Stop being nice! (Pedestrian edition.)

Last year I took a day to complain about the menace of people being nice on the road, how people trying to wave you through when they have the right of way leads to confusion and possibly accidents. 

Today I'm complaining about being nice to pedestrians on the road. You know the situation. Granny is crossing the street, or perhaps a parking lot. Here she is with her walker, heading for the off-track betting parlor and then the saloon. 

The driver in the purple car decides to be gallant and stop traffic while she creeps along the road. The guy in the red car, seeing this, is now sore. The old lady is not too happy either, because she feels obliged to hustle at top speed, which in her case is approximately one-eighth mph. Had the guy in the purple car just gone on his way, she'd have her way clear to make what is, actually, not a legal crossing. 

What does the law say? In New York, my home state (pity me), the DMV tells us "Pedestrians and skateboarders who are legally crossing the road or street at marked or unmarked crossings, like an intersection, always have the right-of-way." But the old lady is not on a marked crossing and this is not a corner or intersection. It is not a stretch to just say that this is an illegal crossing. In New York, pedestrians will tell you that pedestrians always have the right of way. It's safer to think that way, since they're not protected by a vehicle around them, but it's not true everywhere. It depends where you are. 

The National Conference of State Legislatures summarizes the pedestrian laws across the nation here, and you can see the differences in rules. In Minnesota, for example, the guy working the shoe leather has the right of way no matter where or when he appears ("in any portion of the roadway") and drivers must stop, which makes it sound like if a drunk wanders onto the I-94 where everyone's doing 65, they all have to come to a screeching halt instantly. Knowing Minnesota, that is entirely possible. In other states drivers have to stop only if the pedestrian is in their lane. In three more, that applies to any pedestrian in the same side of the road or approaching that side. Still other states, including New York, don't demand that drivers stop but that they yield to a pedestrian in any portion of the roadway; others say only the same half or the same lane, and so on. If you want to go dancing in traffic with legal impunity, or want to try running someone over and getting away with it, do your research first. 

Of course, no matter what the law says, the problem with being a pedestrian is that the guy coming from the other direction may not be so aware of your presence, or so nice. 

Grandma got run over by a Tesla.

But that isn't my issue here. My main complaint about the whole thing is this: If I'm standing on the sidewalk or the side of a parking lot, waiting to cross, and you're tooling along in your car, just keep tooling. Don't stop and wave me by. I would rather wait the one second for you to go past than have to trot across with you watching every move of my fat ass all the way across. Let's not make this anymore unpleasant than it has to be. Just go and I'll wait until it's clear. 

One last NCSL note: When Granny is on her way back after getting hammered, be aware that "at least 27 states mandate drivers use necessary precaution if they observe an obviously intoxicated or incapacitated pedestrian." So don't think you're getting away with it because she's polluted.