At the bottom of the hill there is a traffic light. If I push the button on the pole, the light will turn red, the white “Walk” signal will light up, and I can safely cross the street in the crosswalk. This is all in theory, of course. In actual practice, I push the button on the pole, the traffic light turns red, the “Walk” signal lights up, I step into the crosswalk, and at least one, if not two, cars promptly run the red light and narrowly avoid hitting me. This is not an occasional occurrence. This happens every single time I cross this street. Every time without fail. Frequently I watch people with determined looks on their faces punch the gas as the light turns yellow then red before they have even reached the white line. I then pause in the middle of the crosswalk as the force of their passing vehicle’s speed practically knocks me over. Other times the drivers wear blissful unconcerned expressions as they sail through the red light, very nearly running over my foot or striking my knee with their front bumper. Often one hand clamps a cell phone to a fleshy cheek like some vulgar plastic appendage, as vacant eyes either fail to notice the 6 foot 2 man in the middle of the street or simply choose to ignore him. This morning once again as I reached the middle of the crosswalk, a middle-aged woman in an SUV paused uncertainly at the red light for a split second before racing forward, eyes locked ahead with a crooked half-smile hung on her porcine visage. I stood so close I could see her pores. This light basically exists to serve the pedestrians, as there is no direct cross street that the light also controls. Drivers know this and so they know that they can run this light without the possibility of striking another car, which would thus put themselves and their vehicle in danger. But when the element of personal danger to one’s own self is removed, every driver morphs into a scofflaw on the roads. And who cares about the person walking in the street? They are merely obstacles in the way. As a pedestrian in a major U.S. city, I see the worst of this behavior exhibited in humanity every day and it makes me both sick to my stomach and sick in my heart.
All posts in category criminal activity
pedestrian non grata
Posted by sean on January 15, 2009
https://sd-stewart.com/2009/01/15/pedestrian-non-grata/
illegal dumping
This morning I tried to wrap my head around the concept of illegal dumping. Why do people dump trash illegally on the side of the road? Of course we all have things in our basement we’d like to throw out, but there are typically many different systems in place to deal with these things: bulk trash days, open hours at the landfill, private trash collection services, the free page on Craig’s List, etc. As I rode down one of the less traveled roads of my commute this morning, I came upon some city sanitation workers cleaning up a large pile of trash that had been sitting just off the shoulder for a few weeks. They were using a big dump truck and a tiny front-end loader. How many of my city tax dollars go toward this sort of thing? If you are going to take the trouble to drive to some deserted location in order to dump some trash, why not go a few miles further and take it to the dump? What I also find fascinating is that once one person dumps a few things in one spot, more items begin to appear almost instantly. An old stove is soon joined by a beat-up sofa, then a stained mattress box-spring, and so on. It’s like the first person’s criminal activity validates the next person’s. I want to interview these people and explore their reasoning. Is it that they have no problem with breaking the law, but they are considerate enough to keep all the trash in one sprawling pile as opposed to multiple piles spread out over a several-mile stretch of road? Or do they think that the trash itself has acquired squatter’s rights, and that this is now an official mini-landfill?
There are very few businesses on this road I ride on. One of them is a roofing company. Suddenly one day a pile of trash appeared next to their facility. Within a few days, the pile had grown quite high. Eventually they cleaned it up and posted a big sign proclaiming no illegal dumping, and warning that the location was under police surveillance. I was dubious about the potential of this sign to ward off dumpers, given that it was scrawled in childlike writing with blue spray paint, and that they gravely misspelled the word “surveillance.” Sure enough, recently I noticed that a discarded child’s car seat along with some other trash had appeared next to the roofing company. Soon these items welcomed a soiled mattress into their midst, and once again the pile has begun to grow.
Posted by sean on October 29, 2008
https://sd-stewart.com/2008/10/29/illegal-dumping/
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