Stupid Pedestrians

Pedestrians have long had it coming. Long, long had it coming.

Constantly, these seemingly mild-mannered folk walk in school zones, park zones, hospital zones. They push strollers, walk dogs and ferry large groups of neighborhood children. They wait at bus stops, cross streets and encumber prestigious and important people on the one day they happen to be late for work, or a meeting or class.

If pedestrians were important, like future leaders of our town, state, or nation, perhaps they would be more deserving of our care and respect. As it is, their sole purpose in life is to slow down drivers. They are shepherded by crossing guards, those reflector-vested sentries with flashy flags. With a wave, a smile, and a stop sign in hand, they halt garbage trucks and school busses, but not city busses (because the Spokane Transit Authority calls elementry schools and forbids it.) The pedestrian-nazis stop long lines of drivers who were already stuck behind the one person in Spokane County who never sees the speed limit on the Michael P. Anderson Highway bump up to 55 miles per hour after Four Lakes and the Texas-sized Turnbull Wildlife Refuge sign.

How are drivers supposed to cope? These poor sojourners are yelled at for inching up on people in crosswalks or bumping the curb. (Who hasn’t accidentally dumped CDs on to the floor? Someone has to clean them up.)

And what’s wrong with driving around children in crosswalks? The Spokane Transit Authority does it, and they’re a city agency. Certainly, it’s nothing to get pedestrians’ bus passes in a bunch about.

Somehow it’s considered bad form. Hypersensitive, bunion-toed pedestrians record license plates. Sometimes, other traitorous drivers in the area track down “offenders” and turn their information into the police, who actually think that sharing a crosswalk with a pedestrian should be categorized as attempted vehicular assault.

Isn't sharing supposed to be good?

School resource officers confront students who accidentally drive on the sidewalk when rounding corners. This is funny; this is not a crime. Some parents, whose teens have been challenged by police for “endangering” a pedestrian with a tiny swerve, have actually confiscated keys and licenses. However, parents have a reputation for being humorless, so this drastic action is less of a surprise.

Children must learn to watch out for little, old ladies with over packed garages, backing up and nearly causing accidents on small arterials. Not everyone has neck mobility, but should that stop people from driving? Isn’t that discrimination against back-pain sufferers?

Enough. Pedestrians should be forced to wait, even if it takes ten minutes for traffic to part during busy school mornings. Maybe that will teach them to leave early to avoid impeding the flow of traffic. Foot traffic is slower, so pedestrians could afford to wait a moment for one or two or twenty cars to pass. Make crossing guards write excuses so no one is considered tardy, and serve the free/reduced breakfasts to the socio-economically challenged kids in class, recess or after school if they rely on the program so much.

The two parties could make nice, if school districts would haul their zones and buildings away from thoroughfares to institutes of higher learning. The past city of Cheney administrations should have always prioritized EWU’s campus over three Cheney schools, a major park and pool. What is one small neighborhood compared to thousands of drivers that need to find the last decent parking place on campus? Hasn’t the Easterner recently established that without EWU, there would be no Cheney? The town relies on this traffic; without it, all the businesses would pack up and move to Spokane, and all the residents would be forced to buy their corn flakes through amazon.com.

Yes, pedestrians should learn a lesson, and many ambitious drivers are leading the way in their education. Careening up on sidewalks or swerving into bike lanes when no sidewalk is present, these brave souls are pioneering a better tomorrow for us all.