Jaywalking Tickets?!
We’re getting reports that MPD officers are giving out jaywalking tickets downtown today so please be careful while you’re out and about elsewhere in the city, as DC is clearly wasting its resources downtown, which means that you may find yourself mugged while a cop is giving out a ticket for walking improperly.
Oh my God!! Do I want one!!
While I agree that DC has bigger crime-related problems than jaywalking, I’m also kind of giggling over this. I had to stomp on my brakes this morning in the same area to avoid hitting the pedestrian who walked out in front of my car in the middle of the block. So as a near-religious respecter of crosswalks, I’m kind of amused when idiots get ticketed.
While I sympathize with TIFF, I think drivers who don’t obey the “yeild to pedestrian in crosswalk” are the ones who should be ticketed.
Every morning I leave my home to catch the bus. Every morning I use the plain-sightedly painted crosswalk to cross the street. Every morning cars do not stop for the pestestrian in the crosswalk. I have to wait for the traffic light down the block to turn red.
Every morning I leave my office to walk to *bucks for my morning cup o’ joe. Every morning I use the plain-sightedly painted crosswalk, equiped with bright yellow “yeild to pedestrian” sign, to cross the street. Every morning cars do not stop for the pestestrian in the crosswalk. I have to wait for the traffic light down the block to turn red.
If there’s no crosswalk, don’t cross; go to the nearest intersection with a traffic light and cross there. But if there’s a crosswalk, traffic light or no, the law is that traffic is supposed to yeild.
Infuriating.
Yeah, for every almost-kill-a-pedestrian moment I have had I can think of a dozen times I was almost killed by some clown in a car who is sure of his right of weight….
the crosswalk thing is a given … the problem is the people who can’t be bothered to walk 15 feet further down the road to get to a sidewalk. they’d rather just dart out from behind cars parked on the side of the road. if i had a dime for every person who’s done that to me … well, i could almost buy a washington post!