Pedestrians May as Well Wave Their Right of Way Goodby

This morning as I walked to my bus stop, I’d finally had it.

As I started to cross Yale Street in Santa Monica--on a green light and walk sign--there was a line of four cars signaling left turns off Santa Monica Boulevard into my crosswalk.

The first driver sailed around the corner without even looking for hapless human flesh in the street. The second also sped around the corner, keeping me pinned on the curb. He actually waved his thanks and smiled at me. (Yeah, like I had a choice about giving up my right of way to a speeding car.)

The third driver appeared about to leave me in her dust, too, but she made a mistake. She hesitated. I stepped forward smartly and held up my hand like a traffic cop. The driver frowned. But she stopped, leaving the car behind her with no choice about whether to run me up onto the sidewalk.

Each time this happens it is just one more salvo against civilization. What has happened to our drivers?

When I moved to Los Angeles from Detroit 20 years ago, I was charmed by the law giving pedestrians the right of way and the fact that almost all drivers observed the law. I was impressed each time lanes of traffic came to a halt as Californians stepped into a crosswalk. It was so humane. So civil.

I was reminded of my pleasure in this when I would visit Detroit, where, if you stopped for a pedestrian, even for a child, the drivers behind you would lean on their horns. So hostile. So boorish.

I don’t know when it began to change here.

It was several years ago that I was grazed by a car in another Santa Monica crosswalk.

The driver never looked in my direction, nor appeared to know he might have killed someone. Maybe me. Or that he could have seriously injured someone more careless, such as a child. Or someone less quick to jump, such as an elderly person.

I think it was then I began to be more wary, carefully checking out the faces of drivers at intersections and discovering that most of those turning left or right are looking only at oncoming traffic.

The possibility of stopping for--or even looking for--a person in the street is no longer on the agendas of Los Angeles-area drivers.

My regard for our drivers reached its nadir (where it has stayed) about a year ago. As I crossed a wide, heavily trafficked street in downtown Los Angeles, I saw a man with a white cane in trouble. The walk signal was on for him. He was in his crosswalk. But in front of him, spanning the width of the crosswalk, was the driver’s side of a large car.

The middle-aged man behind the wheel apparently couldn’t give up the advantage of being just a few more feet into the intersection, ready for when his light turned green. The blind man discovered the car in his path with a tap of his cane and stopped. The driver did not back up, nor did he speak to the pedestrian with the cane who was standing not a foot from him.

The driver stared straight ahead.

The blind man stood there, probably distressed by his alternative route, which was to walk out into the busy intersection in order to get around the creep in the crosswalk.

I ran forward and guided him through the traffic and back into the pedestrian walk. I told him what I’d seen of the mien of the driver. We were both angry but resigned.

Because I commute to work by bus and walk for recreation, I am a frequent pedestrian.

Lately, more and more, I have had to wait through a green light and cross on the second green because turning cars will not stop.

I have seen speeding cars illegally pass a foot from me in a crosswalk and have seen that the driver never looked in my direction.

I have had to give up my right of way to people who are running red lights.

It is no longer possible to cross any busy street at a corner with no traffic light--even though most crosswalks are clearly painted--because if you get into the street at all, you may be stranded in the middle by a stream of drivers who are oblivious to people crossing streets.

It has become a rarity to run across a driver who abides by the law and courteously stops. When this act occurs, it still gives me pleasure.

Some drivers have told me pedestrians stop at the curb as if to let the driver go. That is not why we stop. We must stop a moment to see if you are going to stop. We hesitate before hurrying into the street because we must first peer through your windshield to see if it is the back of your head facing us as you barrel into our path.

After all, we are the ones who will be maimed or killed by any collision with you.

For you drivers who value your character or have a clue as to what it means to live an examined life, think of this:

Each time you consciously or unconsciously use 3,000 pounds of steel to gain a tiny victory over an unarmored person on foot, you become more selfish, rude and crude--and for what?

To save a few seconds out of your day?