One of my boyfriend's greatest annoyances is people who jaywalk across busy streets whilst dragging a child along by the hand. I hadn't really noticed before the frequency with which parents taught their children these bad habits, but after my boyfriend started pointing them out (often by violently honking his horn at these "scofflaws"), I began to see them everywhere. I'm a bit of an armchair anthropologist, so when I become aware of a certain behavior, I want to know why it is performed. From probably pre-school onward, the following guidelines were grilled into me:
1. Look both ways before crossing the street.
2. Never run across the street.
3. Use the crosswalk and observe the stop/walk signals.
I would like to speak with the children of these dodge-and-dash runs to find out if they have been taught these same guidelines. I do recall that nearly all of my crosswalk safety training came from school, by teachers who were much more law-abiding, apparently, than my own parents. So perhaps these children are being drug across streets against their will - their cries of protest and admonitions on traffic safety falling on the deaf ears of their parents.
Most of the parents I see darting across the street with child in tow are older than me, so I am left to wonder: Was there an entire generation that missed out on traffic and crosswalk safety training? Was this training a concept not developed until the 1970's, as an offshoot of Sesame Street? Furthermore, I can't say that I have observed this behavior pattern anywhere else, so is this lackadaisical attitude toward the dangers of being hit by a car something unique to Austin?
I was pondering these very issues when I caught myself walking into the pathway through a parking lot, without stopping to check for traffic first. "Wait! What am I doing?" I thought to myself. Granted, this was a parking lot and not a busy street with a 40mph speed limit, but nevertheless traffic did flow through here and often rapidly enough to warrant at least a semi-cautious approach. So I stopped, glanced to my left, then to my right, and proceeded towards my destination. "When had I become so lackadaisical?" I thought. This thought was quickly followed by the contrarian in my head, who always jumps to my defense when under the assault of that ever-present Self-criticism. "I didn't hear anything," it said defensively, "if a car had been coming, I would've heard it."
"What if it had been a quiet car, like one of those super-quiet electric cars?" Self-criticism countered.
"Then I would've seen it with my peripheral vision." The contrarian retorted.
"In time to avoid collision?" Self-criticism asked, eyebrow raised.
The contrarian stuck out her bottom lip, sulking. Self-criticism wins again.
Once all of that was over with, I was free to wonder how my sense of self-preservation had become so, well, slack. I started to tally it up. Used-to-be, I wore my seat belt with an almost religious devotion. I couldn't even drive down the block without feeling naked if it weren't strapped across my chest. Nowadays, however, I find myself making short runs to the corner store and the supermarket and the video store without buckling in. So, what gives? Overconfidence? Laziness? I don't think that's it. For one thing, I've never been overconfident about anything in my life, and also, how much energy does it take to reach over your shoulder, across your body, and snap in a simple device? Not much. No, I think the answer lies in the nature of these trips, these "short runs" to complete errands. The answer, then, is time or, rather, a lack thereof. It seems that we have become so busy in our daily routines, trying to get everything done in one day, that we are willing to risk our lives just so we can check off all of the action items on our lists. I can really only speak for myself, but I know my own life seems to acquire more responsibilities with each passing day, and I don't even have children - it's just me (and my cat) that I am responsible for. I can't imagine also tacking on the responsibilities of parenthood to my chore list. So these parents I see, dashing across the middle of busy streets, not even in a crosswalk, dragging their children along behind them, are probably also in a mad rush to get to the store before it closes or pick the dry cleaning or whatever. But is all this risk worth it? No, it is not. We need to slow down. The dry cleaning can wait till tomorrow, or the next day if need be. Who cares? Isn't it better to make it home, in one piece, than to return the video on time? We should really look at it this way: how much time are we saving if we have to make a trip to the emergency room and spend a long stay in a hospital recovering from an accident? In the long run, you wayward parents out there, it's much faster to just walk a little further down the street to the crosswalk, and wait for the walk signal. As for me, rather than getting in such a hurry that I skip the seat belt, I'm going to take my time and take my bike on any short errands. It may not be any safer in Austin traffic than driving without my seatbelt, but at least I'm getting some exercise and reducing my carbon footprint while I'm at it!
