Dear Editor,
This happened to me twice yesterday: In the morning in the Village and the afternoon at the corner of Neely and McKinley avenues: I was almost hit by a moving car. The first time, it was by a car wanting to beat the cross traffic while I was 2 to 3 steps into the crosswalk, and the second time by a car going eastbound on Neely Avenue and turning left onto McKinley Avenue.
Here is the relevant passage from Chapter 3 - in the section on "Pedestrian Safety" - of the Indiana Driver Manual: "Crosswalks or the existence of a pedestrian signal indicates pedestrians are nearby. Please follow these rules and guidelines when pedestrians are in the vicinity of your vehicle: Always yield the right-of-way to pedestrians; do not make a turn that causes a pedestrian to stop, slow down or make some other special effort to avoid a collision."
A bit of translation for this afternoon's incident: When the walker has the pedestrian "walk" signal and the driver wishing to turn has the green, the driver must give way to the pedestrian. Maybe the driver should have put her phone down and been a bit more attentive to her surroundings. Maybe she was confused by the Scramble Light, where there is a clearer sense of when pedestrians should cross - though in a year and a half, as I understand it, that corner will have the same signals as the one at the corner of Neely and McKinley avenues.
On a similar note, why are there "no turn on red" signs on only three of the Scramble Light corners, thus allowing cars traveling in one direction to turn into pedestrians on a red signal?
On a campus with so many pedestrians and cars, courtesy and awareness must rule - though the least we can do is observe the actual rules of the road.
When I was chairman of the Department of English, I had the sad duty of working with a student hit on McKinley Avenue by a car, and the student could no longer finish the requirements of her graduate degree. Don't allow that to happen to another student, faculty or staff member or visitor to this campus ever again.
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