Walking on the wild side - The Jewish Standard

Crossing the street has become a feat of courage lately. Signs in the middle of the road declare that cars must yield to pedestrians within crosswalks, yet they zip by without stopping anyway. Meanwhile, pedestrians walk out into crosswalks even when they have a “do not walk” signal.

I’ve almost been hit many times by people zooming off of Route 4 as they attempt to merge onto Teaneck Road, even though I am within a crosswalk and common sense dictates that the driver should yield anyway since s/he is merging into traffic.

Just a few months ago, I was driving in Teaneck and yielded to a pedestrian at a crosswalk on Cedar Lane (there were no signals, so the law is clear: Yield). I was in the right lane. For those unfamiliar with Cedar Lane, the street is two lanes in both directions. The pedestrian waved and started walking. Just after he passed my car, a woman in the left lane slams on her brakes and nearly hits the pedestrian. He jumps back but he still makes contact with the car. Fortunately, he was not hurt. This elicited many angry shouts at the other driver from passersby. She made a “mea culpa” hand gesture and the pedestrian ran away.

The Big Lipowsky implores all readers to use some common sense and courtesy when driving and walking.

For clarification, this is the law on pedestrian crossings:

“…The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a
pedestrian crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk or within
any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, EXCEPT AT CROSSWALKS WHEN
THE MOVEMENT OF TRAFFIC IS BEING REGULATED BY POLICE OFFICERS OR
TRAFFIC CONTROL SIGNALS…”

The Big Lipowsky

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