The Driver Problem

I live in a pretty small town. It's only about one square mile in size, but it is stuffed with people. Because our town is so small, our children walk to school. Let me rephrase: The children get to school, some by walking, some by riding their bikes, and some by getting dropped off by car. My children and I walk on most days. Times when I have to drop my oldest child off at school early, I buckle up all three children, drive the one to school, then return home to finish getting ready to walk the other two to their drop-off locations. I see the other drivers in town from the perspective of both pedestrian and fellow driver, and what I see is not pretty.

As a pedestrian, I have had plenty of near-misses when I had the right of way in a crosswalk and a driver failed to stop. At one particular light, I see at least two to four cars run a completely red light almost every time I am there. I am not talking about cars that were waiting for the chance to turn and happened to get caught in the intersection when the light changed. I mean cars that had no legal right whatsoever to even enter it in the first place. Red means stop, people. I heard drivers curse at pedestrians for having the audacity to use the crosswalk. I heard drivers yell at the crossing guards for holding up traffic when children were still in the street. I saw mothers with their own small children strapped into car seats yelling bloody murder because a crossing guard dared to try and cross an eight-year-old who was walking home from school by himself.

As a driver, I have had other cars cut me off when I had the right-of-way. I heard drivers yell, curse, and lean on their horns because they were upset that I did not turn right on red next to a sign that clearly stated "No Turn On Red." I have had the same reaction from other drivers when I stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

As both a driver and pedestrian, I have seen texting drivers run red lights and stop signs. I have seen other drivers yakking away on hand-held cell phones instead of paying attention to the road. I have seen all sorts of examples of both careless and reckless driving taking place in my one square mile town, and these drivers will even break the law in front of police officers.

I have come to the conclusion that a goodly number of drivers in my small town are actually out of their ever-lovin' minds.

Yesterday, one of the crossing guards was hit by a car. I do not know details other than that she hurt her leg and will be out for a while. That same intersection had no crossing guard there this morning while the students were all heading to school. Really? A car failed to stop for an adult holding a huge, red stop sign in the middle of the street and no one was there to protect our children less than twenty-four hours later? Another crossing guard was missing from another busy intersection closer to the school, too. Today was one of those mornings where I drive my oldest to school and then walk the younger two, so I noticed the lack of crossing guards before the majority of the elementary school students would have been walking to school. Upon returning home, I notified our police department, who immediately sent an officer to each of the two locations. They were there when my children and I returned as pedestrians.

Later this morning, I went online to do a search to see if there was any record available about how the crossing guard from yesterday is doing. Instead, I found a comment made by someone who quoted statistics to say that because there have not been any recent pedestrian fatalities in my town, we do not have a pedestrian problem. Anyone who is complaining about problems that pedestrians have in getting from one end of our town to the other is clearly a money-grubbing lunatic who is trying to throw unnecessary traffic tickets at car drivers.

To that poor, irate soul, I offer my condolences for the lack of common sense that I believe has been given to you. You were right on one point though: We do not have a pedestrian problem in town. We have a driver problem, and if you were out there watching every day like I am, then maybe, just maybe, you'd get off your high horse and see why we need to do something about it before someone does get killed.