Where I live, there’s a law that says all vehicles have to yield for pedestrians at crosswalks. Of course this would be a thing, otherwise crosswalks would only be as good as any part of the road. Despite this, it’s a largely unfollowed rule, to severe degrees. To the extent that me and some friends have a “running gag” (generous way to put it) where some of us bet on who can wait at a crosswalk point and cross the street the quickest without going ahead before cars decided to stop. Tonight I had to wait twenty minutes for a black jeep to stop, the longest I’ve had to wait for years (and side note, I noticed that drivers of certain vehicle types/colors are more likely to stop for you), so I lost that bet tonight if we were doing it.

Some of us have also apparently led drivers to having bad vibes because some of us have used our phones to take extensive video of what’s going on, causing angry drivers (never referring to the ones that do stop for us) to yell that we’re invading privacy. And the response is always something along the line of “what are you going to do, would you really risk exposing yourself just to make a complaint that someone is making a video” before posting them to groups like the main Tumblr road conflict group (such stuff being hidden from there at the moment).

So what’s the longest you’ve ever had to wait to cross the street? And do you notice any etiquette trends like I describe in that one part?

  • @[email protected]
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    131 year ago

    I live in a rural area. The most I’ve ever had to wait was during a lunch rush one day. About 5 to 10 minutes or so.

    I was standing there at a marked crosswalk and cars just kept on zooming by. I was even gesturing to the drivers like “hey! I’m here, I need to cross!” And then a cop car started to come up and stopped for me…which then made all the assholes that didn’t stop for me stop for me on the other side of the road.

    I don’t live in that town anymore. The last time I visited, a huge portion of the town has been gentrified now. It looks like Los Angeles now, but the area of the town and the infrastructure they have can’t support the amount of people living there.

    6 generations of my family were born, raised and lived there. And now it’s ruined. My childhood home has been torn down and replaced with 4 houses on the lot it was on. That whole neighborhood is like that now.

    • HidingCat
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      41 year ago

      I live in a rural area. The most I’ve ever had to wait was during a lunch rush one day. About 5 to 10 minutes or so.

      And here I thought rural areas would have less vehicles (and people) so that wouldn’t be a thing. Meanwhile I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait more than 2 minutes, and I’m in a super dense city!

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        I don’t live in that town I spoke of anymore. The rural area I live in is one of those places where everyone knows everyone