Take the right-of-way!

Regular readers of this blog (he said, looking timidly into the mirror) will know that I seldom take on controversial or sensitive topics. Yet, there are times when even the most civilized, peaceful man feels the need to hoist the black flag, buckle up his pants, and hold forth.

Damn the consequences. I'm a little annoyed, and I can't hold it in anymore. Nobody seems to understand exactly how crosswalks work.

Yes, crosswalks. You heard me. I had a pet peeve triggered not long ago, and since I’m not eighty years old yet, I can’t just write another angry letter to the editor, wrinkled fist waving in the air.

A little background: I recently (and successfully) helped my fourth and youngest child learn how to drive. One incident from a trip to the store stuck with me: my son was behind the wheel, waiting to make a left turn. There was oncoming traffic, and also a pickup trying to make a left from the road we were turning onto. My son asked: should we let the truck go first? No, I said. You have the right of way. You go first.

See, there are two parts to the right-of-way, both equally important. There’s yielding the right-of-way, which we were doing for oncoming traffic, and which the pickup did for us; and there’s taking the right-of-way. When you have the right-of-way, it’s your responsibility to take that right-of-way. Otherwise, people don’t know what you’re doing. People don’t have certainty, and certainty becomes really important when we’re all driving thousand-plus pound five-figure-price-tag vehicles.

Then, much more recently: I was a pedestrian, waiting to cross what counts as a busy four-lane street in my home town. I’m waiting at a crosswalk, standing on the sidewalk.

Make note of that. Crosswalk. Sidewalk. They’re different, and that’s important.

So I’m waiting for the traffic to clear and, as sometimes happens, a vehicle stopped to let me cross. It was a dump truck – very large – driving in the third of four lanes. Lanes one and two were clear. Several other vehicles were now stopped behind the truck in lane three.

You can guess what happened next. Being a good Midwesterner, I couldn’t refuse the gesture. Waving him on would be both rude and confusing for everyone, and the first two lanes weren't going to stay clear forever. I began jogging across and… lo and behold, a car coming in the furthest lane – lane four – that I couldn’t see because of the vehicles stopped in lane three!

I’m not entirely sure that this last driver saw me. I think he did. Regardless, I made it across with only a slight increase in speed.

I wonder what the truck driver was thinking then.

Both drivers were in the wrong. First, the driver of the dump truck. You only stop for a pedestrian who’s in the crosswalk – not near the crosswalk, not waiting to enter the crosswalk. In the crosswalk. Here’s what Wisconsin law says:

…the operator of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian … that is crossing the highway within a marked or unmarked crosswalk.

I ellipsed through there a bit, but you get the point. “…that is crossing,” which I wasn’t (shakes old man fist).

Second, the driver of the last car, in lane four. Wisconsin law also says:

Whenever any vehicle is stopped at an intersection or crosswalk to permit a pedestrian… to cross the roadway, the operator of any other vehicle approaching from the rear may not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle.

This driver either didn’t know the law, or (more likely) didn’t put two and two together. I couldn’t see him – did he see me? Maybe he thought the truck was stopped to make a left turn.

So, really, this is about the truck driver. Hey, man, I appreciate the gesture. I acknowledge your politeness, and your wish to ease my passage from one side of Eighth Street to the other, and I thank you for it. But I wasn’t in the crosswalk. I wasn’t “crossing the highway.” I was on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the highway. You had the right-of-way, and the best thing you could have done was: take the right-of-way.

By stopping, you created uncertainty. Uncertainty for other drivers, who didn’t know what you were doing; uncertainty for me, who couldn’t know what all those other drivers were going to do.

Creating uncertainty is a great option if you’re trying to assert dominance, or win at poker, or win an Emmy for best new drama. On the road, certainty is better. Especially when I’m the only one on foot.