North Side
White Stripes? You could call them white lines, but since its my blog I'll call them strips. If you put a couple of Stripes together at an intersection you get a xwalk. This xwalk is different though, no traffic lights, no abnormally large orange hand or a miniature caucasian man telling you when to walk. It is rather an unspoken xwalk where, like any other xwalk in this city pedestrians rule. It is unspoken to stop your vehicle before the first white stripe when approaching the intersection when pedestrians are visable at the corners. Aright now as pedestrian C jogs down 22nd st. coming from the drag at 9:34 a car approaches from the north down Nueces st. As this professional jogger (I say professional b/c he's one of those that jog in place to keep his blood going while stopping to see if it is safe to cross at the xwalk. One can't also help but notice his short shorts on the particularly cool night. I'm expecting him to look at his watch and check his pulse any minute) but any ways as pedestrian C sees a car approaching the car notices the jogger and stops before the the first stripe. So the moral is the car clearly stopped before the xwalk b/c the car saw pedestrian C as he approached the xwalk. Now as time went by with no pedestrians present at the corners of the xwalk, cars, for the most part, used the stop sign as a yield sign. I'll be honest and admit that I have been known to do the same. Some drivers even went to extremes and ran straight through the stop stign. So now what happends when a pedestrian that appears to be doing some kind of power walk, u know the ones like grandma takes where its too fast to be a walk but too slow be a jog, is coming down 22nd from Rio Grande? This corner is different b/c from an approaching drivers view the visibility of seeing a pedestrian walking down the sidewalk is a lot less than the opposite side where pedestrian C came. The view is less because of some shrubbery.
So when powerwalker (pedestrian P) approaches the xwalk and an anxious driver ( Driver A) also approaches the xwalk coming down Nueces there becomes a slight problem. There is a problem b/c Driver A didn't see the pedestrian P until the it was too late, which means Driver A didn't stop before the first line rather she I mean Driver A stops right over the all three stripes. So now Pedestrian A is annoyed b/c his power walk is disrupted and Driver A probably feels awkward. So now Driver A has to decide should she go first to get out of pedestrian P's way? Should she just let him walk all the way around her car; or should she put the car in reverse to let him cross where he is suppose to cross. AWKWARD! not awkward as when your out on a date and you go inside to sit on her couch and have nothing to say awkward, but more like "yea I'm and idiot sorry!" as you look them staright in the eye, Awkward. Well she does nothing but freeze, not even a look to Pedestrian P's eyes. Maybe its just me b/c that's probably how I would feel about the whole thing if I was driver A (minus the freezing I'd probably drive through the intersection to get out of his way with a look to the eye and I'm sorry) or maybe she was just trying to let him go first as he walked all the way around her car. Anyways there are no morals here about white stripes. I'm not really going to say stop at every stop sign, but what I will say is this is my narrative, its just a little food for thought so now go, go tell the world what I have told you.
No comments:
Post a Comment