RSSPedestrian Rules
Nov 09
Society and Culture Comments Off
Massachusetts has a right of way to pedestrians law that is taken to extreme by its residents. In principle, it’s great that the state protects its walking citizenry. In the cold weather, there’s nothing better than being able to keep your feet moving and know that most drivers will yield to you.
But unlike most yield-to-pedestrian rules in other states, Mass residents are empowered to walk into the middle of the street come hell, highwater, truck or beemer. This kind of fearlessness has evolved into a culture where the pedestrian is always charging into oncoming traffic, often without even looking. It puts the onus squarely on drivers not to kill someone.
The problem is that in protecting pedestrians, everyone else on the road is put at greater risk. This isn’t just a case of a reckless driver against a helpless pedestrian. When a pedestrian marches into the road without any thought to his own safety or the driver’s, the scenarios for damage are endless. It can happen in the middle of heavy traffic at rush hour or on a deserted road in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. Pedestrians here act without a sense of self-preservation which in itself drives me batty. But they also put the cars at risk by playing into the legally-reinforced sense of entitlement about who rules the road.
This is a perfect example of how laws that are really legislating what should be common sense behavior would be better managed if we left them up to common sense. Except that nobody has any. Massachusetts is fond of these kind of regulations. Seemingly “duh” laws that only serve to reinforce the fact that most people wouldn’t be able to function without them.
