So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

I've never really understood the concept of vehicles having to yield to pedestrians, at least from a practical safety stand point. A pedestrian is a hell of a lot more maneuverable and able to stop much quicker than a one ton+ hunk of metal with momentum. Not to mention a pedestrian possesses the ability for a greater field of vision than someone sitting in a car. Feel free to point out the error of my logic.

Cars and pedestrians (and bicycles) are a dangerous mix. It's testament to good sense, common decency and sobriety that even more pedestrians aren't killed and injured by being struck by motor vehicles.

I expect there to come a day when people look back on how we got around in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and shake their heads at the dangers to which we routinely subjected ourselves.

Is it too obvious to state that pedestrians are much, much, much more vulnerable to serious injury than are the occupants of the vehicles which might collide with them?

I don't absolve pedestrians of their duty to obey traffic laws (don't cross in the middle of the block or against the light, etc.) nor their obligation to pay attention to what is happening in the physical space they're occupying at any given moment (in other words, not fiddling with their smart phones while crossing the street).

I prefer the custom in the Seattle area. Wheelchair users in particular, whose view of the traffic isn't that of a standing person, and who can't jump out of the way of a car operated by an inattentive driver, owe their very lives to that way of doing things. From this avid motorist's perspective (why walk anywhere you could drive?), the inconvenience of stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks and intersections is a small price to pay.

EDIT: A friend just posted on her Facebook page that she damn near hit a pedestrian while driving to work today. The pedestrian was wearing headphones and was oblivious to nearly being run over. This friend is a very pleasant woman whose life would have been made much more difficult by the carelessness of a person who stepped out in front of her car as if it weren't there. Good for that pedestrian that my friend was minding the road and not her text messages.

 

[tonyb]

Given that between 70% to 95% of people are right handed, you need your right hand free to blow away the asshole who has the temerity to criticise your driving; tries to road hog you; behaves like he owns the road. Man I don't know how you guys even dare to go out in your cars, unless you are left handed that is.

I'm ambidextrous only with my middle digits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I stand in the crosswalk and glare balefully at drivers who don't look like they're planning to slow down and stop. I have a very, very, very baleful glare. They stop.

 

[Fading Fast]

... I have a very, very, very baleful glare. They stop.

Somehow that comes through even in your posts. I'm quite scared of you and I've never even seen your glare.

(all meant in good fun)

 

[GHT]

It's a female thing. My wife has one of those withering stares that scare the crap out of grown men. It's particularly useful when small children are allowed to run riot in the supermarket. Many a time I've seen some poor little fellow's bottom lip tremble as he is locked into my wife's light sabre, disapproving stare.

 

[EstherWeis]

Oh yeah, I'm known for my evil stare too.
It does help being tall as well.

It comes in handy on many occasions.

 

[GHT]

Uh-oh!

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's the glasses that really make it work for me. I squint my left eye, scrunch up the left side of my mouth, and open my right eye wide over the top of my specs. Just like all those mean first grade teachers that people still have nightmares about.

 

[Zombie_61]

In L.A. the motorists tend to yield to pedestrians crossing the streets.
Even if it’s not at the corner crosswalks.
This would freak me out since I grew up where this was not common...

Even when pedestrians are crossing the street illegally, the "authorities" around here don't particularly like drivers who run them over. Stopping for these inconsiderate, self-centered asshats is much less of a hassle than dealing with the legal system.

I don't trust that the drivers around here are paying attention, so I wait until there is no moving traffic before crossing a street on foot, legally or otherwise.

 

[2jakes]

Yeah, even when pedestrians are crossing the street illegally, the "authorities" around here don't particularly like drivers who run them over. Stopping for these inconsiderate, self-centered asshats is much less of a hassle than dealing with the legal system.

With regards to “inconsiderate asshats”.
I have been riding bikes for many years.

And I have yet to see cyclists obey the traffic signs.

Some act as if they are entitled to ride the traffic lanes (not bike lanes)
yet at the same time they are oblivious to the traffic signals & won’t stop
along with the rest but continue riding disregarding the stop lights.

Perhaps it's the tight-fitting spandex & alien helmets they wear that makes
them feel that they don’t have to obey the traffic rules!

 

[Zombie_61]

With regards to “inconsiderate asshats”.
I have been riding bikes for many years.

And I have yet to see cyclists obey the traffic signs.

Some act as if they are entitled to ride the traffic lanes (not bike lanes)
yet at the same time they are oblivious to the traffic signals & won’t stop
along with the rest but continue riding disregarding the stop lights.

Perhaps it's the tight-fitting spandex & alien helmets they wear that makes
them feel that they don’t have to obey the traffic rules!

In our neighborhood it's the "spandex & alien helmets" bicyclists that tend to follow the laws. The scofflaws are the ones who only occasionally ride their kids' bikes or home-made beachcruisers, and probably don't even know there are laws for bicyclists.

 

[tonyb]

Even when pedestrians are crossing the street illegally, the "authorities" around here don't particularly like drivers who run them over. Stopping for these inconsiderate, self-centered asshats is much less of a hassle than dealing with the legal system.

I don't trust that the drivers around here are paying attention, so I wait until there is no moving traffic before crossing a street on foot, legally or otherwise.

Having had the right-of-way is of little value to the deceased, and of no comfort to his survivors.

 

[2jakes]

Having had the right-of-way is of little value to the deceased, and of no comfort to his survivors.

Yep!

(20+ years covering traffic fatalities on a daily basis.)

 

[tonyb]

Yep!

(20+ years covering traffic fatalities on a daily basis.)

If it bleeds it leads, right?

 

[2jakes]

If it bleeds it leads, right?

Especially next month.
Sweeps !

 

[Stearmen]

We are creatures of habit.

I chuckled on relocating to greater Denver and seeing signs directing motorists to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. In Seattle, you stop for pedestrians at crosswalks and intersections, period, even if the pedestrian has yet to step off the curb. So from my perspective those Denver signs were as redundant as one telling me to stop at red lights.

Here in Colorado, you better look more then twice before you cross the street! Yield for pedestrians seem to mean speed up to a lot of drivers. Then again, those large red octagonal objects on street corners have no know meaning what so ever!

 

[Stearmen]

With regards to “inconsiderate asshats”.
I have been riding bikes for many years.

And I have yet to see cyclists obey the traffic signs.

Some act as if they are entitled to ride the traffic lanes (not bike lanes)
yet at the same time they are oblivious to the traffic signals & won’t stop
along with the rest but continue riding disregarding the stop lights.

Perhaps it's the tight-fitting spandex & alien helmets they wear that makes
them feel that they don’t have to obey the traffic rules!

Don't even get me started! We have the Olympic bicyclists training here, they just pull right out to the left to pass their team mates.

 

[swanson_eyes]

It's a female thing. My wife has one of those withering stares that scare the crap out of grown men. It's particularly useful when small children are allowed to run riot in the supermarket. Many a time I've seen some poor little fellow's bottom lip tremble as he is locked into my wife's light sabre, disapproving stare.

I never have to enact a withering stare because I have RBF. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/03/health/resting-bitch-face-research-irpt/

 

[2jakes]

The king of RBF.

 

[GHT]

It's the glasses that really make it work for me. I squint my left eye, scrunch up the left side of my mouth, and open my right eye wide over the top of my specs. Just like all those mean first grade teachers that people still have nightmares about.

How coincidental, at the Grammar school that I attended, the head teacher was a strong assertive type, he had the teachers trembling so small schoolboys were not even on his radar. Of all the things that school taught me, the one that stood out most, was the way our head teacher could reduce a lying schoolboy to a wimpering wreck, just by looking sternly over the top of his specs. It was a ploy that I used to great effect in thirty years or more of management.