Columnist Susan Snyder: Don’t take road danger in stride

Friday, Nov. 22, 2002 | 4:18 a.m.

Roads are for people.

No matter how many men with badges tell local reporters differently, roads are for people -- people who drive motorized things, pedal bicycles, walk.

People.

Let me come clean. I am an instructor for the state Office of Traffic Safety's Nevada Elementary Traffic Safety Program, among other things, and teach bicycle and pedestrian skills.

I made a presentation at a national seminar this year with Barbara McCann, an author of the Surface Transportation Policy Project report that Thursday named Las Vegas one of the nation's worst places to walk. I am biased because I am informed.

And I take issue with the Metro Police sergeant who said these things to our Sun reporters this past week:

"Roads are made for cars."

Or, "I don't have any sympathy for pedestrians who get whacked by cars."

And, "We've never had an appetite to do that," in reference to enforcing the pedestrian laws.

Twice as many walkers have died in crashes this year over last.

I have no stomach for a police officer who has no sympathy for dead people and feels comfortable saying it aloud in any context.

And if people still can't see that this is a problem brought on by a lack of knowledge -- on the part of motorists, pedestrians and some police officers -- then we're all driving blind.

Motorists must "use due care" to avoid hitting a pedestrian no matter where they step. They must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, marked or unmarked. Unmarked ones exist anywhere two streets intersect. Both are legal.

If you are a motorist turning right on a green light, onto a road with a median, you must wait until a person walking in the crosswalk clears your side of the road before proceeding. You can't go simply because he has cleared the lane you desire. If the road isn't divided, you're supposed to wait until the walker is all the way across.

Let the horn behind you blow. Would peer pressure force you to run a red light?

"Jaywalking" does not exist in Nevada statutes. Midblock crossings are legal in all but one situation:

You cannot walk across a section of road between two traffic control devices -- lights or stop signs referring to the road you are crossing -- if no other street intersects between those signals. People crossing midblock must yield to oncoming motorists. But motorists must use caution and due care "upon observing a pedestrian who is on or near a highway, street or road."

Everybody drives defensively. Nobody gets hurt.

There are no "accidents." People die in crashes. Crashes have causes. Someone did something they shouldn't have:

Fell asleep at the wheel. Looked away for a moment to change a CD. Stepped in front of a car midblock without looking left-right-left. Lack of intent doesn't make it less of a crash.

The problem in Las Vegas isn't money, roads or laws. It's attitude. We assume everyone else is at fault. We assume a driver's license valid in Ohio is good enough to trade for one here -- no questions asked.

We assume roads are for cars.

We are wrong a lot of the time.

Roads are for people. Learn to share.

And put down the phone.

Our local crash statistics already show we don't agree.