You ever notice how when you come to an intersection of two roads, and there’s those red, yellow, and green lights that hang from poles or wires, and people seem to react to the color of the lights? For instance, when the light is red, the cars tend to stop, and when it’s green, they tend to go? And did you ever notice how they’re usually in synch, so that traffic moving in one or another direction doesn’t end up hitting traffic going in the other? It’s pretty neat how those work.
If you haven’t noticed, take a moment to watch and learn. It’s pretty neat to see the coreography and how traffic seems to be controlled by these red, yellow, and green signals. In fact, dear reader, they even call these lights “traffic signals” because they signal the movement of traffic.
Now, here’s the best part. YOU TOO are required BY LAW to follow the signals given by the traffic lights. If you’re on a bike, you have to stop when it’s red and can only go when it’s green, just like a car. If you’re on foot, you cannot cross the street if you’re facing a red signal. IT’S THE LAW. Oh, and to make it even more obvious, many of these lights have little pedestrian indicators on them too, with a raised red hand or a green stick figure walking to indicate that you should wait or walk, respectively.
This is for your own safety, dear pedestrian or cyclist. Because when your light is red, the cars in the other direction have a green light, and are not expecting you to come darting across their lane of travel. So do yourself a favor and FOLLOW THE LAW when it comes to traffic signals and waiting until it is legal to do so. You just might end saving yourself some serious injury. At the very least, you’re likely to avoid angering a driver who has to wait for you to waddle your butt across the road. Okay?
Oh, and a special note to the cyclists. I will gladly “Share the Road.” But then you need to step up and follow the rules of the road as well. Which means you stop at stop signs, you signal when you’re turning, you don’t bike around the railroad crossing gates. In other words, you don’t just go riding around as if all of us car riders will part for you like the Red Sea parted for the Isrealites.
I think if the police put as much effort into enforcing jaywalking and illegal cycling maneuvers as much as they do into enforcing speeding, they’d make a boatload more money (much easier than chasing down speeders too!) and we’d prevent a lot of accidents caused by pedestrian stupidity.