I've been using driving as a metaphor for a while, ever since I learned that 70% of people in the U.S.A. admit to running red lights when they feel it's not a big deal. I was reinforced in why I use this metaphor when I learned that the number one cause of deaths in Israel was road rage (the subject of a newsletter in the past).
As much as I love where I live, I'm becoming more and more distressed about how people drive. People, at least here, drive with a sense of entitlement that is disturbing. Since when does stop no longer mean stop? Now that I walk my dog over 40 miles per week, I've had an upfront and personal experience with how dangerous drivers are, and how disrespectful they are of pedestrians.
Clearly, people do not think the rules apply to them. The FirstMatter office is in a downtown location that has our driveway make a 3-way stop sign intersection look like a 4-way intersection. However, there is no stop sign at the base of the driveway to our building. This means everybody must (by law) stop if I'm walking out of my driveway (or driving my car for that matter). No, people do not follow this "rule of the road".
I wish this was the most disturbing part of the inappropriate driving behavior. I often sit out on the porch of our building (an 1884 Victorian) which is zoned for mixed use ... (which means people live and work in the buildings along the street) ... and watch people run the stop signs. My informal survey, to date, has 10% of people come to a full stop, 40% go through in a "rolling stop", 40% slow down but not get close to really stopping; and, ... are you ready? 5% touch on their brake but go through the intersection (they see that no cars are coming from the other two intersection points) and go through the sign at 10-15 m.p.h. over the speed limit (which is 25 m.p.h.) ... the last 5% never even touch the brake if no cars are apparent.
When I walk my dog, Max (he answers to Miracle Max, Mad Max and Maximus) people are offended if I cross the street as they are at the stop sign. But even worse, there is an intersection on our walk that is incredibly dangerous. I've actually been on the hood of cars twice and had my hand on a hood more times than I remember. The intersection has a one-way road join into a T-intersection with a two-way street. The one-way street has a stop sign. The stop sign is critical because to turn right from the one-way street the view is totally blind and you have to turn through a marked pedestrian walk way. The drivers look left and then turn right without even looking right, let alone stopping.
So now for the driving lesson. Next time you are in your car, notice how most stop signs have a white line painted on the road running perpendicular across the road from the stop sign. Also note, that quite a few stop signs have a white line anywhere from 2-8 feet past the stop sign. This means you have to stop twice!! ... and then look both ways.
Max and I walk in the pedestrian walkway because there is no sidewalk on either side of the road and no pedestrian walkway on the other side of the road. We are also walking on the side of the street that has the cars going in the opposite direction ... just as road driving manuals tell you to do.
So, someone blows through the stop sign by eight feet, does not really stop at the white line either (the rolling stop entitled "thing") and run right into me because they do not look both ways and they do it at a totally blind intersection.
Best story? ... The cop who almost ran me over, and when I came over to his window to remind him that he should set an example and told him of the double stop at stop signs with lines past the sign , he bellowed to me ... "Don't tell me what I already know!!"
I guess I was lucky he was too fat to get out of his car while I walked away.
Cheers,
W2
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