Whatever happened to.....

Those commercials where they tell you not to "cross in the middle of the street", and "Cross at the green, not in between"? They used to play these with those jingles that to this day stick in my head. Anyone who grew up in the 60's and 70's knows what I'm talking about. Simple, effective commercials that kept kids from running into the road. Apparently this guy did not get the message. See? I'm not just against bad driving, I'm against bad walking and riding as well.

Good Driver TV! from Brendan on Vimeo.

The video is short and it's tough to see what's going on but basically it's a guy trying to run across route 53 but he just ran right into traffic. The alert motorist avoided running him over even though the guy did the "confused squirrel" dance in the middle of the road. "I'm going! No, I'm staying! No, I'm going again." The pedestrian was not even really that far from the crosswalk, and I am certain that he started his journey at that corner but from some reason decided darting out into traffic was a better choice.

It's amazing how often we just get an impulse in our heads and "boom", there we are, running into the road. I'm certain you have had those moments. Your driving down the road absent-mindedly and, whoops!, "holy crap that's my exit!" You're in the left lane doing seventy and you are 500 feet from the exit. Wheeee! The "jersey sweep" across 3 lanes, into the exit safety zone and off the highway you go leaving startled, angry drivers in your wake. Wouldn't it be smarter to just miss the exit, turn around and comeback? No one ever seems to think about whether or not being 1 or 2 minutes late is worth risking the lives of all the people who have had to react to an impulse. Do we, as humans, have some sort of filter that prevents us from thinking about all the horrible things that happen to us if we are rolling our cars down the road at high speed, end over end, broken glass and twisted metal shredding our delicate skin while bones shatter and brains are damaged beyond repair? It's a curious thing. Scary as hell, but curious.