On the way to work I walk adja­cent to a lane of traf­fic, and cars on the high­way can exit onto that street using a lengthy offramp. I have to cross the offramp every day, and there’s a yield sign there for cars com­ing from the high­way, but they nev­er slow down or yield to pedes­tri­ans (unless it’s some­one old dri­ving). Since it’s a busy area, the cars can just keep com­ing, and I’ve spent a ridicu­lous amount of time just wait­ing for the line of vehi­cles to end.

Right now I just get out my frus­tra­tions by pre­tend­ing that I don’t notice any cars com­ing, and tak­ing one step onto the ramp. Most dri­vers don’t care if some­one is walk­ing across; as long as they know that one sees them, they assume that one will jump out of the way. Drivers who believe that some­one does­n’t see them will almost always yield.

This morn­ing, for exam­ple, I pre­tend­ed to be com­plete­ly obliv­i­ous to two cars speed­ing down the offramp. I made one con­fi­dent step across the path and then quick­ly looked up, while con­tin­u­ing to cross. The first car sped past me, but the sec­ond car slowed down sud­den­ly enough to make the tires squeak. The car actu­al­ly pulled to the side of the road and came to a com­plete stop. I could tell that the dri­ver, a book­ish man with light hair and glass­es, was both angry and shak­en, and had to stop dri­ving to com­pose him­self. I swear he was about to get out of his car to tell me off, had he not brought him­self under con­trol, and real­ized that it’s not a fuck­ing MERGE sign, it’s a FUCKING YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS SIGN.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t always assume that I have the right of way (although I do believe that pedes­tri­ans are sup­posed to under the Highway Traffic Act R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 144 (28), unless the car can’t stop in time) and just walk across the cross­walk regard­less of oncom­ing vehi­cles. It’s in every­ones best inter­est to be safe, but I do my part by keep­ing an eye on vehi­cles, and not jay­walk­ing or cross­ing unpre­dictably. This guy, as well as many oth­ers, have plen­ty of time to see pedes­tri­ans approach­ing the cross­walk but decide to nev­er slow down.