Yesterday my housemate came back from a walk in utter shock. He almost got run over by a car at the major intersection near our home. The asshole driver went straight from a protected left turn lane - essentially running the straight red. Housemate had the right-of-way in crossing the intersection. The driver didn’t stop, even after making eye-contact. Despicable.
We’ve always felt that intersection to be fairly dangerous. For a major thoroughfare that intersects a street that flows into a mall, it really needs protected turn lanes on all four sides. Instead, only one side have left turning privileges with a dedicated green arrow. Crossing that street as a pedestrian we’re fighting cars wanting to turn left (and right) before the brief green is over. You absolutely cannot have your face in your smartphone when doing so: make sure cars are stopped before you proceed.
That’s the reason my housemate didn’t get seriously hurt - he was paying attention to traffic.
You know how people put dash-cam in their cars to record evidence in case of accidents? (One of my favorite channels on YouTube is a compilation of these type of recordings.) Perhaps pedestrians need personal dash-cams as well when walking through these dangerous intersections. Before crossing, start an instagram live stream just so there’s evidence being saved to the cloud, should you get run over by a car.
Rightly or wrongly, the onus is on the pedestrian to pay absolute attention at all times. It’s a matter of physics: you the person is magnitudes smaller than a multi-ton car that moves rapidly. So what if you have the right-of-way and the offending driver is in the wrong? You’re dead. For sure in a more perfect society we wouldn’t have to be so vigilant. But yesterday’s episode with my housemate shows, self preservation comes first.
Abandoned music.