Arkansas Blog

Why not just hang a stoplight that only changes when one presses the walk button? UALR (or the City) did this over on 28th for crossing near University. Sure would probably upset someone, but everyone knows the rules on a stoplight, and the failure to obey those are well understood by the police force, many of which are not fully informed about pedestrian issues.

The sign on the stripe is better than a stop light.

Geez Max. Slow down. I thought that was you. But why the wide grin as I jumped back.

Yep, somebody's going to get hurt at that crosswalk.

For one thing, all those little men with their little baseball caps pulled down. They can't see!

For another thing, some of the most "mannerly" parts of Little Rock, the ones inhabited by the folks writing the editorials about the glory of the old South and its genteel folks, are just plain UNmannerly.

I've seen quite a shift in recent years. It's not just wearing those little caps inside or crouching down on a table with both arms splayed out and shoveling food into one's mouth.

It's a plain-old me-first attitude that says to heck with everyone else. It's evident in driving, in people's manners in stores, in how shoppers treat each other and how service staff treat customers.

And it's often on display in its most vulgar forms precisely in that part of Little Rock that sees itself as the cultural arbiter of the rest of the nation. I wonder if (and I truly hope, and say this only a tiny bit tongue in cheek), but I wonder if the Obama period will become a period of better manners for many of us.

We surely do need them. And a lot less of the me-first attitudes.

About twice per year there is a seat-belt use crack down. Do the same for crosswalks. Broadcast it on tv news.

Here's one for you. I predict that a vehicle will take out a golf cart filled with 12 year-olds and younger, or maybe a family even, sometime in 2009 or sooner in The Heights. The golf cart thing is getting out of hand up there. Kids zipping around with their younger siblings. Running stop lights, not knowing how to turn into a lane. I see crazy stuff all the time. Saw a dad in a golf cart crossing Cantrell today taking his kids to Forest Park. I'm all for going low carbon but just not sure the golf cart thing is such a good idea. I sometimes think I'm at Pebble Beach.

Recipe for disaster waiting to happen. when an SUV hits a golf cart I'm guessing the SUV will win that one.

correction:

Meant to say>>running stop signs<<not stop lights. (But that probably happens also.)

Time for a math lesson which I was often fond of giving my students early on in Algebra 1. The equation is Force = Mass x Acceleration.

Facts: Average SUV weighs probably between 4000 and 5000 lbs. Given an acceleration of either 20, 30 or 40 mph, find the force you will get clobbered with if you presume to walk out in front of said SUV and it proceeds to run over your sorry butt at any of those speeds. (Of course, I didn't phrase it so bluntly back in my teaching days).
Give the ratio of the force impacting you versus your own body weight. Use 180 pounds if no fat (body mass) measurement tool (weight scale) is available.

Please do not film your friend attempting to demonstrate this equation's impact at a pedestrian crossing as the results will tend to be rather messy and probably make your friend quite angry with you for some time to come.

If you correctly do all the calculations, you may discover that walking anywhere near a public roadway might not be in the best interests of your health and outlook on life.

Last summer while on vacation in San Francisco, I was amazed at how drivers there regarded crosswalks as sacrosanct. In the two weeks I was there, I think I saw two vehicles fail to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. It was amazing.

I have to agree with the poster who advocated the signalized crosswalks, though. Drivers know to obey a red light. And how about just making sure that when you have a crosswalked intersection, the walk/don't walk signals on the corners actually turn to "walk" at some point? Especially if you've pressed the button that's supposed to get you a walk signal at some point.

"The golf cart thing is getting out of hand up there [in the Heights]."

I agree, IABL1969. And some on their bicycles are just as careless and are endangering their lives.

Like most everything else educational here in Arkansas, we do a p*ss-poor job in driver education.

A crosswalk exists at any place where a sidewalk intersects the roadway, whether there are stripes painted there or not. Here's how the Arkansas Code defines it:

"27-49-204. Crosswalk.
'Crosswalk" means:
(1) That portion of a roadway ordinarily included within the prolongation or connection of the lateral lines of sidewalks at intersections; and
(2) Any portion of a roadway distinctly indicated for pedestrian crossing by lines or other markings on the surface."

Pedestrians always have the right-of-way in crosswalks. Period. No matter how much you're delayed, you have to slow or stop and yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians operate with no rules, other than a general admonition against jaywalking, that is, crossing the roadway at other than a defined crosswalk. If you hit a jaywalker, you may be able to find a little relief under the law due to the joint negligence/culpability of the jaywalker, but if you hit a ped in a crosswalk, it's your fault, your ass, and not much way to get out from under it:

"27-51-1202. Pedestrians' right-of-way in crosswalks.
(a) Where traffic-control signals are not in place or in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping if need be to yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in this subchapter.
(b) Whenever any vehicle is stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway, the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle."

"27-51-1204. Pedestrians crossing at other than crosswalks.
...
(d) Notwithstanding the provisions of this section, every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway and shall give warning by sounding the horn when necessary and shall exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any confused or incapacitated person upon a roadway."

Several recent studies, discussed in Tom Vanderbilt's recent book, "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) [click the blue name link below] indicate that the more traffic signs we put out there on the roadway, the more drivers tend to ignore them. Signs typically aren't effective against the types of drivers who get in this sort of trouble, anyhow. Downtown NLR placed these little markers along Main Street a couple of months ago; with a matter of a week or two drivers had knocked them all down, and it's been a fairly constant effort at replacing them. Per Vanderbilt, what has proven effective in many places, more commonly in Europe, is removing the signs, placing a number of traffic-calming devices along the roadway, and stringently enforcing the law that requires all road users to use due care and respect for the safety of all other road users.

Right now, the penalty for hitting and killing a pedestrian or a cyclist is almost non-existent. In most cases only the motorist, protected by 3000 pounds of steel and polymer, is the only one who survives to tell the tale: "Honestly, officer... I didn't see him. He ran out out in front of me." It's the 21st Century way of saying, "He/she needed killin' for gettin' in my way."

Several other states have enacted laws to protect more vulnerable users of the roadways, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Probably the way to best address and reduce this hazard is to enact a law that says if you are involved in and found to be negligent in a collision that kills another person, whether a pedestrian, cyclist, or in another vehicle, you lose your driving privileges for a significant period of time... say ten years to life, depending on the driver's degree of culpability in the crash. Tough? Yeah... but it's better to walk or take the bus rather than be six feet under the grass out in the graveyard.

Y'all please do be careful out there.

I watched a dump truck make a quick lurching maneuver to intimidate some school kids into stopping in a crosswalk so the truck could ease on through. It made my blood boil, but the cop across the street whose sole job it was at that particular time of day to protect school children didn't seem to mind. It would have clearly been a case of justified pistol whipping.

My personal solution - not for everyone - is to carry my keys with me into a crosswalk. If a car gets close enough to me, I scratch the car from front bumper to rear. The driver may stop then, but he or she is in or across an intersection. Unless they're armed, no problem, and I haven't been shot at. Yet.

27-51-120 was last amended in 1947 (enacted first in 1937). Wonder how many cars were on Arkansas roadways then, especially in our more rural communities? I think this is one of those examples of how our laws are "living" documents and how the people sometimes amend them even when our legislators don't.

It's completely silly to think that every motorist on LaHarpe should be prepared to stop themselves and the dozens of cars behind them for each individual pedestrian that might cross. I would note that the letter of this law would say that an individual crossing Highway 10 in Pankey should expect all traffic to stop as long as he/she crossed at one of the "intersections" (never mind that even cars rarely cross there). So, while it's the law, neither the drivers nor the pedestrians expect it. The law needs to be updated and then *real* crosswalks with signals established where needed and justified.

I would say I like the automatic hazard lights used at one of the UCA crosswalks - similar to ones I've seen in Florida in high-pedestrian areas - that flash lights within the pavement as a pedestrian enters a sensor near the street.

And as Corporal Willingham says (yes, in jest, not as legal advice): "Gross Tonnage equals Right of Way". (Jake, not sure you used this one in Algebra but I think it captures your point!)

ARK. BLOG: Good points all, Theo. People can be educated, though. California drivers generally obey pedestrian right of way, even in hte middle of a block. Darnedest introduction of that for me was when I was in grad school at Stanford. Busy El Camino Real bordered the east side of the campus. I watched in awe as a blind student regularly put his white cane forward and stepped into traffic, fully expecting oncoming vehicles to stop for him. In my limited observations, they always did.

I watched a dump truck make a quick lurching maneuver to intimidate some school kids into stopping in a crosswalk so the truck could ease on through. It made my blood boil, -Posted by: bugeyedlittlefreak
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That may be a strategy born of frustration - I have been sorely tempted to do likewise when, even after the light change, the little teenage mush-heads ignore the changing light and hold up traffic as they step out, casually chit-chat, day-dream and stroll, shuffle or amble across the street with no regard for the line of cars they are backing up. You can always make it worse by tapping your horn or saying something "encouraging" to them - you would be surprised how much slower they can go.

The younger kids at least act like they are trying to hurry across.

My personal solution - - is to carry my keys with me into a crosswalk. If a car gets close enough to me, I scratch the car from front bumper to rear. Posted by: yankeenomo
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You do this a few more times, and you may be changing your name to alivenomo.

Well, I'll just make the answer simple and use a 4000 lb SUV going 20 mph and you weigh 200 lb.
SUV Force = 80,000 pounds (4000 x 20)
Ratio SUV Force:Pedestrian Weight = 80,000/200 = 400:1

If you weigh less than 200 lbs, the ratio goes higher (time to teach inverse relationships, children).

Basically, the lower weight SUV at the lower speed (20 mph) still outmuscles you at 400 to 1 odds. And what with cell phones, stereos, drugs, distractions, yelling kids, age and a hundred other factors that take the driver's attention away for crucial seconds -- do you really want to even be near the road much less cross an intersection? Ask the kids who walk home from school if they enjoy playing chicken everyday.

Another way to view it is imagine playing dodge ball with 40 ton balls (and that ain't talking about King Kong's equipment).

Am curious, DK -- what scoring scale do you use for these children who dare your vehicle to hit them?

Crossing without a light is stupid. There are appropriate locations for crosswalks in pedestrian areas but most other high traffic areas are no longer safe. Please get a clue.

You demand a progressive society at warp speed when it concerns conventions that you object to but, when a familiar bit of society becomes passe you can't understand why the law does not punish anyone involved. We were once a pedestrian society, then mixed, now motorized.

But hang in there. That Volvo is designed to take a rear end collision.

As someone who was a pedestrian in London for a few months, I'm not sure I'd use English drivers as an example. In the UK, stoplights go Green-->Yellow--Red and also Red-->Yellow-->Green. On the yellow "on the way up", cars are revving engines and inching into the crosswalk so that the split second it turns green, they can floor it and go. If you weren't 100% sure you could make it across in the yellow, you stayed FIRMLY on the sidewalk.

What I find interesting about the Heights signs is that they are nowhere near the crosswalks. So if people stop at the sign, aren't we encouraging people to cross anywhere in the road, not just at the marked places for foot traffic?

Hey Jake, just checkin', but don't you mean "velocity" instead of "acceleration?"

And what's about when the pedestrian is run over by the golf cart?

"If that crosswalk is going to work for pedestrians, it needs warning lights and a big zebra-style crosswalk, like the sort you see in England. And a better advance warning."

The other think that London crosswalk has is a constabulary, ready to write a ticket -- or worse -- for whoever fails to yield to pedestrians.

Although I use velocity, the formula was written as F = M*A and it is OK to use velocity in the formula. It is Newton's 2nd Law (and he calls A the velocity of the object in motion). This gives you the Force (SUV barreling down the road) acting on an object (you, the innocent pedestrian standing wide-eyed in the crosswalk, soon to be staining the crosswalk).

Gross tonnage = gross results. (Thanks Theodosius!!)

too many times I have seen young ladies with stollers waiting to cross to get to the Starbucks (or other shops) without anyone making an attempt to stop....these signs are good for the neighborhood walkers, kids, etc....The other day I noticed the first wreck there, cellphone talkin' driver rearended a yeilding driver....more to come, I'm sure.

>>>The other thing that London crosswalk has is a constabulary, ready to write a ticket -- or worse -- for whoever fails to yield to pedestrians.<<<

Somebody just nailed the answer right there. Drivers blow through crosswalks because there is no effective penalty or adverse consequence for doing so... even if you run over and kill somebody.

New Jersey is getting a handle on the solution (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/nyregion/new-jersey/09pedestriansnj.html, and blue name link below).

It's not true that the bigger the vehicle you drive, the more right-of-way that you should have. The public roads and highways are built for the people to use in their constitutional right to travel from one place to another. All road users are equal in the eyes of the law (A.C.A. 27-49-111, if'n you want to look it up). Some means of transporation pose substantially greater dangers to other road users, which is why motor vehicle drivers have to be licensed and insured, while those who ride bicycles, horses, mules, or wagons and buggies don't have to do those things.

Speed kills. All you have to do to confirm that is to surf over to the Arkansas State Police page on traffic fatalities for the year, and scroll through the causes of these "accidents." In 90% of the cases, it's because drivers, cars and/or moorcycles, couldn't keep their vehicle between the assigned lane lines, and either ran themselves off the road or ran into somebody else. 515 Arkansans died on our roads this year as of this morning. If it were anything other than traffic collisions, society would be screaming to ban cars from our roadways.

All too true, Up The Road. We become desensitized to the carnage all around us - until it strikes someone close to us. But at least the carnage has been declining in recent years.

You know, in some places like Atlanta, people just walk in the street instead of waiting for the cars.

It's also the same way just outside the Wal-Mart headquarters.

That's how it should be. Pedestrian Rule!

The way that cities are designed for cars, it is amazing that that are still pedestrians. For almost fifty years, sidewalks were absent in the expanding cities and suburbs. Only recently have sidewalks returned, even if only on one side of the street. They are relatively unused, except by ATVs, scooters, and bicycles (and golf carts) avoiding the homicidal motorists. Every driver assumes that the road is his private property. After all, isn't it all paid for by his gasoline purchases and the fees for his driver and car licenses? Trespassers beware, this land is posted.

Nonetheless, joggers use the streets to avoid the abrupt exertions to cope with curbs and cracks that might break their mothers' backs. Groups of remaining pedestrians do so all abreast on the street to avoid the humiliation of being at the back of the pack on a narrow sidewalk. You could ask why we persist in trying to bring back this anachronism? It is the engine that keeps us from slipping into a true national financial pothole. The sale of lawn edgers remains stable.

Max, you don't like the teaching our kids to stop, look and listen to save their life?
It is easier for a pedestrian to stop than for a vehicle to stop.

I think I may need an ambulance. I agree with Chasv.
Cars are here to stay and even the smallest are far heftier than we are, as someone pointed out. Crosswalk or no crosswalk, as far as I'm concerned, that fool with the phone plastered to his ear has the right of way when I'm trying to cross the street. In fact, I feel the same way in a Wal-Mart parking lot. If the driver stops, I walk. If he keeps rolling, I roll my eyes, mumble a few choice words and stay put.
Actually expecting two or more lanes of traffic to stop to let folks cross the street? Those pedestrians have a death wish.

IABL - if that golf cart going to Forest Park was red, it would be my neighbor. We've nicknamed him the "Mayor of Stonewall".

"I have been sorely tempted to do likewise when, even after the light change, the little teenage mush-heads ignore the changing light and hold up traffic as they step out, casually chit-chat, day-dream and stroll, shuffle or amble across the street with no regard for the line of cars they are backing up." - Don Keyhotay

Coming down /Markham/ the other day, going west, just before the Cedar intersection and as I come upon the crest of a small hill, I find a whole gaggle of kids standing in the middle of the highway, two of them fighting. Cars and large trucks coming from both directions, but they paid no mind.

I guess when the vehicles finally got close enough is when they decided to move. It was just so ridiculous, I thought "These kids probably deserve to get hit. Darwinism rules."

Why are these signs in the middle of the block? I just got back from Colorado and was impressed by their use of these signs. Then I got back here and found out that LR had discovered these signs, too!. In Colorado, they didn't have them in the middle of the block like the ones here. They had them right at the crosswalk.

Arky

"You demand a progressive society at warp speed when it concerns conventions that you object to but, when a familiar bit of society becomes passe you can't understand why the law does not punish anyone involved. We were once a pedestrian society, then mixed, now motorized."

Mr. Peabody... While yes, we are "motorized..." I don't know if you have noticed this, but what do you magically become when you step out of your parked car and try to cross the street to a shop?

Oh yes, that's right... A "pedestrian." Just because most people drive cars doesn't mean that pedestrian friendly roads are useless. We are all, by default, pedestrians. Asking people not to run others over is not "progressing at warp speed."