel they were in the wrong and not get butthurt over an inconvenienced pedestrian pointing it out, by tapping the hood of your car, on the way by.
It’s also pretty clear that most people think reading, while sitting at a light, is douchey. That’s because they’ve been stuck behind some douche who’s missing the advanced green, because he’s catching up on his sports, or texting his high school chums.
But you just go on defending yourself, even though you only wanted to ‘know how we would feel’!
If someone is about to rear-end you and the crosswalk is clear? Yes, that is what you should do. You see, if you don’t have your nose buried in a magazine, you’ll be able to make determinations about your surrounding environment such as, “There is not a pedestrian standing in front of my car and I am about to be hit from behind.”
Sounded like opinions were exactly what he was after. But he was after opinions of how he might have reacted differently and, I imagine to an extent, whether the guy overreacted or not.
What he received was opinions on his general driving abilities, character, etc.
If you don’t notice a green light, do you think it is possible that you won’t notice something else, too?
Even if you think is advisable for people to take evasive action by driving into the crosswalk at a red light, you surely can’t be saying that doing such a thing makes OTHER people safer, which is what we are talking about, right? Wasn’t the concern that he was putting others at risk by reading at the stoplight?
I’ll probably get flamed for this, but when I lived in San Francisco, there seemed to be a sense of entitlement from pedestrians there. Yeah, the OP should have been more careful, but pedestrians should refrain from being so “in your face”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had similar things happen to me in SF. I was at a 4 way stop, coming home from work once…there was a man walking across the street in front of me (on the other side of the intersection). I pulled forward and went thru the intersection as he was about 3/4 of the way thru. He took exception to my boldness and kicked my car. Asshole. I was nowhere near him, and he was safely on the sidewalk and ran back and kicked my car.
I know this is a bit off topic, but some pedestrians are a bit bold, and they need to realize that drivers have enough to worry about without having to be on the lookout for rogue pedestrians, crossing against the light. And I have seen the SFPD ticket a few such pedestrians.
But, the worst of all are the bicyclists. That’s another thread entirely.
Of course you might. However, since you are not moving, what sort of thing might you miss that would present a danger to others?
So, are you the guy with the ambulance or fire truck right behind him that won’t move across the stop line (or sidewalk in this case) because some invisible force keeps you there, in the way of emergency traffic?
No. That presents a different circumstance, obviously.
Now I will ask you a question:
Is one more likely to present injury to others by
a) reading at a stop light, or
b) taking evasive action into the cross light to avoid a potential rear ending?
How is it different if a fire engine is bearing down on you or another vehicle is about to rear end you? In both cases, you need to be aware enough of pedestrians and other vehicles to safely maneuver in to the intersection and/or crosswalk. You will NOT be aware enough to do this if you’ve spent the last few minutes reading a magazine.
Picture this - you’re sitting right at the intersection and there is a speeding car about to hit you, and a pedestrian in front of your vehicle. You honk your horn to warn them and wave your hands to get them out of the way. You don’t have time to move forward, and you’re rear ended, pushed violently in to the intersection. However, you don’t hit the pedestrian. Could you do this if you weren’t paying attention to what was going on because you were reading a magazine?
You think this doesn’t happen? It does, and I was that pedestrian. This fall I was walking my bike across a controlled intersection and the first lane of traffic was stopped. As I proceded across, the vehicle I was in front of layed on her horn. I looked up in her direction and noticed a speeding vehicle in the lane next to her, the lane I was about to step in to. He narrowly missed my (by inches), and didn’t ever see me - just kept on going.
Should I have been more aware of what was going on? Sure as hell, and I’ve learned my lesson. But if she had been sitting there waiting for me to cross, and picked up a magazine instead of watching what was going on behind her in her rear view mirror, I would have been hit by a few tons of metal going 65 km/hr and probably would have been fatally injured. I’m VERY glad she was aware of what was going on around her.
I doubt even the most engrossing topic keeps someone glued to the page when a fire engine with sirens and lights is behind you.
Good to see that the person’s awareness alerted you. That being said, if you were hit, would you blame:
a) your own inattentiveness
b) the crazy driver who ran you over, or
c) some guy stopped in the line of cars who didn’t honk and who happened to be reading at the time
Myself, I’d have to go with (b) with a smidgeon of (a). Never would it even occur to me to blame random people at the scene for not alerting me in time.
What about you?
That’s the most awesome thing I’ve heard of in a long time. My husband’s company is great in a lot of ways, but they have a very casual attitude towards how serious driving is, and aren’t interested in making sure that all the people driving company vehicles (and doing driving for company purposes) are competent, safe drivers - all they look for is legally licensed drivers, and since you do not have to prove competency as defined by the law* to achieve legally licensed status in Alberta, the drivers may or may not be any good.
*Competency to operate machinery as defined by Alberta Occupational Health and Safety is adequately qualified, suitably trained, with sufficient experience. All a driver’s license indicates is that you passed a road test.
I also like the drivers who are making a right turn into traffic, and stare only to the left, and don’t bother looking in front of them before they start driving. Hello - pedestrian coming from the sidewalk in front of you! I won’t walk unless I make eye contact with a driver, but I see kids looking at cellphones or with headphones on walking without looking at drivers all the time.
I don’t know if you walk a lot, but having cars driving behind you when you’re in a crosswalk is very unnerving. I don’t run back from the sidewalk and kick cars, but when a car drives practically over my heels, I get the message - “Get out from in front of me, you stupid pedestrian! I’m more important than you!”
I don’t think [that word] means what you think it means. You could easily fall asleep and find your foot off the brake pedal. Just because it’s never happened before doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.
You’re in control of a 4,000 pound death machine, and you don’t seem to understand that.
Some people’s feet do slip off the brakes if they are distracted. Someone who is reading who suddenly hears an ambulance right behind them might jerk and move their foot onto the gas before becoming alert enough to realize that, for example, a pedestrian is directly in front of them and they shouldn’t be moving forward. Someone who is reading a magazine could, conceivably, have one of those subscription cards fall out, and the would accidentally remove pressure on the brakes as they reach to pick it back up.
Someone who is reading, even at a stopped car at a red light, is a distracted driver. Laws are increasingly recognizing that - look at the increased bans on cell phones and related equipment. Look at drunk driving laws: you can be charged with a DUI even if you are in the back seat of a car for which you have the keys…you are still considered to be “in control” of a motor vehicle.
Driving is not a passive behaviour, even when stopped at an intersection. Stopped at a red light isn’t the same as being parked, unless you actually put the car in PARK…which is illegal to do in the middle of the road anyways. There are other cars, people, animals going though the intersection, maybe objects falling off other vehicles that you could hit (how many parents have had their kids throw a toy out the car window? My sister lost a Popples that way!). You need to be alert and aware of your surroundings at all times.
It’s a 4000 lb death machine only when it’s moving.