Fous au volant

A couple weeks ago, I was crossing a busy intersection on my daily route to school. As I was a few minutes late, I looked both ways and began running across the street. I didn't have the right-of-way, but the intersection was clear in the directions of traffic as far away as I could see and our turn to cross the street was next. What's more, another student was just a few steps ahead of me.

As I was almost across the street, a car crested the hill opposite the intersection from where I was crossing at a speed greatly exceeding the steeet's residential speed limit. Floating lightly on its suspension, the car cruised through the intersection, swerving to avoid me. The driver angrily laid on the horn as the light changed in the intersection.

As I reflect on the experience, I realize how close I came to suffering serious bodily injury or death. I recently married, and I couldn't help but think about the heartache such an accident would have caused my dear wife. Should I have run into the road without the right-of-way? In retrospect, it seems more than just foolish or even reckless. But another question has occupied my attention even more the last few weeks:

What's up with the dangerous combination of absent-minded pedestrians and angry drivers in Provo?

I am convinced that Provo has the worst drivers and the most thoughtless pedestrians of any city in America. Pedestrians all over the city cross the street without looking either way. A couple days ago, a girl used a crosswalk at an intersection I was driving through. Staring at her iPod, with her headphones in, she sauntered into the street, ignorant she didn't have the right-of-way. What was she thinking? Cars slowed for her, but she's lucky she didn't get hit. At least in my case I had looked both ways before crossing the street and tried to determine it was safe to do so. This girl didn't even acknowledge the existence of the cars in the street she was crossing.

I'm not sure what causes such absent-mindedness in a city so full of college students. My university is a respectable school with a difficult application and admissions process; how is it we have such a high concentration of thoughtless, selfish individuals?

Before you judge me too judgmental, let me expound. I am of the belief that, despite everything we've been taught and the fact that we should know better, students at this university are essentially selfish individuals. This explains apathy to common-sense safety practices, like looking before crossing a street, as well as the reason my neighbors think it's okay, in their perceived haste, to occupy two spaces in our apartment complex's crowded parking lot. I guess staying between the lines is too much to ask.

Thoughtless interaction between pedestrians and drivers is only exacerbated by police attitudes toward j-walking. In a recent report in my university's newspaper, the local police department was quoted as saying its officers are more prone to ticket drivers not stopping for pedestrians, even when they aren't using crosswalks, than they are to ticket pedestrians for j-walking.

This "carte blanche" the police department has effectively granted pedestrians might be to blame for such deplorable public behavior as crossing (at a crosswalk or otherwise) a street without looking, but what explains other inexcusable lacks of driver etiquette, like never letting anyone in, crossing into the right-hand lane when turning left, turning left well after the arrow has expired, and the ever-unsafe "I'm-letting-you-turn" maneuver? What about all the other directions and lanes of traffic, are they all letting you in?

Has anyone else experienced this, or do I just expect too much from the drivers around me?