Driver Education

Today, I had to educate two drivers about the purpose of crosswalks.

The first class took place at 11th and Pine. I was crossing Pine and apparently, the little hand started flashing. The driver who happened to be turning had the nerve to honk at me, so I stopped. 'It says stop,' she informed me. Yeah, I had already done that and was forming an appropriate expletive while she enjoyed her lesson on right-of-way.

The second class convened a little more than an hour later. Full of pizza and trekking back to city hall, I took my normal route from Gregory's; down Pine, across 12th, and thru the park to the tunnel entrance. Well, the light at 12th was flashing, so being a pedestrian, I proceeded. As I stepped past the median, a little guy in a little minivan gunned it, no doubt thinking I was one of those people who stood in the middle of a major boulevard hoping for a break in traffic. I'm not. I'm a tenured professor of driver education. He had to switch lanes as I yelled 'crosswalk' into his ear, tho I doubt he understood the significance of the word. Amazingly, out of eight lanes of traffic, he was the only driver in need of education.

Pedestrians have the right of way, even at crosswalks were there is no light. It amazes me how many drivers ignore this law. There was a news story last week stating that Missouri is the most dangerous state for pedestrians. With the total lack of driving courtesy demonstrated by our police, it's no surprise.

I believe the private automobile will be the downfall of civilization, and will gladly argue that it is the cause of many of our current social problems. People in cars have no interaction with the world outside their windshield except as an obstacle course. They go about their daily business without the need to speak to another human being. They get in the car, drive to the super-grocery, buy our milk without acknowledging the humanity of the cashier, and drive back home in a cone of silence. It's easy to curse the aggressive guy in the SUV because you can do it safely, because the only thing you can do is swear at him since he's in his own bubble. With each incident you become more brazen and the person in the next car becomes less human.