You Know What I Hate: Cross Walks

Seriously fuck cross walks. The idea of them is noble sure, a safe passage across an otherwise dangerous route. However in practice I notice more often then not these things are ignored all together. I can't even count the times I've almost been mowed over by some ass hat running a red light.

It seems like it happens in clusters. I'll have days where I barely even see a car. Then there's some days, like today for example, where every time I have to cross the street its a battle. Just for reference I cross the street 9 times to get to Bart from my house. No matter the time of day I'm not safe.

First there's the stop sign cross walks. Stop signs are good in theory but no one knows how to use them. 4 way stops are the worst. No one uses their blinkers so there's a big problem right there. You never know if someone is turning or not. Then you get those people who refuse to go till you walk. Sounds nice but its actually annoying because they usually sit impatiently in their cars sometimes inching closer to the line while you cross. Makes me nervous as hell. They could easily hit the pedal by mistake and plow over me.

Then there's buses, fuck buses. They have super wide turns and they never wait. I was half way through a cross walk today and some bus almost ran me over. I stopped and let them go, I'm not walking in front of a several ton death machine. I understand they have a need to get people places quickly but not at the expense of innocent bystanders. Hell who knows maybe bus driver is one of those stressful occupations, like mail man, and too long on the job gives you a lust for vehicular homicide.

Ah night time let's talk about that. This is the worst time EVER to walk. I almost died 3 times in one night once. Every major crosswalk I came up to people almost hit me. I was wearing a bright green sweater. I could understand if I was decked out in all black, though if your headlights are working it shouldn't be hard to notice a person no matter what they're wearing. Most of the offenders are women on cell phones or people texting while driving. Even if people have hands free devices they still drive like crap when they're talking too. It should be outlawed all together.

Have I mentioned red lights yet? Red apparently doesn't mean what it used to. Every time I wait at a red light at least 2 or 3 cars run it. This is fine you know its safe to walk after that, or it would be if the light stayed green long enough. You can't hit the button after the lights green and if you waited for all those cars it will tell you its not safe to walk by the time they're gone. Not that I need the button. Its obviously made for people with movement speed of a three toed tree sloth.

Maybe we should change red to green. I see more people stop on green then on red half the time. Maybe they're all color blind or foreign. Light sitters are more annoying when you're in a car though. What's annoying to a walker are those idiots who can't park. I had this lady drive up on half the sidewalk and almost hit me. First off she was parking illegally but apparently that was justified in her book. She had to use the mail box. I'm glad running over a pedestrian isn't important but getting your letter mail is. I hope they get a letter back that says "use email moron."

Whew alright that's it for this rant. I got some more on the way. One involves an age old debate and the other is about an email I received this morning...