1, 2, 3 red light again

I did a similar post a few months back. I’m reminded once again of a couple of incidents that occurred to me that stop signs and stop lights are just stopping suggestions to some people.

The first one is not about people running red lights but the lack of working lights all together. This happened on Sunday when the power went out on my street. About two blocks from my house is a major east/west street. The lights were not working there. Now the majority of people slowed down and used some caution while going through the intersection. Others couldn’t be bothered to slow down at all let alone look to see if there was any cross traffic. Now granted it was very early on a Sunday morning but even so there still was some traffic and you’d think people would show some caution.

The other example happened when I was walking to catch the subway to get to work. I’m about 5 blocks from the Metro. I have to cross a major road to get to the Metro. I’m waiting for the light to change so I can cross the street. The light changes. Now I rarely step into the cross walk right after the light has changed. I don’t because I can’t count the number of times cars have run red lights. Well once again that was the case. And in this particular case if I had stepped into the cross walk there is no question I would have been hit. I guessing by the speed the car was traveling (it appeared to speed up when the light turned yellow) I would have been seriously hurt if not killed outright. The only saving grace is the fact there is a red light camera at this intersection so the drive can look forward to receiving a ticket in the not too distant future.

One more point to add about this right at this intersection is a school so you’d think drivers might slow down and obey the signals. Obviously that’s not the case. I’d say several times a week someone runs that light while I’m attempting to cross the street. At some point in time, someone is not going to pause when the light changes foolishly thinking they have right of way and they will be hit. One wonders what the driver of that car will feel then or if they’ll feel anything at all.