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September 28, 2007
Officially pissed off.
Tags: sacramento, traffic, transportationIf you find yourself behind someone pausing at a green light, (or pausing before making a right turn on a red light) before you honk, look carefully. That driver may be waiting for pedestrians crossing against the light. Remember, running over pedestrians, even if they are crossing illegally, is a bad, bad thing. If you do honk, and someone is crossing the street, you are as unobservant a driver as the one who just doesn’t notice the light changing.
If you honk at the Saturn in front of you, rest assured I am making a negative comment on your intelligence and calling you by a popular anatomical term.
By the way, the intersection of Broadway and 19th Street is a popular place for people to ignore the street lights.
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Man, I am glad you brought this up. I experience this all the time. There are intersections, both signaled and unsignaled, that this happens at frequently in my neck of the woods, and I’m just amazed there aren’t more pedestrians hurt.
Locals are most often the offenders, and that’s all the more ironic in that 1) these are folks that should be familiar with the ped needs of the intersection, and 2) being a local, they (or their family)are more likely to have had crossed the very intersection at some point while living in the area, so you assume the “do unto others” ethos is in their minds. Evidently not.
I even see this around schools. Mothers drop off their pups, then driving like maniacs, rolling through 4 way stops with kids IN THE CROSSING.
I have a more unsusal coping mechanism for the honking, and my mumbling usually degenerates into speculation of another branch of hominds evolving (or devolving) among us. I also try to imagine what is so urgent that they would even consider running over someone to get to where they are headed.
It also occurs to me that these folks have an overinflated value of their time. They truly don’t appreciate the cost to them personally if they hit a ped. The saving of maybe 2 minutes off a trip could cost thousands, and that’s conservative.
If people knew how a simple accident with a ped could escalate into a life long financial adoption plan with their victim, via a civil suit, they might loose their sense of urgency about the 2 minutes they’re trying to save.
I wish they would get creative and put up some electronic billboard with the ped accident stats scrolling, like a sign the size of a street sign, just with an lcd display constatly running the number of accidents for that intersection.
It will never happen to all major ped crossings, but it would be a kick to see it installed at the worst intersection in town.
September 29, 2007 @ 11:07 am
On my way to work a while back, I had a woman go slightly apeshit behind me when I stopped at a stop sign and didn’t go because the school bus in front of me had its red lights a-flashing.
October 02, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
Things should get really interesting in the coming months when Freeport converts back to a two-way and faces the on-coming traffic of 19th.
And I believe earlier this year a woman was struck and killed while crossing Broadway at 18th Street.
October 03, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
Why don’t bike riders in downtown and midtown stop for red lights or stop signs? I use to feel sorry for rides that got hit or were in an accident, but the more I observe these bike riders blowing through intersections, the more I understand why so many get hit.
Please STOP when the sign says to.
October 12, 2007 @ 2:48 pm