http://blog.snappingturtle.net/archives/1243 Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:55:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://blog.snappingturtle.net/archives/1243/comment-page-1#comment-37807 The other reader Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:30:00 +0000 http://blog.snappingturtle.net/?p=1243#comment-37807 Dunno. In the interest of full disclosure, I need to state that I am a driver. While I think the horrible pedestrian deaths are a statistical anomaly and while I cannot disagree with the view that the traffic laws should be better enforced, I have noticed (or at least it feels this way to me) that more pedestrians are stepping out into the street without themselves looking, that increased Ipod and phone use makes them less aware of motorized traffic, and there is sometimes (not very often) a certain moral cockiness of jaywalkers (first observed in cyclists0 that does not take into account that the tons of steel and glass cannot stop on a dime or also has a right to the road. Solely blaming the pedestrian is of course plainly wrong, there are terrible drivers out there, but some pedestrians are not completely innocent either. Dunno.
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to state that I am a driver.
While I think the horrible pedestrian deaths are a statistical anomaly and while I cannot disagree with the view that the traffic laws should be better enforced, I have noticed (or at least it feels this way to me) that more pedestrians are stepping out into the street without themselves looking, that increased Ipod and phone use makes them less aware of motorized traffic, and there is sometimes (not very often) a certain moral cockiness of jaywalkers (first observed in cyclists0 that does not take into account that the tons of steel and glass cannot stop on a dime or also has a right to the road. Solely blaming the pedestrian is of course plainly wrong, there are terrible drivers out there, but some pedestrians are not completely innocent either.

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