‘Crosswalks--a Fading Landmark’

Your front-page article (Jan. 29), “Crosswalks--a Fading Landmark,” states that painted pedestrian crosswalks are being phased out in many Southern California communities. They tend to give a “false sense of security,” while experiencing double the accident statistics for pedestrians using unmarked crossings. Could it be that more persons use marked crosswalks than unmarked ones? Why, would you suppose they were painted in the first place?

Drivers also have a “false sense of security” in their reliance upon others complying with traffic signals and stop signs. On the basis of the logic applied to pedestrians, drivers would be best served by removing traffic signals and stop signs. Shades of the 1920s and ‘30s and their much higher casualty percentages. Back to the days of stalking the tiger in tall grass that is also stalking you.

When I venture onto a roadway it is with the healthy realization that the streets were made for vehicular traffic and, as a pedestrian, I am in alien territory--the tall grass of the tiger.

THOMAS J. SULLIVAN

Pasadena

Pedestrians want rights of way across streets, the domain of the auto, and fail to realize that right of way is meaningless if it needs to be argued from a hospital bed, or worse, a cemetery. In a collision between an auto and a pedestrian, the pedestrian ALWAYS loses.

An obvious danger I frequently encounter is when a driver in the curb lane yields his right of way (there being no red light nor stop sign) to a pedestrian stepping off the curb to cross. A second driver in the next lane and behind the first auto has no view of the pedestrian through the first auto and no reasonable expectation of an impending stop. Given sufficient speeds, proximities, and reaction times, a pedestrian collision can occur, or if the second driver locks his brakes in time, the auto behind him might not stop in time to avoid an auto collision.

For this reason it is against the law in many states, Michigan as an example, for drivers to yield their rights of way to pedestrians. Indeed, back East, one rarely sees an auto stop for a pedestrian. Courtesy is not germane. Given the risks, this law justifiably places the onus of safe crossing on the pedestrian. It is his responsibility to look for a clearing in traffic, crossing half a street at a time if necessary, waiting in the median for opposite traffic flow to clear.

Further, the pedestrian should expect traffic NOT to stop, forcing him to look. In Southern California, many pedestrians noticeably cross with “tunnel vision,” indicating that years of crossing under present laws (and bad habits) have made them complacent. Herein lies the biggest danger. When laws breed complacency and lack of awareness because pedestrians expect traffic to stop for them, the laws need changing.

DAVID BARAHAL

Santa Monica

I found the article about the dangers of crosswalks one of the funniest pieces since Mark Twain. Because more people are hurt in crosswalks than outside of them our enlightened bureaucrats are removing the offending crosswalks. Next, I expect these experts will recommend cutting back on fire engines because they’ve determined that when there is a destructive fire the fire engines are usually present.

As traffic densities increase, less and less attention is being paid to driving “niceties” such as crosswalks, red lights, signaling, etc. While removing crosswalks will certainly solve the statistical problem of people being killed in them it begs the question of what happens when street crossing becomes a free-form sport and drivers are under even less compunction to stop? Having driven a motorcycle in this city, very briefly, it can be said with assurance that the average motorist yields to nothing smaller than a Honda (although Honda drivers seem to yield to nothing smaller than an 18-wheeler, or a Lincoln).

So with this logic (!) firmly entrenched in the minds of our safety engineers I recommend to you who would cross the road, Be Patient and Be Nimble or else get a small urban guerrilla-style hang glider. Good luck!

GEOFFREY A. GRAHAM

Mar Vista

It is not the crosswalks that are dangerous, it’s the pedestrians. They walk out into fast oncoming traffic as if they own the road, with no consideration for the driver’s problem. And when the driver screeches to a stop, the pedestrian doesn’t even have the courtesy to nod “thanks.”

If pedestrians lose the crosswalks, it’s their own selfish fault.

BASIL LANGTON

Los Angeles

I think the Transportation Department is missing the real pint about crosswalks being unsafe. According to their reasoning, will they next abolish red lights because they give a false sense of security?

When I first moved here in 1969 it was an accepted fact that cars would stop when a pedestrian stepped off a curb. It was a strictly adhered-to rule that a driver must stop his car for a pedestrian crossing the street.

In the past few years this rule has been increasingly ignored until now not only do drivers (with the possible exception of long-time natives) not stop for pedestrians in the crosswalks, they often do not even stop for pedestrians in their path.

The solution is to enforce the law, not to give in to the careless drivers and remove the crosswalks.

ED DOHERTY

Los Angeles

Your article only documents something that is already painfully apparent. Los Angeles has been and will most likely continue to be designed for and scaled to the car, rather than a place that is of a comfortable human scale for the pedestrian.

Since the traffic engineers in the Los Angeles area were responsible for the invention of the freeway surely it would not be too much of an effort to design a well-delineated and cost-efficient type of pedestrian crosswalk.

Perhaps this city could then become less of a brutal environment and more of a place for people.

LAWRENCE KRUGER

Oakland

What a sublime and insidious conspiracy our city fathers have taken part in. First we learn that more than 40,000 jaywalking tickets are written each year in the Los Angeles area. Next we discover that crosswalks are being systematically removed, especially ones at mid-block. Is this purely coincidence or the latest method of “revenue enhancement”?

Whatever the answer, it unfortunately reflects the increasing lunacy of government actions and the often inadvertent dangers those actions pose to us, both as citizens and pedestrians.

LEE D. HAMOVITZ

Sherman Oaks