Stop at the white line
FRANKFORT — I was raised in a very rural southern Appalachian town where there was only one traffic light in the entire county! We had no crosswalks. I literally thought I would pass out from fear trying to learn to drive in Chicagoland. Once I stopped at a city intersection and people crossing the street glared at me, slapped my hood, and walked way around me. I remember thinking, “Well, how rude!”
It was not until I sat for my Illinois driver’s license months later did I learn there is a white line at each intersection where I am supposed to stop. I had been pulling all the way into the pedestrian’s crossing lane. I felt like a heel not to have known that. Now that I don’t park in your crosswalks you city people are a lot nicer to me!
— Tammy Floyd
California dreamin’
PALATINE — Please continue this coverage of pedestrian safety in the Tribune.
This is such a hot topic. Thank goodness you are addressing it and I hope the police and people in power are reading and listening.
The drivers are totally disrespectful of pedestrians and rarely stop. Never mind they never stop when you wait patiently at the curb at the crosswalk. What makes me steaming mad is that I have been eight months pregnant and almost run over in the crosswalk, and numerous times I have held my baby in my arms and been in the crosswalk and still the cars do not stop.
There need to be signs posted at every crosswalk that states “it is the law to wait for pedestrians” (I saw this in Lake Zurich at a new strip mall), and the police need to enforce it.
I love being in California, where cars are courteous to pedestrians, they wait the extra 30 seconds for you to cross safely, and it is just so pleasant.
— Sonja Seitamo
Civility needed on both sides
CHICAGO — We live in an increasingly congested urban environment where the old rules of good conduct are buried by our anonymity. No one knows the driver and the driver has no personal connection to the pedestrian. When sharing the crosswalk the pedestrian is no match against the potentially lethal machines (that includes buses). The irresponsibility of both has turned into a chaotic liability for modern civilization.
Stop signs and traffic lights at intersections are not crossing gates. Therefore, the question of when it is safe to cross an intersection becomes one of personal judgment. To be fair, there are bad drivers and bad pedestrians. It has always been my belief that we need to drive defensively. The same goes for pedestrians. Both need to be alert and responsive to the other.
We have all been on both sides of the equation, but at any decisive moment, it is all about us. So yielding the right of way is no longer the issue. Can I beat the opponent? This is the issue. When both drivers and pedestrians begin acting civil and reasonable, then the congestion will stop. Needless to say, I have way too many times been held in backed up traffic because pedestrians continued to stream across after the light has changed.
Shame on them for exercising their inalienable right of “the pedestrian always has the right of way.” Likewise, shame on the driver who after being bestowed a driver’s license thinks he owns the road. If we want to function in civilization, then we must be civil.
On a perfectly beautiful day this summer, I was heading north on Jefferson Street. There was no traffic, the light at Madison Street was green and I breezed through the intersection while two men began crossing against the light.
As I passed them, one man angrily bellowed, “What’s your hurry?” I was shocked. In the middle of this open intersection these men managed to question my right as a person to do what is legally in my court. I have revisited that experience many times since, asking myself, “What then was their hurry?”
Once we realize that there are actually people driving these automobiles and that pedestrians are vulnerable humans, then maybe we will try to give a persona to our intersection opponents and treat them more courteously.
— Mel Theobald
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