Crosswalks

Having become a relatively newly minted perpetual pedestrian I have a complaint.  Why can't cars stay out of the effing crosswalks!  Its not that hard.  They're the white things on the road.  They're like, totally covered with diagonal lines.  They REALLY stand out.  So, why, oh why, do people in their happy little cars treat them as just some extra feet they have to stick their little noses out in traffic so they can shoot across an intersection just as quickly as they possibly can.  What the hell? Do they save a few seconds? No, not really.  Are people so accustomed to seeing crosswalks that they have somehow become immune to them and no longer see them?  I doubt it.

Drivers just have no respect whatsoever for the crosswalk or the people who use them.  We are insignificant little gnats in their day.  I cross a lot of crosswalks on my walk to work each day.  And, most annoyingly 6 do not have any little red hands or green men to at least allow me a few moments of unmolested walking.  On those intersections it is entirely up to the benevolence (generally nonexistent) of the drivers to allow me to pass during rush hour.  Outside of rush hour I can generally wait and scoot across during an absence of traffic.

But two things annoy me most.  One, the lesser of the two, is when someone drives up behind me, and then turns right directly in front of me.  I want to slap the person upside the head when they do it when I have a little green man going for me too.  I want to jump up and down like a four year old and point at the green man.  But I also find it annoying when someone is turning off a larger road and rather than slow down and allow me to cross they zoom on ahead of me just as my foot hits the crosswalk.  So I have to stand there and look at the oncoming traffic and decide who is going to turn on a blinker at the last second and nearly take my leg off.

More annoying is the blatant disregard for the crosswalk's existence.  Where a whole stream of cars, when the opportunity arises, pulls up such that their car completely covers the crosswalk.  Not just a little ways into the crosswalk, I mean completely covering the whole thing.  And since their eyes are totally focused on the red light and traffic in front of them, I have no interest in taking my life (or at least limbs)  in my hands by walking out in front of them.  So, I take a circuitous route as I weave through the traffic, inhaling their exhaust and feeling the rush of heat when its already 90 outside.  NOT FUN.

And, I have noticed, it is not pure ignorance.  They do know what they are doing.  How do I know? Two things.  One, when it is raining, and you are standing on the corner huddled under a pathetic little umbrella, cars are much more likely to actually come to a complete stop and wave you across.  Such a contrast!  Of course, if they don't you can get sprayed in the face by a puddle.

The second reason I know is more specific.  In the last month or so they have been doing a lot of construction around my tangle of crosswalks.  They have closed some lanes, redirected some traffic.  Most of the time when this occurs there is a policeman there, usually with a police car.  As I walk across the bridge if I see the policeman's hat or the lights of his car I cheer inside.  A smile lights up my face, I walk with a spring in my step.  Because this means that the crosswalks will be completely devoid of cars, and the cars stopped at that intersection will always yield to me.  On the other intersections nearby, cars no longer pull the bait and switch stunts of turning down the wrong road or from the wrong lane.  All cars behave beautifully, and I have an easy walk, instead of the standard harrowing 4 hops across 7 lanes of traffic.

I love the policeman and his funny hat.

Actually, even the presence of the construction workers themselves makes the car people behave better.  Perhaps its a hat thing and I should invest in a peculiar hat