The Wrong Right of Way

I have been a pedestrian a bit longer than I have been a driver. From the time I was in middle school to until I finished my bachelor's at Maryland, I was a pedestrian. Sure I commuted to campus at College Park, but once there, everyone walked. Walking was a part of my way of life for a long time and for many of us, it continues to be such. I remember walking home from high school I had to cross one major roadway where the cars regularly exceeded the speed limit. It was a very deadly game of chicken we played when we tried to cross the street. Sure there were crossing guards posted along the roads, but they weren't on duty all the time, and they weren't there if you left school after a certain period. So you were forced to develop that second nature where you came to figure out when was a good time to cross, when to run and when to saunter. It was difficult to gauge at times but thankfully I was never hurt during those crossings.

In college it was much the same thing. Being such a large and sprawling campus meant students were often rushing from one part of campus to another. With several thousand students walking around (not all of them with a schedule as tightly packed as your own) it can be very difficult to get to your destination on time. Compound that with the occasional professor suffering from a slightly over-developed 'God' complex and you've got a situation where you're literally running to get to class on time. College Park had one or two main roads running through campus which meant that street crossing was not a big issue. But, if you happened to be that hapless driver who was stuck through a steady stream of pedestrians crossing the road, you could easily end up waiting ten minutes for the crowds to die out. Those were the times I avoided driving through campus.

But when I was in pedestrian mode, I could rarely, if ever, lose that much time. Not all drivers yield to pedestrians in the cross walk at such places, so by necessity or by spite, many pedestrians would cross right in between cars and suddenly dart out from somewhere. It made for very dangerous driving and I can recall a number of incidents where people were struck while crossing. The prevading attitude amongst all pedestrians was that we had the right of way. Some held it like an invisible badge of honor that as a commuter, we were denied the use of a car so we were going to make our way by hook or by crook. I don't think many people realize just how dangerous that attitude can be.

A similar situation is brewing in the District of Columbia where Metro is now raising concerns about bus drivers failing to yield to pedestrians. In one case last week, two women were struck by a bus while crossing the road. This has given much more prominence to the problem and as expected, most of the major news agencies in and around the city have been focussing on this problem. It has become more or less a blame game with pedestrians blaming drivers and drivers blaming pedestrians. Both parties are often on the phone or are looking at blackberries or are talking to friends. Walk down any city street and see the number of times a pedestrian will simply step out onto the street (despite the 'Don't Walk' sign flashing) and begin to cross against the light in an effort to save a few minutes.

All sides seem to blame one another but the fact boils down to that we are all losing patience. It seems to me that we are all losing the ability to wait for a few minutes or leave a bit earlier to compensate for possible delays. Sometimes it works in our favor whereas other times it can lead to disasters (case in point the JetBlue incidents). Drivers are in a hurry to get where they're going, pedestrians are in much the same quandry. This is not to say that everyone is doing the same thing and that being the wrong thing. On the contrary, the vast majority of us are not constantly in a rush, but there is a overwhelming attitude from some to hurry up and get where we're going so that we can move on to this, that and the other thing. We've got so much crammed into our days these days that if we don't rush and stand up for our right of way, we'll always be behind.