[This guest article was written by Elly Blue]

Oregon has a law that defines every intersection, marked or unmarked, as a crosswalk, and requires that all vehicles yield immediately to pedestrians wanting to cross at any of them. There’s an exception for signalized intersections — pedestrians only have the right-of-way when the walk sign is on. Everywhere else, if you’re on foot, you go first, or so the theory goes.

As laws go, this is a pretty good one. The Willamette Pedestrian Coalition worked heroically to pass it in 2003. It’s intended as a tool to protect pedestrian mobility and safety, and it’s hard to imagine any opposition to it — after all, everyone’s a pedestrian at some point in their day.

But regardless of the law, general politeness — and relative vulnerability — should dictate who yields to whom.

So then why does anyone who’s tried to cross the street recently at anywhere but a traffic light — which is to say, everyone — find themselves waiting, nervous, and ultimately reliant on the kindness of some person who takes it upon themselves to stop and let you cross?

It seems that most people simply have no idea that pedestrians have the right of way. And, despite some recent enforcement actions, this law remains under-enforced.

[A little smile may be all you need.]

Most people patiently waiting to cross major streets, or zooming past them in cars, haven’t heard of this law.

And what about bicyclists? They need to learn to yield to pedestrians too. We’re all in this together.

So what do we do in the meantime to stay safe when we cross?

You can walk two or more blocks out of your way to cross at a light. You can wait, sometimes forever, for someone to choose to let you cross; even then, other traffic won’t always stop as well. Or you could just step out into the street, seemingly, or actually, unaware of oncoming traffic (a favorite technique of college students everywhere).

I’ve tried all of these and found them lacking.

Finally, a friend of mine showed me the way. It’s incredible until you try it. It works every time, like magic.

Here’s the secret: All you have to do is wave. And smile. Make eye contact if possible with each driver coming toward you. And no matter how busy the road you are trying to cross, no matter how many lanes or what sort of lousy rush-hour funk prevails, drivers will come to a halt far faster than you ever expected possible.

And, most miraculously of all, far from grudging you this obedience, the majority of them will even smile or wave back.

It turns out that just a little human contact can go a long way.

Crossing will remain dangerous until roads are designed differently and more people are sensitive to these laws. Until that happens, we can all start humanizing traffic now. And we can also get where we’re going a little faster, and a little more happily.