Myth of pedestrians

MoBikeFed President Rachel Ruhlen is a community blogger for Gatehouse Media. This article appeared Apr 19, 2015.

Myth: Pedestrians walk out in front of cars without looking.

I hear this every time someone gets hit while walking across a street. "Those dumb college kids," is usually how it starts.

I spent several hours watching an intersection over the past couple weeks, helping collect data for the police's pedestrian safety campaign. Each time a pedestrian entered the crosswalk, I marked how many drivers yielded and how many drivers did not yield.

About half yielded. Yielding was spread unevenly across the pedestrians, because if one driver didn't yield, the next drivers would follow, none of them yielding. Of course, if one driver did yield, all the other drivers had to wait behind, and weren't counted (according to the guidelines for our data collection). So, for the majority of the pedestrians, drivers yielded, but when one driver didn't yield, several didn't yield.

Whether walking or driving, people copy what they see other people doing. Set an example! Yield to people in the crosswalk!

Not once did I see someone dart out in front of a car.

I did my observations on Mondays and another instructor did Tuesdays. He saw something horrible. He saw a pedestrian push the button to make the lights flash and walk into the crosswalk. Then he saw a driver hit her.

I can hear you now, saying, "But every time I drive past the Student Union, someone walks out in front of me." I'm sure that has happened once or twice, but every time? Really?

Before you say that ever again, I want you to take a lawn chair and a pad of paper over to the crosswalk in front of the Student Union, or any other intersection where you've "almost" hit someone. When you see a pedestrian, note if she walks out in front of traffic or if she looks for traffic. Count how many drivers fail to yield when she is in the crosswalk.

When you can show me your tally marks, then I'll allow you to say how clueless the people walking are!

Read more of MoBikeFed President Rachel Ruhlen's articles on the President's Blog page.