Letter: Tips on how to walk safely in the city

I’ve read with dismay the several articles about hit-and-runs done to walkers. As someone who walks a lot, here’s a tip: Sometimes you will approach on foot a four-way-stop-sign intersection.

Sometimes as you are getting close to the corner some cars will already be at their stop signs; they have been waiting and are ready to go.

If you walk right up to the corner, those cars are going to hesitate to accelerate and cross because they’re afraid that you’re going to cross without even stopping at the corner.

It becomes a funny situation where they’re waiting for you, thinking you’re going to cross, and you’re waiting for them, thinking they’re going to accelerate and cross.

What I’ve learned to do is to stop a couple of steps before I get to the corner and then not even look like I’m going to cross, not make eye contact with the drivers, look around at the sky or whatever. Then the cars that were there before you can make their way across because they know you’re not about to cross, and you can come forward as a pedestrian when it’s your turn and make your cross. Doing it this way seems to make a walk smoother and possibly safer.

A second tip that I know makes a walk safer is to always make eye contact with the driver before you cross in front of them.

Hit-and-run drivers should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t believe anyone ever really gets away with anything; as they say, it all comes out in the wash.

Greg Dahlen
Glendale