Atrios offers some sound advise to drivers who might otherwise be inclined to try to shorten their commute by running over pedestrians using a crosswalk. Quite simply, he writes “Stop Running Over Pedestrians.” He goes on to blame suburbanites. I agree wholeheartedly. While some city residents may indeed drive straight at a crowd of pedestrians in a crosswalk as soon as the light turns green, that slightly homicidal behavior is the fault of suburbanites. Why is that? Because everything is their fault. Trust me on this. I think that most readers of this site are suburbanites, and I’m sure that the most perceptive of you have at times wondered if it’s all your fault. Wonder no more. It is.
When I was a younger, I used hit the hood of offending vehicles with my fist just as hard as I could trying to leave a dent. I never got so angry as to jump up on the hood, though I’ve seen it happen. My mom likes to smack them with her pocketbook, and I’ve found that a sturdy guitar case bashed onto the hood a few times conveys the “please don’t try to run me down then honk at me while I’m using a crosswalk” message quite effectively. The problem with these approaches is that sometimes the driver gets out of the car in order to express his or her displeasure. This often ends badly.
The most fun I ever had confronting a crosswalk impaired suburbanite was in college, when a guy in an Ford F250 pickup truck became displeased that my roommate and I were crossing the street with the light at a crosswalk and, somewhat inexplicably, yelled at us that his truck weighed two and a half tons. I believe he meant to imply that our flimsy primate bodies wouldn’t do so well in a confrontation with a two and a half ton vehicle. He was probably right. It turned out that the guy was working on a construction project right in front of our building, so we kept poking our heads out to ask him how much other stuff weighs. Something like “Hey Mister! How much does a human head weight? Hey Mister! How much does a hippopotamus weigh? Hey Mister! How much does Martha Stewart weigh?” You get the idea.
So the next time you fly into a homicidal rage at the site of pedestrians crossing the street legally, take a deep breath and consider not mowing them down with your automobile, honking your horn at them, or yelling rude things about their parentage. Oh, and if you are a suburbanite, everything is your fault. Next week we’ll tackle animal husbandry and firearm safety.
I don’t care what you say — get in th way of my V-6 minivan and your dead meat buddy.
Listen buddy, you’re either you’re with us or you’re with the people who are to blame for everything. It’s time to choose sides, though I think mowing me down with the V-6 minivan is probably a pretty clear indication of which side you choose.
never, ever get in the way of a moving vehicle.
Man bashed for crossing street too slowly.
a scene in Berkeley, at the intersection of Telegraph and Bancroft.
Several fire engines, sirens blaring, had made their difficult way down the narrow and always congested Telegraph Ave. They reached Bancroft, where Telegraph ends. There they stood for an ungodly time, blasting their horns along with their sirens, trying to get to the fire or whatever life-threatening situation they’d been called to, while streams of pedestrians — college students and Berkeley locals — strolled insouciantly, and to all appearances obliviously, in front of them.
(Admittedly, back then all Berkeley Fire Department vehicles — probably due to some wag in the local government — had “BFD” painted on them. That does interfere with being taken seriously. Also, that’s the West Coast; make of that what you will, which, if you’re an East Coaster, is likely to be too much.)
You are totally disregarding the time-honored point system!
Old man in a crosswalk, crossing with light 10 points
Old man in a wheelchair in a crosswalk, crossing with light, 25 points
Old woman in a cross walk, crossing with light, 30 points
Old woman in a wheelchair, crossing with light in a crosswalk, 35 points
Young woman alone in crosswalk, 10 points
Young man in crosswalk, 5 points
Woman in crosswalk crossing with light with baby in stroller, 40 points.
Young woman in crosswalk with baby in stroller holding toddler by hand, 75 points.
Teenager on bike in crosswalk 50 points
Teenager on skateboard in crosswalk 60 points
Toddler on tricycle in crosswalk 200 points
Dog in crosswalk, crossing with light, 45 points
Cat in crosswalk, crossing with light, 2 points
Any degraded jaywalker, 100 points, no holds barred.
Squirrels 20 points
Rabbits 15 points
Kittens 25 points
Puppies 24 points
Armadilloes 90 points
Turtles 300 points
Froggies (in a hoard) 1,000 points
Hardee har har.
Any points for guinea pigs?
The poor little pigs!
I knew that would draw you back into this silly thread that you initiated but have assidously ignored since.
I’m here to create inanity, not to nurish it.
Now that’s not fair, I thought the rules of the game were higher points for faster stuff. Point values for old people in wheelchairs should be minuscule. As for turtles and armadilloes, admittedly, the likelihood of them being in the middle of a busy urban intersection isn’t so high, but once they’re there, pinning them under the wheel of your car should be pretty darned easy. Anything young and fast is your points bonanza.
Or are we talking about completely different games?
Yup, different games. Black humor.
but some of these rules seem awfully familiar.
Southern California. I’d driven in some tough places before, including the notorious Boston, but nothing prepared me for Southern California drivers.
Boston drivers are only concerned with getting to their destinations as fast as possible. If you’re in the way, or trying to get onto a road from a ramp, hey, it’s nothing personal.
SoCal drivers treat it as a video game, with points being awarded by (for example) inserting your car within inches of the bumper of the car in front and that of the car behind. (You get extra points if you do it from the right, and even more if you do it from the right coming off an entry ramp and hurtling down the shoulder first.)
Trying to keep a safe distance between me and the car in front of me, I kept backing up. The more I drove, the more I backed up. If I’d tried to drive long enough, I would have found myself back where I started.
This is a variant of what I’ve dubbed the Carolina Pause, from my years in North Carolina. I say a variant, because given the other Detroit rules, this one seems pretty rational in Detroit. In Carolina, at least outside the triangle, you don’t have the threat that someone will go barreling down the intersecting street against the red light and blow you down. No, but in Carolina they seem to have a certain zen-like approach to a light’s turning green. “Well, sure it’s turned green … No need to rush … Let’s look around at the scenery … It’s the journey, after all, not the destination, that counts …
The problem with these approaches is that sometimes the driver gets out of the car
A problem for the DRIVER not the pedestrian. Remember, if you try to hit a pedestrian and MISS, they are now jacked full of adrenalin. The moment you step out of your car you have given away your weapons advantage, and in the ensuing fight you will lose.
Bystanders won’t help you, either. They will probably laugh.
Are you nuts? Any driver who gets out of his car to go after a pedestrian is likely armed in some fashion. Only a whackjob would try to hit a pedestrian with his vehicle and then pursue on foot if they miss. Do you really want to fight a whackjob? No amount of adrenaline can make up for being berserk all the time. Run away. Let the cops ultimately put this whackjob in jail. That’s not your job.
if you can think these thoughts, your adrenalin has not flooded, and you should certainly avoid a further encounter.
On the other hand, if it has flooded, thinking will come later, as you discuss with your lawyer how the laws on self-defense actually work.
I was trying to be flip.
To be direct: The last time I was nearly run down–how does one put it?–my body knew that I was within a hairbreadth of being killed, and it was only my reflexes and agility that saved me.
If he had not driven away, I would have killed him.
Really. It was only afterward that I realized you are not supposed to kill people.
Do you think a court would have convicted? That would have done him no good at all.
So think about it before you try what he did.
I had a friend who claimed that he would continue using the crosswalk if someone was parked in it, especially if they were honking at him. He would, if possible, climb up onto the hood of a car, still within the white lines, continue walking, jump down off the hood and continue on his way.
He claimed that he actually once opened the rear door of a car that was parked across a zebra crossing, crawled through the back seat, and exited out the door on the other side.
This friend once took a nasty spill on a motor scooter while not wearing a helmet. I suspect this had something to do with his behavior, although he was by no means what you’d call normal before the accident. He’s the kind of guy who, rather than suffer from brain damage, actually rather enjoyed it.
So the next time you fly into a homicidal rage at the site of pedestrians crossing the street legally
Actually I’ve been a pedestrian for most of the past decade and I’ve regularly hit cars who tried to hit me. I’ve hit them with my fist with my umbrella and with my steel toed boots. If I had been carrying a gun I probably would’ve shot a few as well.
The last commenter is right, the driver is a fool to exit his/her vehicle.
Unless you ARE the fire department, where exactly do you all need to be getting to in such a damn hurry anyway?
Forget me.. I can tell you the day you run over a child who has darted out in the road is the day you will cease to be in such a rush all the rest of your days.
Pax
You forgot to mention the pedestrians who don’t bother to even look at the WALK/DON’T WALK signs and blithely throw their carcasses in front of the oncoming traffic. Try driving in Brooklyn or Queens, where a considerable portion of the population doesn’t seemt to feel that they bear any responsibility for their not becoming a traffic statistic. Personally, I really hate letting some of them go on to breed, because they are too stupid to live.
Re, the comments about some cars stopping into the pedestrian walk zones, I would point out that some municipalities do not have very long yellow lights. Take NYC for example. The NYC DOT seems to have determined that about one-(1) second is sufficient for yellow warning lights on their traffic signals. Even if you’re traveling at about 15 mph in an urban residential area and arrive at a traffic signal that changes to yellow at the last moment (about fifty feet from the intersection), you’ve got that one second to notice the light, react by braking and bring the car to a halt. Unlike suburban areas, you don’t have the luxury of fifteen- or twenty-second yellow lights to avoid winding up in the pedestrian cross zones. Also, you don’t want me to get going about pedestrians who are too lazy to walk the five feet necessary to get into the pedestrian walk zones but insist on walking into your car. Too. Stupid. To. Live.
Si te viste involucrado en un accidente de carro y necesitas un abogado en San Bernardino, ponte en contacto con nosotros cuanto antes. Somos Abogados de Accidentes Ahora, expertos en accidentes de auto en San Bernardino. Contamos con más de 16 años de experiencia acumulada en el campo de batalla, somos latinos como tú, dando la cara por la comunidad latina que somos.