Bring Back "Stop Look and Listen"

Almost every day you can read online about a pedestrian somewhere being hit by a car.  Today's offering is an eight year old boy.  The police are not releasing information yet, the driver was neither arrested nor ticketed so, I'm willing to bet that the boy didn't stop, look and listen.

The "pedestrian has the right of way" law is costing lives as more and more people are being stupefied into blindly walking into moving traffic.  I was walking with a friend and as we approached the curb she neither stopped nor looked.  She just stepped off of the curb and I grabbed her as cars from both directions were giving no indication of stopping.

If you watch people coming out of grocery stores or places such as WalMart, most of those people are not looking either.  They just walk out with blind faith that the world will stop for them.  The law does force drivers to be more cognizant of pedestrians since all the blame will be on the driver and their insurance company but it is also making pedestrians oblivious to the danger of 4,000 pounds of steel coming at them at thirty or fifty miles per hour.  Regardless of the law, my money is on the 4,000 pounds of steel.

Just because the pedestrian has the right of way does not mean that the driver is not eating fast food, putting on makeup, on the phone, fiddling with the radio, setting the GPS or nodding off.  We can make laws against those (Schumer, get on it) or we can give pedestrians a foolproof way to not get hit by cars: Stop, Look and Listen.  It works every time.  Go to your local highway and try it. 

Maybe we should take all the politicians who voted for that law to a busy highway and see which method they choose to cross the street.  Our eight year old little boy didn't get that choice because he somehow learned that cars will always stop for him.  Always.

When I was a kid there was a deluge of commercials on TV on the topic of Stop, Look and Listen.  Yielding to a car will keep you alive 100% of the time.  Stepping in front of one, not so much.  I think I'd rather be alive than to brainwashed into thinking I have super human powers to stop traffic.

Maybe if politicians created harsher punishments for drivers who hit human lemmings -  yes, that will save lives -  But, really, we don't need more laws, we need one less law.  Rescind the pedestrian right of way law.   If we have to keep it so we can place the blame, at least couple it with the admonishment to stop, look and listen, too.

Drive Your Own Car

My father taught me to drive when I was about thirteen.  Yeah, I know, it was illegal.  What are you going to do, arrest him?  There were kids younger than I driving mini bikes, snowmobiles, horses and farm equipment on the same roads.  He taught me many valuable lessons, one of which was to "drive your own car."   That is to say, don't necessarily be nice, don't yield your right of way and never wave another vehicle to move when they don't have the right of way.  You can leave a hole but never wave someone on.

The drivers around you have an expectation that you are going to operate your vehicle in an orderly and predictable fashion which maintains the natural flow of traffic.  Any time you yield your right of way, you not only introduce an unknown factor into the mix - the other driver who doesn't have the right of way, but your expected action deviates from the natural flow and another driver who may not be paying attention can get caught off guard resulting in an accident.

My father also taught me to never follow a driver who has damage to the rear end of his vehicle for, chances are he performs erratic and unexpected behaviors which can cause accidents with drivers behind him. 

There is an old joke about an elderly driver who gets pulled over for doing 35 in a 55.  She tells the officer that she has never had an accident in her life but a lot of drivers behind her have.  That joke demonstrates that a driver who is driving in an unexpected fashion can interrupt the natural and expected flow of traffic.

Here is a short video demonstrating the dangers of being nice or, as my father put it, "driving someone elses car."

http://youtu.be/yM0M8Q6ObIo

You can see me driving down the road while there is a line of stopped traffic on my left.  A grey van is looking to get out of a parking lot and the driver of a black SUV decides to be nice and most likely waves him out - not taking into account that I am coming from the other direction.  The driver in the grey van takes the word of the black SUV that it is safe to cut across when, it wasn't.  You can see that she cuts right in front of me.  Luckily I wasn't texting, eating, changing my clothes, putting on make up, talking on the phone or rifling through the glove box as I see so many other drivers do.  Because I was paying attention I was able to brake in time.  You can see that I also began to veer off the road a bit in anticipation of a crash.

Further analysis of the video will reveal that if the black SUV waited, there were not many vehicles behind them and the grey van could have navigated themselves out of the parking lot all by themselves in their own time. 

The lessons here are (1) never tell someone else how to drive their car with a wave for, chances are you can't see what they see and you are only focused on being nice, not the ancillary drivers who don't know what you are doing with someone else's car.   (2) Never take the word of a nice driver that it is safe for you to move because they can only yield their right of way, not that of ancillary drivers. 

If someone waves for you to pull out and another car hits you, whose fault is it?  The guy who hit you?  You for cutting in front of them?  Or the guy who told you it was safe to pull out? 

Nice is different than good.  Be a good driver, not a nice one.