re: #705 The Other Les

One thing that I have noticed on the occasions where I have to drive my Taxi Cab through the campus of the University of Minnesota is that virtually all of the students and most of the nominal adults DO NOT LOOK TO EITHER SIDE TO CHECK FOR ONCOMING TRAFFIC WHEN CROSSING THE STREET.

This makes the process of driving through the campus rather interesting.

I’m a traffic engineer and work closely with UDOT frequently (Utah DoT). One particular crosswalk (not at an intersection but it crosses a busy street at a convenient location) near the BYU campus has gone back and forth between existing and not existing. What it comes down to is, you can have all the flashing warning lights, crosswalks, flags, and reflective street markings available to man and they make no difference if kids don’t take out their head phones, stop texting, and just look before crossing a street. Currently, there is no crosswalk due to liability, and I anectodally “learned” that not having a crosswalk at such locations is safer than a crosswalk. If there’s no crosswalk, people actually think there’s danger.