One of the my biggest pet peeves with Seattle drivers is how passive they are. You're standing in the middle of the block, no crosswalk anywhere near you, getting ready to jaywalk illegally by waiting for the traffic to clear. Over and over again Seattle drivers would literally stop in the middle of the road to let me cross in front of them. It has never made any sense to me; you are the car - drive. I will cross when you are gone.
However, when there is a crosswalk, and a pedestrian is in it, cars must yield. This is the case whether there is a stop sign, a traffic signal, or not. All it takes are two parallel lines connecting each side of the road: that's a crosswalk. If there's extra lines, or a yield sign, or a sign with a picture of a dude in a crosswalk, or a flashing light, or a lit up sign that says "CROSSWALK" - those are nice, but they don't matter. They all mean the same thing: yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk.
In Seattle, this was obviously rarely a problem. Sometimes I'd be hesitant, but I could count on passive Seattle drivers to slow down and let me pass.
In Chicago, drivers ignore crosswalks unless there is a stop sign or traffic signal. As a perennial pedestrian, this is increasingly becoming an issue for me. You're at a crosswalk that is clearly marked, but cars do not slow down or stop if you're crossing. The culture is clear: pedestrians wait for the traffic to clear before crossing.
It makes me very angry.
Last week I crossed without slowing down. There was traffic approaching but they had plenty of time to see me and yield. A car approached and was not yielding. I didn't break stride, all nervous and mumbling "this is a crosswalk this is a crosswalk" to myself, shaking my head. After I cross, the driver shouts out the window "there's no stop sign bitch!" to which I shouted back, "this is a CROSSWALK, IDIOT!" Unsatisfying.
I can't decide if this is a battle worth fighting, since no one seems to know the rules, and evidently no one enforces them. Yesterday, at a fancy crosswalk with extra lines and signs and blinky lights, some asshole screeched and honked at a pedestrian who was more than halfway across the crosswalk when they approached.
I looked up the laws in Illinois, thinking maybe I'm just misinformed.
- A crosswalk is marked by two parallel lines connecting two sides of a road.
- Drivers must yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk.
- Pedestrians must yield to vehicles in the road when there isn't a crosswalk.
- Drivers must try not to hit pedestrians, in general.
In short: fuck you, Chicago crosswalk ignorers. You are ignorant, coddled, entitled dicks. Learn the laws in your own goddamn state, and oh hey maybe the cops could enforce those laws.
