[This is from a regular poster on this blog, Fletcher. Note the justification for this addled women's reckless behavior: she was imidating a video game. Crossing traffic with one's offspring now becomes a game, and a game that the drivers are supposed to understand as well. Pray this women finds some sanity before it's too late for her or her children.]
My wife and I were driving down Belleview near our house to go to the grocery store, when this pregnant lady pushing a stroller with a two year old girl comes blazing across the street into four lanes of busy traffic. She was literally bobbing and weaving in and out of cars traveling about 40 mph to get to the middle stripe… where I thought she would stop. Then, she began darting out into our two lanes and ran full speed right in front of us.. Or so I thought that's where she was headed. So I slammed on my breaks as to not kill her family, and she YELLED (loud) at me "Keep driving!! You are going to get me run over!!!" I think because I slowed down abruptly I foiled her plans somehow because she had it all timed out (there was another car barreling down on her in the lane to our left, so the ideas to narrowly dart in between both cars).
So I went and parked right there, got out, and I said "I am sorry about that, but I thought you were going in front of me". She said "NO! I wasn't going to run out in front of you, I was doing a 'Frogger sort of thing'" (Yes, she actually said that!). Frogger is an 80's video game where you control a video frog that jumps from floating log to floating log trying to avoid falling in the river, and also the occasional snapping crocodile jaws. Of course, if you miss a log - you die in the game. Which was also a part of her little traffic game.
So I said "I would suggest that you wait until no cars or coming before you cross the street with your children", to which she replied angrily "OH YEAH RIGHT YOU SMARTASS!"
Unbelievable. It would have been even more unbelievable had you seen it in person. Several near misses… and for what?
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6 comments:
You did the correct thing. Do you think you should perhaps pass the story along to your local child protective services unit?
Is there a need for pedestrian crossing there? Perhaps this is a sign that you need to get involved lobbying local government to act to protect these poor kids . . .
The need to cross right there was the ability to avoid walking down about one full block to use the crosswalk at Bellewview and Federal. Of course that would require a full 2 more minutes of exertion, no wonder she chose to play "Family Frogger".
The root of many (or most) of the issues in our society starts in the home, with families. PARENTS are responsible for raising reasonable, hard working, discerning, sober children.... and yet anyone can have children. Dr. Groothuis brought up a good point: maybe parenting should require training, certification, or a license of some sort? Why not? Many things require licensing. Driving, using firearms, building, dentistry, realtors, environmental scientists, teachers, on and on it goes. But when it comes to the mother of all responsibilities - shaping human beings, it's a free for all!?
Someone was killed right out in front of the building where I work a couple of years ago, because of something like this. The pedestrian walked out into the middle of the 4-lane road and was waiting to cross the whole way over. (4-lane road, two lanes in each direction) and an approaching truck saw the pedestrian, slowed down, and stopped, thinking to be kind in doing so, and waved the pedestrian accross. However, the truck blocked the pedestrian's view of another approaching car, in the second lane, and as soon as the pedestrian crossed into that lane...it was too late---they were struck head-on and died from the blow. This is a lesson to all who think it's a good idea to stop and allow that person waiting in the median to cross the line of traffic where there is no traffic light! Froggers beware!
Jonathan -
You've got to be kidding me?
Your response here is ridiculous.
I have consistently observed that your objective is to counterargue everything you see on this blog, including common sense arguments such as "don't dash in and out of busy high speed traffic while pregnant with a three year old in a stroller".
You can do better...
Stockwell:
I responded to you directly because the originator of the account and the driver of the car was in fact myself. Had you read the original post more carefully you would have seen that.
I didn't talk to the lady until after I pulled over and parked, as she happened to be headed to the same place I was I guess. She was truly "darting"... running fast, through cars that were going fast, and lots of them. I seriously thought to myself "is this lady smoking crack?" Maybe she was.
I HAD to slow down or there was a good chance I would have run her down, seriously.
By stating that she was darting, you therefore know that this particular person was not impeded, she was in fact demonstrably capable of brisk movement.
Here's an objective truth: Pregnant women, women with children, or even worse both... should NEVER go running out through several lanes of opposing high speed busy traffic "doing a frogger" thing and risking the lives of their children. Despite being plain stupid and very dangerous, it is also illegal - and for good reason.
Would you refute that for any sound reason?
I find the original post scary. I have wondered for ages whether playing video games desensitised people to the dangers of "real life" driving.
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