There’s a discussion going on over at the Blue Oregon blog in response to guest post titled, “Killing Pedestrians“.
The author relays his experience of driving down the street in the right-hand lane and stopping to let a pedestrian cross:
I stopped for him as he approached the crosswalk at Burnside and the Park Blocks. I was in the right lane, and traffic was well behind me in the left. A no-brainer courtesy stop, though, of course, its the law too.
But the traffic in the other lane wasn’t stopping:
In the left lane though…the SUV kept racing. As the pedestrian crossed in front of my car, I could only think “wait!” But he kept moving on. I sat there, frozen in the moment, waiting for the impact.
The pedestrian retreated, to the safety in front of my car, at the last moment, but not before the SUV driver slammed on his brakes. Hard. Then behind him, the junker car smashed into the SUV, pushing it well past the crosswalk. Broken glass and twisted metal lay in the street.
I agree with the author that there’s something very wrong with this picture.
Read the comments over on the original post.
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Dutch
Greek
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
There’s definitely something wrong with this picture.
We must put the priority on people in our neighborhoods, not cars!
Comment by tim.grahl — June 16, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
I do the same thing for pedestrians. However being on a bicycle, I am able to communicat with the pedestrians. What I have learned (mostly from living in New York) is that if you slowly walk towards traffic (without going in front of it) most drivers will stop for you. It takes courage to go within 2 feet of 4000 lb vehicles, but it’s no different from what bicyclists do. By ‘encouraging’ vehicles to do what they’re actually supposted to do, we get big points from pedestrians, and even some points with drivers. I encourage everyone to (bikes AND cars) to put pedestrian safety as their priority.
Comment by Aaron — August 16, 2006 @ 8:31 pm