Posted by:
kolobian
(
)
Date: June 25, 2013 11:50AM
So, I work in downtown Phoenix and a little while ago I walked across the street for a pick-me-up. I have to walk across three lanes of traffic and also the lightrail tracks to get to the little store I go to.
I rarely go to the crosswalk and wait for the little green man to appear. I usually just make a judgment about safety and cross in the middle of the street.
What was funny about this morning is that on my way back across the street I didn't wait for the little green man, as usual, but I was standing fairly close to the crosswalk so it would seem as if I was crossing normally. Remember, the red hand is up indicating DO NOT CROSS but I went anyway 'cause I'm a big boy and I make my own decisions, right?
Well, a lady who was busy staring at her phone on the other side of the street noticed me walking across and took that as a sign that it was safe to go. Yeah... not so much.
I had just enough time to get across the street before the Toyota Tacoma heading down central would get to the crosswalk, but this lady definitely didn't have enough time. I couldn't believe it when I saw her step off the curb. Of course there was a screeching of brakes, horn honking, and the bitter taste of adrenaline.
What's crazy is that after the lady jumped back onto the curb she looked right at me as if it was my fault. And that's when it hit me about responsibility.
This was a grown ass woman in a business suit. Surely she understood the dangers of crossing a busy street in downtown phoenix. Surely she understood the rules of the little green man vs. the red hand. But in this moment, preoccupied as she was with whatever was on her phone, she did not look both ways before crossing and she did not check the sign to see if it was safe. Instead, she saw me and concluded that I must know what I'm doing so why shouldn't she do the same thing?
Well, that's stupid. That's her fault. If she had gotten run over it would not be my mistake and I would not feel guilty about it.
But, what if I'm a father? What if I'm a father and my child, barely old enough to walk, has placed 100% of their trust in me to keep them safe?
Say, then, that I always hold my child's hand when we cross the street. I don't teach my child to look both ways before crossing and I don't teach my child to read the walk/no walk sign or how to interpret the symbols. Instead, I just walk when I feel like walking and I drag them along with me knowing they won't let go of my hand.
When they're older, too old to hold my hand, how will they cross the street?
Are they likely to stand on the curb and reason out the situation? Will they see a correlation between the symbols on the walk/no walk sign and the fact that cars are stopped? Will they reason that when a car is barreling down the street they should stay safely on the curb?
More than likely, they'll just watch to see what other people do since that's what they were taught. And if they see someone walking across the crosswalk they are likely to step off the curb, even if a Toyota Tacoma is charging through the intersection.
So yeah, maybe us mormon kids were never taught how to cross the street. Maybe we learned to imitate those around us and we got so good at it that it seemed like we knew what we were doing. But eventually, most of us had that wake up moment when we almost got run over by a Toyota Tacoma.
And that's why we're here..