Imagine this if you will. It is ten minutes to one and your lunch hour ends at one, but yet you are stuck in your car crawling at two inches per minute.
You are inevitably going to be late, because the office is definitely more than ten minutes away. It’s sweltering hot, and the A/C; well the A/C has gone on strike leaving you to sit and slow roast. There’s a vagrant across the street sending you a “sweet eye”; hopefully, he doesn’t feel the need to come closer. You try your hardest not to stare. Then, you see the cars ahead start moving. Handbrake down, foot to gas, ready to go…. The car inches forward only to have to stop again, because a group of pedestrians saw it an appropriate time to jaywalk.
I detest going into town. Not because of the heat, I can handle the heat. I can handle the random vagrant asking for $2.00 to buy some bread. I can even handle the traffic…sometimes. What I absolutely cannot handle is the complete lack of respect of motorists by pedestrians. What possibly possesses persons to make them feel that it is a good idea to step off the sidewalk and start walking in the street, completely oblivious to oncoming traffic? Does someone have a death wish?
Let’s break it down like this. I’m driving along, maybe not paying as much attention as I should, and a car “appears” in front of me. I don’t brake fast enough, and we’ve got a fender-bender. After some argument, exchange of insurance information, and a visual of the few thousand dollars that will be depleted from my account, we can all move along with our lives. Substitute “car” with “human” and we’ve got a completely different situation. Body on the ground, ambulance on its way, me being escorted away in handcuffs. Okay. Maybe this is a bit extreme, but any idiot who runs into the road in the middle of oncoming traffic has a death wish, and I really don’t want to go to jail.
I sometimes ponder whether or not pedestrians realize that there is a pedestrian crossing 20 feet away from where they have just crossed in front of my car. What is so hard about walking down the sidewalk a few more steps, and then crossing when it is actually YOUR TURN TO CROSS?
When I was learning to drive, the Highway Code booklet stated “one should give way to pedestrians on the designated pedestrian crossing”. The way I interpret it, I really don’t HAVE to stop, I’m not going to get ticketed if I don’t (unless there’s a traffic light) but I SHOULD stop, because, the pedestrian does need to cross the road and as courteous drivers we need to respect that. So Mr./Ms. Pedestrian, I’m being courteous when I stop at the crossing, so don’t walk as if you have no place going, while talking on your cell phone – that definitely is not courtesy.
I try to remain calm when confronted by these traffic flow inhibiting, street invading pedestrians. They undertake a completely different demeanor.
Hostile people. Have you ever tried to blow your horn at them? They turn around slowly, and with the most menacing look, they let out a barrage of profanities. “Sorry Boss,” I think to myself, “You look like you’ll take the Mrs. Dash well…get out the damn road,” but I never have the guts to say it.
BUT WAIT NAH… all this talk about pedestrians in the streets, obstructing traffic, I thought that’s why sidewalks were constructed in the first place? If the authorities wanted you to walk in the street, they would have made it a pedestrian only zone. But until then, if you so crave take over in the streets, and you can’t find that permanent pedestrian only zone, I suggest you wait to be a part of the Macy’s parade.
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