Jaywalking

[Hidden_Mickey]

OK, I've done it, but only when traffic is light and I look both ways before I cross the street. Lately I've noticed younger people who just start walking across the street and expect you to stop your car so they can cross the street. What is up with that? Anyone else experience this? Have young people lost so much respect for anything that they cannot respect the fact that a car can kill them? Hello? How do they know that I am paying attention and will not run them over? No joke, I have seen people just start to walk without turning to look! I've had one person step out between parked cars in the rain AT NIGHT and put his hand up as if to say STOP. I had no choice but to stop short. I could barely see, it was raining so hard. He was lucky I was paying close attention or he would have been toast, as he came from the left in between cars stopped for a light in the opposite direction. It just boggles my mind. I would never start walking and assume a car would stop for me. I'm in my late 30's so I don't consider myself an old fogey, but geeze... Is it me?

 

[Belle0101]

I've noticed it after church on Wednesday evenings more and more. Church is over and folks just step off the curb and into the drive / parking lot , never looking. Could be walking right into a car's path for all they know.

I'd hate to hit someone at church but I can't stop on a dime and even if I could, who's to say the driver behind me could?

 

[Carly_Roach]

This is one of the outcomes of helicopter parenting. If you don't let the kids off the leash enough to learn boundaries and danger situations, they don't internalize the fact that an oncoming car can kill them.

At least, not until another helicoptered offspring with the same entitlement mentality is behind the wheel and runs over the first helicoptered offspring. Then all bets are off and it comes down to who's family has the most money.

 

[MushyMushy]

If they're youngish, could it be they're college aged? I know a lot of college campuses have pedestrian right of way all over the place. Where I went to school, cars had to drive at a snail's pace on the downtown campus and peds could just walk out without looking. It really turns into a habit! I'd come home from school one day (and I was in my 30s ) and went to the store and waltzed right in front of a car, nearly getting hit.

 

[PattnFmly]

I see it a lot up here. You'd think it'd be young children, not knowing any better but it's not. The teens and 20's are the absolute worst. They just blithely walk out and then walk diagonally across ... blocking both lanes of traffic for a long while ... not caring at all. Then we have the impatient, irritated drivers, who as soon as the person is out of their lane, gun the engine and squeal down the street. It's scary. DH gets so upset because oftentimes the crosswalk is just 10 feet down from where they cross. He has a tendency to tell them that none too quietly too .....

 

[mjkacmom]

It's because people don't walk with their kids anymore, and then they don't learn. I am fanatic with my kids - we could be at a red light, not a car in sight, and we wait. We go out of our way to cross at the crosswalk. Near our school, I've seen parents cross with their kids 20 feet from a crossing guard. I let my older kids go out without me, and I'm glad I've taught them the simple way to cross a street.