Jaci Dawn

The area where I work is a busy business park with one main road dividing it and several side roads intersecting. There are crosswalks on all of the corners and stop signs on all of the side streets. Traffic is posted 35 MPH.

The problem is the crosswalks. In Oregon, a motorized vehicle is required to stop if a pedestrian steps off the curb into a crosswalk. Of course, that doesn’t mean peds are to be stupid, but drivers are supposed to be on high alert and they are required (I used that word again) to stop.

But they don’t. Tigard police occasionally do pedestrian traps in the area and they always nail drivers. But it doesn’t seem to curb the problem.

As a driver, I can understand that sometimes you actually miss seeing a ped or you misunderstand that they are going to step off the curb and cross (usually that happens because the ped doesn’t make eye contact). But as a driver with 30 years’ experience of driving in Oregon, I can say that I try to always stop for peds. I put myself in the peds’ position.

Actually, much of the time I am the ped. Buddy is afraid to cross the busy road where we work and will not do so when she walks alone. I am less afraid: I make direct eye contact with the drivers and I let them know in my body language that I know what the law is and I expect them to stop. Those that don’t stop, get yelled at. I’m what you call an aggressive pedestrian (and I stay within the law – I’m not out to prove a point by becoming a road bump!).

I’ve observed some pretty close calls since Buddy and I started walking together. I saw a car skirt around a pregnant woman & toddler when the woman was nearly half-way across the street, coming close enough to the woman to cause her eyes to pop open in fear. I saw another driver gun it and cut right behind Buddy so close that her coat moved with the air generated by the car. There are some motorized idiots out there.

And I’ve never had my camera ready.

Until today.

This woman approaches crossing the street like I do. She’s off the curb and in the crosswalk, but cautious and looking both ways. She intends to make eye contact. Traffic was coming from both directions. I whipped out my camera and started taking pictures.

There are no obstructions to the view on the road. This driver could see the ped as soon as she stepped off the curb and he was 500 feet away (moving at 35 mph). Didn’t even brake. She isn’t looking at him because she’s already figured he wasn’t going to stop and she’s looking at the traffic from the other direction to see if they will stop for her.

That’s Buddy’s hand as she throws it up in disgust at the driver who just missed the ped. See that white van entering the intersection? He wasn’t going to stop, either, but when Buddy’s hand went down and he saw my camera in place, he stopped in the middle of the intersection to let the pedestrian cross.

When the woman in blue crossed the street (in front of the now-stopped van) she said, “Thank you” for taking the pics. I just said I’d been waiting a long time to catch one of those shots.

Unfortunately, the sun glare obliterated the license plate number of the silver SUV. Still: GOTCHA.

Buddy wants me to email the pics to her so she can send them to Tigard police and request another pedestrian/car sting in the area.

bwahahahahaha! I’m definitely carrying my camera with me all the time!