Everyone goes to driving school, or drivers ed, then has to take a driving test to get their drivers license, right? Then why don't people know how to drive? Don't they know there are rules? Do they think that they are taught the rules just to forget?
I get run over almost every time I walk to or from campus. Three of the four streets I cross have cross-walks on them, the fourth doesn't. The phrase "Pedestrians get the right of way" has somehow been changed to "Cars get the right of way if they can make it across the cross-walk before the Pedestrian finishes crossing the street"!
I am a firm believer that the car must stop for the pedestrian. Just last week I saw a guy and a girl trying to cross the street. They were already half-way across and I was coming behind them. They started to cross the second half, but the cars wouldn't stop. They were in the middle of the road and the cars wouldn't stop! Really?!! Then the girl started to cross again and the guy had to pull her back to keep her from getting hit. A couple days later I was crossing the same intersection when this happened: I was crossing thee second half of the street and I still had a good ten feet to go. The car coming didn't wait for me to cross, but came all the way through the intersection and waited three feet away from me on the cross-walk. What? You couldn't wait on the
other side of the intersection for me to finish crossing the street?
I always make eye-contact with the drivers. Stand there and wait for them to stop their car with a "Really?" look on my face. Then I cross the street. The number of times I could have died while crossing the street is off the charts.
Here's a shout out to all college students walking to and from campus. Look both ways. Before you cross the street! Yes, you heard that from your parent's when you were just learning to cross the street by yourself for the first time. It still applies! Don't trust any car to stop when you start to cross the street. Wait for them to stop completely. Then cross.
