We're from the government. We're here to help you.

On 12/8/2019 4:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:16:40 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 12:56 PM, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Exactly right.

We recently visited very good friends in a distant city. They were once
avid members of our bike club, and the guy in particular is very, very
safety oriented. (Safety was his profession before he retired.)

At one point he was driving us to some big mall. He turned right off one
major street and about 100 yards later was moving to the left lane to
turn into the mall's parking garage. A woman scurried across the road in
front of us. He fussed at her for jaywalking. "She's refusing to use the
crosswalk right back there!"

But I defended her. The crosswalk was at that busy interction, with at
least five lanes on each of the intersecting streets. If its like most
crosswalks in that area, she'd probably get ten seconds of "WALK" before
the sign started flashing, and she'd be trying to cross at least 60 feet
of pavement. Meanwhile, motorists would be rushing to squeeze their
turns in just before (or during) the red light and paying no heed to
pedestrians.

Where she crossed, she just had to look to the left, scurry to a
landscaped center island, then wait in safety as she looked for clear
space to the right. And besides, what right does a motorists sitting in
a cushy seat have to tell a pedestrian they have to walk an additional
200 yards?


You're f****** nuts. Pedestrians-as-squirrels are one of my biggest nightmares -- on a bike! I have people step of curbs in unmarked areas, against lights -- basically whenever they get the urge. Riding in the cycletrack near PSU is a joke with all the witless college kids just stepping into the facility looking down at their iPhones. This is our future? Pedestrians acting badly are a real threat to lawful cyclists.

-- Jay Beattie.


Yes.
Used to be annoying. Now that the wandering idiots meander
all over hell with earbuds, texting and pot it's outright
dangerous.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 12/8/2019 5:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:16:40 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 12:56 PM, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Exactly right.

We recently visited very good friends in a distant city. They were once
avid members of our bike club, and the guy in particular is very, very
safety oriented. (Safety was his profession before he retired.)

At one point he was driving us to some big mall. He turned right off one
major street and about 100 yards later was moving to the left lane to
turn into the mall's parking garage. A woman scurried across the road in
front of us. He fussed at her for jaywalking. "She's refusing to use the
crosswalk right back there!"

But I defended her. The crosswalk was at that busy interction, with at
least five lanes on each of the intersecting streets. If its like most
crosswalks in that area, she'd probably get ten seconds of "WALK" before
the sign started flashing, and she'd be trying to cross at least 60 feet
of pavement. Meanwhile, motorists would be rushing to squeeze their
turns in just before (or during) the red light and paying no heed to
pedestrians.

Where she crossed, she just had to look to the left, scurry to a
landscaped center island, then wait in safety as she looked for clear
space to the right. And besides, what right does a motorists sitting in
a cushy seat have to tell a pedestrian they have to walk an additional
200 yards?


You're f****** nuts. Pedestrians-as-squirrels are one of my biggest nightmares -- on a bike! I have people step of curbs in unmarked areas, against lights -- basically whenever they get the urge. Riding in the cycletrack near PSU is a joke with all the witless college kids just stepping into the facility looking down at their iPhones. This is our future? Pedestrians acting badly are a real threat to lawful cyclists.

I agree about random wandering. I agree with you about iPhones, and even
Android phones. But the question is what should be the proper legal
behavior for walking across a major street, and where should the
crosswalks be?

The woman in question was probably breaking a "jaywalking" law. But what
she did was probably much safer than crossing at the legal crosswalk.
She chose a spot with a center refuge island; the intersection's
crosswalk did not have that, but instead had at least 60 feet of
pavement to cross. In principle, she'd have had the ROW in that
crosswalk, but in practice, many drivers turning right or left would not
have focused on her. And again, this woman would have had to add an
extra couple hundred yards to her trip.

(I have a family member who was hit by such a driver while in a
crosswalk. My wife and I were nearly hit in a different crosswalk, same
mechanism - impatient driver trying to beat traffic to make a left turn.
In yet another incident, a was missed so narrowly by a young girl driver
that it was very easy to swing my briefcase a little and hit her car.
She didn't have time to respect the "Yield to pedestrians" sign, but she
had enough time to slam to a stop to yell at me. Interestingly, another
guy yelled back at her. And I turned her license number into the police.)

I think in many places (especially wide, busy streets) mid-block
crosswalks with center refuge islands make more sense. They should then
be provided in addition to the "normal" ones.

And it's time to stop pretending that its reasonable to expect walkers
to go hundreds of yards out of their way to use an "approved" path to a
destination that's directly across the street. Destinations with high
pedestrian traffic should have convenient crosswalks.

BTW, there's one mid-block crosswalk we use very regularly. It's in an
area where lots of kids cross. It's well marked with signs as well as
pavement markings, plus it has overhead flashing lights that activate
_immediately_ when a button is pushed. IME, motorists respect it,
probably in part because the narrow road through the old downtown is
frequently clotted with traffic. Maybe in part because of the "old
downtown" appearance and vibe. And maybe in part because of enforcement.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, 8 December 2019 19:15:22 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 5:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:16:40 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 12:56 PM, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Exactly right.

We recently visited very good friends in a distant city. They were once
avid members of our bike club, and the guy in particular is very, very
safety oriented. (Safety was his profession before he retired.)

At one point he was driving us to some big mall. He turned right off one
major street and about 100 yards later was moving to the left lane to
turn into the mall's parking garage. A woman scurried across the road in
front of us. He fussed at her for jaywalking. "She's refusing to use the
crosswalk right back there!"

But I defended her. The crosswalk was at that busy interction, with at
least five lanes on each of the intersecting streets. If its like most
crosswalks in that area, she'd probably get ten seconds of "WALK" before
the sign started flashing, and she'd be trying to cross at least 60 feet
of pavement. Meanwhile, motorists would be rushing to squeeze their
turns in just before (or during) the red light and paying no heed to
pedestrians.

Where she crossed, she just had to look to the left, scurry to a
landscaped center island, then wait in safety as she looked for clear
space to the right. And besides, what right does a motorists sitting in
a cushy seat have to tell a pedestrian they have to walk an additional
200 yards?


You're f****** nuts. Pedestrians-as-squirrels are one of my biggest nightmares -- on a bike! I have people step of curbs in unmarked areas, against lights -- basically whenever they get the urge. Riding in the cycletrack near PSU is a joke with all the witless college kids just stepping into the facility looking down at their iPhones. This is our future? Pedestrians acting badly are a real threat to lawful cyclists.

I agree about random wandering. I agree with you about iPhones, and even
Android phones. But the question is what should be the proper legal
behavior for walking across a major street, and where should the
crosswalks be?

The woman in question was probably breaking a "jaywalking" law. But what
she did was probably much safer than crossing at the legal crosswalk.
She chose a spot with a center refuge island; the intersection's
crosswalk did not have that, but instead had at least 60 feet of
pavement to cross. In principle, she'd have had the ROW in that
crosswalk, but in practice, many drivers turning right or left would not
have focused on her. And again, this woman would have had to add an
extra couple hundred yards to her trip.

(I have a family member who was hit by such a driver while in a
crosswalk. My wife and I were nearly hit in a different crosswalk, same
mechanism - impatient driver trying to beat traffic to make a left turn.
In yet another incident, a was missed so narrowly by a young girl driver
that it was very easy to swing my briefcase a little and hit her car.
She didn't have time to respect the "Yield to pedestrians" sign, but she
had enough time to slam to a stop to yell at me. Interestingly, another
guy yelled back at her. And I turned her license number into the police.)

I think in many places (especially wide, busy streets) mid-block
crosswalks with center refuge islands make more sense. They should then
be provided in addition to the "normal" ones.

And it's time to stop pretending that its reasonable to expect walkers
to go hundreds of yards out of their way to use an "approved" path to a
destination that's directly across the street. Destinations with high
pedestrian traffic should have convenient crosswalks.

BTW, there's one mid-block crosswalk we use very regularly. It's in an
area where lots of kids cross. It's well marked with signs as well as
pavement markings, plus it has overhead flashing lights that activate
_immediately_ when a button is pushed. IME, motorists respect it,
probably in part because the narrow road through the old downtown is
frequently clotted with traffic. Maybe in part because of the "old
downtown" appearance and vibe. And maybe in part because of enforcement.

--
- Frank Krygowski

In Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada they are moving to roundabouts instead of traffic lights. One of the problems with those roundabouts is that pedestrians and bicyclists seem to be an afterthought. I say that because the crossings for pedestrians at those roundabouts are in about the worst possible place for them. They're located exactly where motor vehicles are accelerating to leave the roundabout.

Far too much traffic planning these days is to move the automobiles and never mind the bicyclists or pedestrians. I see concrete dividers along many roads now and those dividers run from one roundabout to another. Often what used to be a quick ride from one plaza to another directly across the road is now a two kilometers long bicycle ride down to the next roundabout, around thatr roundabout and back up to the plaza across from the one you just left. Same thing if you're driving a vehicle. So much for saving fuel. And to make it even better; during rush hour those roundabouts have long lines of motor vehicles waiting to get into them because the diameter of the roundabout is so darn small.

Cheers

On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 5:56:42 PM UTC, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Remember it's the motorists who are by far the most offensive transgressors. Don't fall for the language and ideas of the malefactors.

Heh-heh! It was Paul Johnson, not I imagine your favourite historian, who first observed, back in the 1960s, that "The first order of business of the enemies of society is undermining the language."

I agree with you, Chalo.

AJ

On Sun, 8 Dec 2019 16:51:51 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Sunday, 8 December 2019 19:15:22 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 5:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:16:40 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 12:56 PM, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Exactly right.

We recently visited very good friends in a distant city. They were once
avid members of our bike club, and the guy in particular is very, very
safety oriented. (Safety was his profession before he retired.)

At one point he was driving us to some big mall. He turned right off one
major street and about 100 yards later was moving to the left lane to
turn into the mall's parking garage. A woman scurried across the road in
front of us. He fussed at her for jaywalking. "She's refusing to use the
crosswalk right back there!"

But I defended her. The crosswalk was at that busy interction, with at
least five lanes on each of the intersecting streets. If its like most
crosswalks in that area, she'd probably get ten seconds of "WALK" before
the sign started flashing, and she'd be trying to cross at least 60 feet
of pavement. Meanwhile, motorists would be rushing to squeeze their
turns in just before (or during) the red light and paying no heed to
pedestrians.

Where she crossed, she just had to look to the left, scurry to a
landscaped center island, then wait in safety as she looked for clear
space to the right. And besides, what right does a motorists sitting in
a cushy seat have to tell a pedestrian they have to walk an additional
200 yards?


You're f****** nuts. Pedestrians-as-squirrels are one of my biggest nightmares -- on a bike! I have people step of curbs in unmarked areas, against lights -- basically whenever they get the urge. Riding in the cycletrack near PSU is a joke with all the witless college kids just stepping into the facility looking down at their iPhones. This is our future? Pedestrians acting badly are a real threat to lawful cyclists.

I agree about random wandering. I agree with you about iPhones, and even
Android phones. But the question is what should be the proper legal
behavior for walking across a major street, and where should the
crosswalks be?

The woman in question was probably breaking a "jaywalking" law. But what
she did was probably much safer than crossing at the legal crosswalk.
She chose a spot with a center refuge island; the intersection's
crosswalk did not have that, but instead had at least 60 feet of
pavement to cross. In principle, she'd have had the ROW in that
crosswalk, but in practice, many drivers turning right or left would not
have focused on her. And again, this woman would have had to add an
extra couple hundred yards to her trip.

(I have a family member who was hit by such a driver while in a
crosswalk. My wife and I were nearly hit in a different crosswalk, same
mechanism - impatient driver trying to beat traffic to make a left turn.
In yet another incident, a was missed so narrowly by a young girl driver
that it was very easy to swing my briefcase a little and hit her car.
She didn't have time to respect the "Yield to pedestrians" sign, but she
had enough time to slam to a stop to yell at me. Interestingly, another
guy yelled back at her. And I turned her license number into the police.)

I think in many places (especially wide, busy streets) mid-block
crosswalks with center refuge islands make more sense. They should then
be provided in addition to the "normal" ones.

And it's time to stop pretending that its reasonable to expect walkers
to go hundreds of yards out of their way to use an "approved" path to a
destination that's directly across the street. Destinations with high
pedestrian traffic should have convenient crosswalks.

BTW, there's one mid-block crosswalk we use very regularly. It's in an
area where lots of kids cross. It's well marked with signs as well as
pavement markings, plus it has overhead flashing lights that activate
_immediately_ when a button is pushed. IME, motorists respect it,
probably in part because the narrow road through the old downtown is
frequently clotted with traffic. Maybe in part because of the "old
downtown" appearance and vibe. And maybe in part because of enforcement.

--
- Frank Krygowski

In Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada they are moving to roundabouts instead of traffic lights. One of the problems with those roundabouts is that pedestrians and bicyclists seem to be an afterthought. I say that because the crossings for pedestrians at those roundabouts are in about the worst possible place for them. They're located exactly where motor vehicles are accelerating to leave the roundabout.

In Bangkok, more and more, they are building pedestrian "bridges"
rather than allow crossing the road on the surface. I suspect that
they are built to expedite the vehicle traffic flow but the effect is
to separate pedestrians and vehicles and thus make the pedestrians
safer.

--
cheers,

John B.

On 12/8/2019 7:51 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Sunday, 8 December 2019 19:15:22 UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 5:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:16:40 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/8/2019 12:56 PM, Chalo wrote:
Andre, you should know that "jaywalking" was a social engineering term cooked up by automakers to stigmatize people exercising their rights to use public streets. The campaign worked, and by now most people don't believe that people have a right to the road.

Exactly right.

We recently visited very good friends in a distant city. They were once
avid members of our bike club, and the guy in particular is very, very
safety oriented. (Safety was his profession before he retired.)

At one point he was driving us to some big mall. He turned right off one
major street and about 100 yards later was moving to the left lane to
turn into the mall's parking garage. A woman scurried across the road in
front of us. He fussed at her for jaywalking. "She's refusing to use the
crosswalk right back there!"

But I defended her. The crosswalk was at that busy interction, with at
least five lanes on each of the intersecting streets. If its like most
crosswalks in that area, she'd probably get ten seconds of "WALK" before
the sign started flashing, and she'd be trying to cross at least 60 feet
of pavement. Meanwhile, motorists would be rushing to squeeze their
turns in just before (or during) the red light and paying no heed to
pedestrians.

Where she crossed, she just had to look to the left, scurry to a
landscaped center island, then wait in safety as she looked for clear
space to the right. And besides, what right does a motorists sitting in
a cushy seat have to tell a pedestrian they have to walk an additional
200 yards?


You're f****** nuts. Pedestrians-as-squirrels are one of my biggest nightmares -- on a bike! I have people step of curbs in unmarked areas, against lights -- basically whenever they get the urge. Riding in the cycletrack near PSU is a joke with all the witless college kids just stepping into the facility looking down at their iPhones. This is our future? Pedestrians acting badly are a real threat to lawful cyclists.

I agree about random wandering. I agree with you about iPhones, and even
Android phones. But the question is what should be the proper legal
behavior for walking across a major street, and where should the
crosswalks be?

The woman in question was probably breaking a "jaywalking" law. But what
she did was probably much safer than crossing at the legal crosswalk.
She chose a spot with a center refuge island; the intersection's
crosswalk did not have that, but instead had at least 60 feet of
pavement to cross. In principle, she'd have had the ROW in that
crosswalk, but in practice, many drivers turning right or left would not
have focused on her. And again, this woman would have had to add an
extra couple hundred yards to her trip.

(I have a family member who was hit by such a driver while in a
crosswalk. My wife and I were nearly hit in a different crosswalk, same
mechanism - impatient driver trying to beat traffic to make a left turn.
In yet another incident, a was missed so narrowly by a young girl driver
that it was very easy to swing my briefcase a little and hit her car.
She didn't have time to respect the "Yield to pedestrians" sign, but she
had enough time to slam to a stop to yell at me. Interestingly, another
guy yelled back at her. And I turned her license number into the police.)

I think in many places (especially wide, busy streets) mid-block
crosswalks with center refuge islands make more sense. They should then
be provided in addition to the "normal" ones.

And it's time to stop pretending that its reasonable to expect walkers
to go hundreds of yards out of their way to use an "approved" path to a
destination that's directly across the street. Destinations with high
pedestrian traffic should have convenient crosswalks.

BTW, there's one mid-block crosswalk we use very regularly. It's in an
area where lots of kids cross. It's well marked with signs as well as
pavement markings, plus it has overhead flashing lights that activate
_immediately_ when a button is pushed. IME, motorists respect it,
probably in part because the narrow road through the old downtown is
frequently clotted with traffic. Maybe in part because of the "old
downtown" appearance and vibe. And maybe in part because of enforcement.

--
- Frank Krygowski

In Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada they are moving to roundabouts instead of traffic lights. One of the problems with those roundabouts is that pedestrians and bicyclists seem to be an afterthought. I say that because the crossings for pedestrians at those roundabouts are in about the worst possible place for them. They're located exactly where motor vehicles are accelerating to leave the roundabout.

Far too much traffic planning these days is to move the automobiles and never mind the bicyclists or pedestrians. I see concrete dividers along many roads now and those dividers run from one roundabout to another. Often what used to be a quick ride from one plaza to another directly across the road is now a two kilometers long bicycle ride down to the next roundabout, around thatr roundabout and back up to the plaza across from the one you just left. Same thing if you're driving a vehicle. So much for saving fuel. And to make it even better; during rush hour those roundabouts have long lines of motor vehicles waiting to get into them because the diameter of the roundabout is so darn small.

I'm on one board with a very competent and productive woman who feels
the same way about roundabouts. Among other things, she's an advocate
for the blind; and she says roundabouts are one of the worst things to
happen to blind pedestrians.

The first modern roundabout in my riding area opened maybe five years
ago. It was at an intersection that was on my bike route to work. It
works well for me, but there have been a few times I've felt the need to
give a palm-out "Stop!" signal to a motorist approaching quickly.
Otherwise, the only disadvantage I've seen is a lack of gaps in traffic
elsewhere on that roundabout's main street. I don't get the platoons of
cars that traffic lights generate, so it's a bit harder to get onto that
street from a stop sign.

But this past week, two new roundabouts opened near my home - that is,
within about three to five miles. Both are intersections I've ridden
through many times, and both will get much more traffic than the first
one. I'll see how easy or difficult they are. (Neither has any
pedestrian traffic to speak of.)


--
- Frank Krygowski

Am 07.12.2019 um 22:52 schrieb Andre Jute:

In the mists of time, a Police Commissioner believed that enforcing
jaywalking laws would make the police unpopular with the populace. It
somehow became known through the police that HQ wasn't keen to
prosecute jaywalkers. Now, decades later, Cork is known as the world
capital of jaywalkers.
Cork cannot be the capital of jaywalkers because European jurisdictions
(Vienna Convention) do not disallow crossing the road. The strongest
Europe has is a recommendation "You should use a crosswalk if there is
one within 50 yards of you".

Am 09.12.2019 um 02:54 schrieb John B.:
In Bangkok, more and more, they are building pedestrian "bridges"
rather than allow crossing the road on the surface. I suspect that
they are built to expedite the vehicle traffic flow but the effect is
to separate pedestrians and vehicles and thus make the pedestrians
safer.

In Europe, in the 1970's they built lots of "Pedestrian underpasses".
Nowadays, most people refuse to use those due to the danger of
encountering drunk people there, in some towns they have closed them
down again.

On Monday, December 9, 2019 at 8:53:00 AM UTC, Rolf Mantel wrote:
Am 07.12.2019 um 22:52 schrieb Andre Jute:

In the mists of time, a Police Commissioner believed that enforcing
jaywalking laws would make the police unpopular with the populace. It
somehow became known through the police that HQ wasn't keen to
prosecute jaywalkers. Now, decades later, Cork is known as the world
capital of jaywalkers.
Cork cannot be the capital of jaywalkers because European jurisdictions
(Vienna Convention) do not disallow crossing the road. The strongest
Europe has is a recommendation "You should use a crosswalk if there is
one within 50 yards of you".

That's the difference between a German good citizen and an anglophone liberal (not the American kind of angry lefty nor the present capitalised British limp wishywashies, more like a Churchillian Liberal). The German good citizen believes that everything that is not explicitly permitted is forbidden.. The anglophone liberal believes that everything that is not explicitly forbidden is open to the talents and moralities (we don't use the word "permitted" because that implies that we need someone's permission to do it) and that the explicitly forbidden should be whittled back to the standard all-encompassing moral code of the Ten Commandments, and, if immoral, simply ignored.

Not that such unsubtle distinctions stop the British police, who cannot solve most real crimes, persecuting people who express perfectly legal and normal opinions that the police have redefined as "hate speech". Examples are all over the newspapers; ask my googlebug Slow Johnny to look up a few cases for you.

I live in Ireland, man, where people pride themselves on being scofflaws by appointment to a world of drones. You'll see, the Irish will be the next out of the EU: they've already voted for it.

Having dealt with the bizarre metaphysics of the case you're making, let's deal with the specifics:
Cork cannot be the capital of jaywalkers because European jurisdictions
(Vienna Convention) do not disallow crossing the road.

I thought you bragged that you have a Ph.D. in mathematical modelling? Must be an American degree; it can't be from a decent German university if you display such weak logic. All that Cork needs to be the world capital of jaywalkers is more jaywalkers than any other city, or a greater proportion of jaywalkers in relation to population, or primacy in some other metric of comparison. Or for that matter an energetic publicist -- as Tom said in another current thread, it's all myth. What some Vienna Convention *doesn't disallow* -- Jesus, save me! -- is utterly irrelevant, a bizarre German construct best ignored by sensible people.

Compulsory bicycle content: What I'm explaining to Rolf here, that Germans have a destructive, limiting outlook on society and the law (what isn't specifically permitted is necessarily forbidden), is also at the root of my condemnation of the German legislators who made their stupid bicycle lighting laws, which by the excellence of German manufacturers is then thoughtlessly imposed on everyone else (or at least everyone else who can afford BUMM lamps and SON dynohubs -- the lamps are first-class, the legislation exhibits an ugly auto-centric outlook).

Andre Jute
Subtle distinctions, heh-heh!

On 12/9/2019 3:52 AM, Rolf Mantel wrote:

Cork cannot be the capital of jaywalkers because European jurisdictions
(Vienna Convention) do not disallow crossing the road. The strongest
Europe has is a recommendation "You should use a crosswalk if there is
one within 50 yards of you".

That's interesting, and much better than some ordinances around here
that require crossing only at marked or unmarked crosswalks. (An
"unmarked crosswalk" is the unmarked extension of a side street's
sidewalk. It's treated as a legal crosswalk, although only one in 100
motorists realize that.)

Our village has a couple schools within about a quarter mile of the
library. There are two streets kids can use to get to and cross South
Main St. on their way to the library. The more pleasant street has no
traffic light, so the village wanted the kids to use the intersection
with the traffic light and pedestrian light.

Their solution? They put up "No crossing" signs directly across from the
library, and at the intersection about 50 feet away that has no signal.

My wife and I ignore those signs. It should be OK, because from what I
can tell, the village never actually passed an ordinance regarding that.
And the speed limit is only 25 mph, through an area with shops and
historic buildings. Motorists _should_ be slow and careful.


--
- Frank Krygowski