Yesterday, this cool kid--with her bright red bike, hot pink helmet, dual blinkies, and rotating rainbow wheel lights--waited at a high-viz crosswalk in a school zone while 7 adult drivers pretended not to see her.
#BikeTooter #SafeStreetsForAll #SafeRoutesToSchool #KidsOnBikes #VisionZero #CarBrain
I'm fortunate to have a job that largely lets me set my own work schedule, so that I can be available to escort this kid to and from school every day. I'm in a privileged minority, and it's ridiculous that this is what it takes to keep a kid alive without a car these days.
This is why I get viscerally angry at so-called road safety campaigns that give out warnings and reflective vests to kids.
That's not teaching kids safety. That's teaching kids that it's on them to make up for the selfishness of adults.
That's one hell of a message.
@DrTCombs in Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland - Northern Ireland has different traffic law) pedestrians and vulnerable road users always have priority and you are taught in driving school that you *must* stop for pedestrians and give cyclists room, although even so many motorists only begrudingly do so because they are scared of CCTV cameras and other folks dashcams/bikecams and or being reported or ending up on Nextdoor...
@DrTCombs i have stepped out into crosswalks in our downtown to stop traffic for people who are waiting at crosswalks where they already have right of way. It’s insane how little respect drivers have for anyone who needs to cross their path.
@DrTCombs this reminds me of the time last summer I stopped to let a pedestrian in the median cross at a marked crosswalk on my side of a divided 4 lane road and the other lane wouldn’t stop. The passenger in the car behind me got out to yell at me for stopping. People are crazy.
@DrTCombs can you lobby some one to get the cops to police this?
I saw it a grand total of once in TV, very satisfying!
@DrTCombs Let me guess: they were driving double cab diesels.
As much as I cherish the time we get together on her rides to and from school, I'd love to know that she could get around safely on her own if she had to. That it doesn't take an angry mom screaming obscenities at drivers to get them to stop for a child in a crosswalk.