[Vision2020] one injured in bop-a-student crossing

[Paul Rumelhart]

joekc at roadrunner.com wrote:
> Third, it doesn't make any difference wrt the crosswalk in question. Note that the whole reason
> they put in the crosswalk was that folks were crossing there by the hundreds already.
>   

There's something interesting to note about this.  As I believe Dan 
pointed out, there have been three accidents there with the crosswalk, 
and none without (the one accident before was at the Line 
intersection).  It would appear that pedestrians jaywalking are safer 
than they are crossing at the crosswalk.  There are probably a number of 
reasons for this, but one major one is that the pedestrian jaywalking is 
actually looking at the traffic, and timing his or her crossing to avoid 
the cars (knowing they aren't likely to stop for them).  Pedestrians at 
the crosswalk have a sense of entitlement that they won't get hurt.  
Yes, they should all be smart enough to realize that there is no magical 
force field there, and that a big car plowing into your body might not 
be healthy, but we've all seen how much attention they pay.

So if the intention was to make the crossing at that portion of road 
safer, the crosswalk in it's current form fails miserably.  It would be 
safer to remove it in the meantime, until that intersection can be built.

Paul