The Wrath of the Crossing Guard

One of the less savory aspects of living and working in Pittsburgh is the adversarial relationship drivers have with any one other than another person in a four wheeled, gas powered, moving machine. Pedestrians and cyclists are considered fair game to be run down at any moment.

This has lead to more than a few incidents of drivers obscenely gesturing, yelling (“fat ass” remains a personal favorite) and nudging me as I legally cross the byways of Pittsburgh city streets.

The intersection of Forbes and Murray is an especially bad location to be a pedestrian at any time of the day. Because of the high volume of both vehicular and foot traffic and the close proximity of half the schools in Pittsburgh, the city has deemed it necessary to put in a four way stop to allow pedestrians a sporting chance at getting across the street without getting maimed.

Not that this discourages the most aggressive of Pittsburgh's drivers, fond as they are of running the red light to make an illegal right turn, thus accomplishing the task of mowing down walkers from two directions instead of one.

Enter the crossing guard, posted at the intersection in the mornings and mid-afternoons during the school year to add an extra visual element of safety to perilous street crossings. They can't stop a speeding SUV with a single bound or write tickets. But they can and will stop drivers breaking traffic laws and yell at them. Loudly. For extended periods of time.

As I mentioned above, the intersection of Forbes and Murray is not the safest in the city, in spite of the four way stop. Earlier this summer a truck missed hitting me by inches when it ran the red light on Murray to turn right onto Forbes while I was crossing Forbes. He never slowed down and never saw me. The only reason he did not hit me was that I saw him first. The only satisfaction I could get from the incident was knowing how much of a world of trouble he would have been in once he learned he hit a pregnant woman.

So it was a wonderful sight to witness the man in the black SUV get caught attempting the same maneuver on Thursday morning. Never did the sound of a whistle sound so sweet to my ears.

Not only did the crossing guard stop the driver, she approached his SUV and yelled at him. Sternly, loudly and unreasonably. She made such a scene that the driver began to back the SUV up to get away from her. And made his second mistake of the morning.

He did not look behind him before he started backing up. Because he did not look behind him, he did not see me crossing behind his SUV* and nearly hit me. Which provoked the crossing guard into yelling at him some more, accompanied chorus of citizens, including a city employee collecting change out of the meters. A mass of humanity descended upon this man in a SUV at 7:55 on a Thursday morning.

*Yes, I know, I should have walked in front of the SUV. Past experience has taught me that is safer to go behind the vehicle instead of in front of it, since drivers have been known to “nudge” pedestrians along with their vehicles.