This column exists in part to blow off steam and maybe do some good. In that vein, here comes a long, exasperated letter from Too Young to Die.
She’s a resident of this town who endangers her life by walking around in it.
Right. She’s a pedestrian. By her reckoning, in one of the most dangerous places in Little Rock - Kavanaugh Boulevard.
She says: “In spite of numerous yellow pedestrian crossing warnings with arrows and reminder signs in the center of Kavanaugh, drivers continue to use that street like a highway, and woe to anyone who steps into a crosswalk.”
The problem is especially bad during rush hour, Too Young to Die tells us.
“This morning at 8:25 a.m. I was nearly run over in the middle of the crosswalk at the intersection of Kavanaugh and Pine while walking my dog. The driver of the car … was headed north on Pine and had paused for the stop sign there before speeding through the intersection, turning left onto Kavanaugh. I saw him coming right at me, talking on his phone.”
We are shocked - shocked! - that anyone would drive and talk at the same time.
“I could see that he saw me but he was absolutely not going to stop. I actually held up my hand like a cop and yelled at him to STOP!
He just looked at me and kept on going.”
“I would sure appreciate you addressing this in your column,” she adds.
Sure thing. The dangers of being a pedestrian on and around Kavanaugh Boulevard is a periodic topic here. The first time was back in April 2007.
Headline: “Drivers put to the test at crosswalks.” The column was inspired by a reader who wrote: “I would like to know why people in Little Rock pay no attention whatsoever to crosswalks.
Crosswalks on Kavanaugh are routinely ignored …”
Inspired, emboldened and slightly nuts, The Mahatma drove out to Kavanaugh, parked on a side street and spent about a hour crossing at several intersections. He survived.
Barely.
Most drivers didn’t see him, or stop for him, or give him a passing glance.
Not that this is restricted to Kavanaugh. Regular downtown lunch-hour walkers know to look every which way but down when crossing any street.
The matter of pedestrians has been written about here … a lot.
But it never hurts to review.
Arkansas Code Annotated 27-51-1202 tells us this: “Where traffic control signals are not in place or in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping if need be to yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection …”
Pedestrians have to follow the rules, too.
Arkansas Code Annotated 27-51-1204 says that a pedestrian crossing a road “at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles.” Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/28/2013