Letter to the editor: Please yield to pedestrians in crosswalks
To the editor,
Dear residents of Paso Robles, please yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Please. Not only is it the law, but it is the law for a very good reason: our collective safety!
I walk my kids to school, and unfortunately, this means my children and I are crossing Creston Road multiple times a day. Our choices are to cross at either Golden Hill Road or Lana Street. We alternate, as both are dangerous. Often, cars blow through the light through the crosswalks, while we and/or other pedestrians have just entered them or are still in them. Earlier in the school year, this resulted in a crossing guard getting struck by a car at the Lana/Creston intersection and needing medical care.
Today, as I was walking my 5-year-old to school, our walk signal at Golden Hill and Creston was telling us it was safe to cross in the crosswalk when a car turned right on a red just as I had started to step down into the crosswalk. We had been there first, and no cars were in the crosswalk until after the pedestrian light lit up with the white walking man signal. I backed up and waited for that car to pass so that we wouldn’t get hit when another car with a 60ish-year-old woman at the wheel tried to do the same thing.
I can only imagine this woman likely has grandchildren of her own, she definitely saw me and my son trying to cross the street, yet still was in such a hurry she didn’t want to wait for us. I shook my head at her as we crossed the street in front of her car and I noticed she was visibly angry she had to wait the two seconds for us to cross the street, in the crosswalk, while we had the right of way. She stepped on the gas and sped through the crosswalk behind us just as we got out of her way – we were still in the crosswalk at this point, and the pedestrian light was still counting down how much time we had to get across the street before the light changed.
I will never let my children walk to school on their own due to these dangerous intersections. However, many parents don’t have the ability to walk children to/from school themselves, resulting in a lot of traffic at school drop off/pick up or the children walking on their own.
Please do your part and have some respect for pedestrians and crosswalks. Show you care about other people in your community by slowing down close to schools (the speed limit is 25 MPH in all school zones whenever there is a possibility of children being present) and respecting the lights and the pedestrians using the crosswalks.
Thank you,
Tracy Dauterman
Paso Robles, Calif.
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