West Temple and 150 South
This is a mid block crosswalk that I use on average about twice a day. This crosswalk is the best way to cross if you need to get over from the Salt Palace to City Creek Center or vice versa (thinking as a convention attendee. Well, they all use the light but they should cross here). I guess it is probably (kind of) safer to cross at the light up the block but this is always faster and much less confusing for pedestrians and drivers, although this assumes that you have the attention of the driver as the pedestrian. I like this crosswalk BUT you have to be willing to walk defensively. And sometime offensively. You’ve got to know how to stare down drivers in a friendly but dominant manner that lets them know you ain’t messin’ around. If you act like you don’t know what you are doing and you are trying to get across the street say, around lunch time, you’re going to be sore out of luck and a lot safer at a crosswalk with a light.
Anyway, this crosswalk has no flags, but it does have a crossing light signal. The yellow flashing kind that doesn’t do much during the day. It especially doesn’t do much when you cannot activate it from one side of the street and only one side flashes, which happens to be the case with this particular crossing. It is better than nothing though. I have almost gotten hit 2 or 3 times at this crosswalk. Honestly I probably would have at least once if I hadn’t been paying better attention. Besides the people who are talking on their phones, or chatting with like all ten of the other people they have in their car, or who have some sort of strange rage at pedestrians who are crossing legally, I kind of get it. Mid-block crosswalks are easy to miss unless you have a red light and a crossing countdown to abide. Vehicles who do see you as a pedestrian and decide to stop before you step out on to the street are more likely to wait till you have walked far enough for them to legally start driving in my experience. Most of the time it is the cars that didn’t really notice you and stopped just short of the crosswalk and then only because you are menacingly staring them down^ that start driving again as soon as they think they can probably get by without killing you.
Flags help! For some reason, people see flags more than they see people without flags. It is probably the bright colors and reflectivity and science reasons, but I like to believe there is something special about people who pick up flags when they cross the street. A lot of people who are willing to pick up flags, and that is not an overwhelming percentage of individuals, like to dance around and be very apparent in lots of other sassy awesome ways. It is usually that, or they have kids. Or they are kids. (I don’t mean you can’t be awesome with or as kids, just that people with kids are more concerned about crossing safely. Kids just like flags).
Back to pedestrian assertiveness. Or Road Dominance. You know, whatever works. People who are in crowds are much more likely to be comfortable and assertive about crossing the street. That makes sense because the more people there are the less likely you are to be the one getting hit. Just kidding. More people means higher visibility and depending on the crowd size, cars literally can’t get through. Also people who are from the area and know what to expect around certain crosswalks are going to be more confident, and arguably safer as well. If you don;t know if you are going be able to get across a street using a certain crosswalk and you exude that mentality, cars are just going to go for it. Also, people that continue to drive at a pedestrian in a crosswalk, or who think scaring pedestrians with their car by edging forward is funny, or who get angry a pedestrians and drive really close past them, do not seem to understand that they are taking a deadly weapon and jokingly or angrily saying to this pedestrians: "my time and happiness is more important than your life.”
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