Lack of Courtesy Crossing

We have these things on the streets in our town called Courtesy Pedestrian Crossings. Do you have them too?

No, wait, wait, stop, stop.

I just did that thing there and I hate it when I do that thing, and I hate it when other people do that thing. You know what it is. Ask a question of your audience or readership. God, it winds me up and I just did it there. “Do you have them too?” Complete arsery on my part.

Richard Osman does it all the time on his House of Games show. Nobody likes Richard Osman more than I do, except possibly you, and I don’t want to criticise the lovely bloke unnecessarily. But he does this thing, and it’s clearly a production decision on the show. All the lonely people sitting at home, enjoying the quiz over their tea tray, waiting to die… let’s get them involved, lets ask them a question directly. ‘Did you get that answer?’ ‘What did you, at home, think that was?’ No. Fuck off. To me, it’s condescending and false. 

I can relate to your show well enough without you pretending you’re in the back of my telly, actually talking to me. And what happens when your show is repeated (for the twentieth time) on Dave in several years’ time and I’m dead and cremated and floating on the breeze over some weed-infested lake. Are you still talking to me then, or are you now talking to my offspring, themselves now sitting in a Lazy Boy recliner, waiting for their tea?

You can see how this shit might trigger me.

Don’t be talking to your audience as if they’re really there. Just say your piece and move on, it’s not a conversation and the more you pretend it is, the worse my eczema gets.

(clears throat)

So, yes, courtesy crossings. We have them and I don’t really care if you have them or not, or at least I’m not asking. The next paragraph is intended to tell you what a courtesy crossing is but, instead of typing it, I figured I’d copy and paste it from the road safety website, and thus save me some typing. But the aggregate time taken in typing this paragraph and in finding the paragraph to cut and paste has been far greater, so this has all been a complete waste of time. Sorry… I’m still annoyed about the Osman thing. Can you tell?

Generally, uncontrolled crossing places or courtesy crossings are designated shared areas of road. They are usually coloured, slightly raised, patterned, or cobbled sections of road. You should be aware of the potential dangers when approaching or crossing them.

Yeah. Too right. Funnily enough, the photo that goes with the cut and paste bit is from Westport, the town next to mine. So, I guess they have them too. Good to know, as Reacher says (a lot).

Pedestrian crossings are a good idea, I reckon. I’m all for ‘em. Give me a badge and a tee shirt, I’ll wear ‘em out. There’s only one real problem with them. People don’t have a fucking clue how they work. They haven’t read and digested my cut and paste paragraph and the other explanatory paragraphs that go along with it. So here’s my own cockeyed version of the rules. Perhaps the Road Safety Authority might like to adopt it as Canon. I’d do them a good deal. Anyway, here’s how they work.

a) The pedestrian has no right of way on the courtesy crossing. You present yourself at the kerb and hope that some fucker stops for you. They don’t have to.

b) Car drivers have an obligation to be at least 25% awake at the wheel, when approaching a courtesy crossing, to try to notice the poor fucker standing in the rain trying to get across the fucking road.

The non observance of these rules was demonstrated to me recently at the courtesy crossing outside of my office. An old guy waltzed straight out onto the road as a lady in a car approached him at considerable speed. The lady (it could equally have been a man) looked up from her phone and saw the guy and swerved around him like some impromptu French Connection tribute act. Then she jammed on the brakes and jumped out.

“You dozy old twat,” she roared and the old man (it could equally have been an old woman… or a young woman… you get my point). “You dozy old twat, I nearly ran you down.

The dozy old twat, sorry, old man, responded in kind.

“I was on the crossing, and you nearly ran me down.”

The lady stared at him, mouth agape. “This isn’t a crossing! It’s a… it’s a…,” she looked down at it, momentarily confused, “it’s a speed bump.”

I chipped in, rather like a Smokey Bear of courtesy crossings. (I hope my references are hitting okay today) “Sir,” I said, “you have no right of way here.” The lady smirked.

“And you, madam,” I now felt like that Inspector in An Inspector Calls, “this most certainly is not a ‘Speed Bump’. They both looked suitably cowed.

“I suggest you both go home and refamilarise yourselves with the Rules of the Road,” I concluded. And then I jumped on my white horse and rode off, remaining vigilant of road conditions at all times as I went.

Of course this isn’t quite how it went.

I think I told the old bloke to wake up and get some sense for himself and I told the wan in the car to go and read about courtesy crossings and get off her poxy phone. The truth is somewhere in there.

Look, here's the point I want to make about courtesy crossings. 

I have the measure of courtesy crossings. I use them several times every day. And if I swear in your side window as you whizz past me when I’m standing there, just know this. I’m not mad at you because you didn’t stop. I know you didn’t have to.

But I absolutely detest the fact that, as you drove past me, you never even noticed that I was there.