I want to state a few things up top, so everyone better understands where I am coming from before I get too far into my criticism of Sharon Grigsby’s column in today’s Morning News. First off, I think, in general, that Sharon is and has been a fine columnist for the paper, always willing to actually leave her desk for a story. I also like her on a personal level, though our interactions have been pretty limited.
Second, I admit I may be a bit biased here, as the woman at the center of Sharon’s lede—73-year-old Linda Pearson, killed while walking her dog near Ferguson Road at the end of November—is the mother of a longtime friend of mine, Shashana Pearson-Hormillosa. So, I acknowledge that may have gotten my dander up more than normal regarding the topic, which Grigsby states as follows:
We can wring our hands about our car-centric culture or reckless teenagers, but none of that will keep us alive. Like it or not, pedestrians — walkers, runners, bikers — have to be that wildebeest who stays hypervigilant about the lions out there.
OK. Well, that’s all fine and good, but I can tell you that the most present, alert, hyper-aware wildebeest on the savannah will still get eaten by a lion, so maybe we don’t need to spread the blame around here.
Police Chief Eddie García told me Monday that Dallas has tallied 154 traffic-related deaths this year vs. 152 at this point last year. The 2020 total was 168, compared to 185 in 2019.
Among the causes of death so far in 2021, speed ranks first, second are pedestrian victims who failed to yield right-of-way to vehicles when crossing at spots without crosswalks or traffic lights, and third are accidents involving alcohol and/or drugs.
Category No. 2 — those pedestrian deaths that involved no driver malfeasance such as speeding or red-light running — accounts for 30% of the deaths, 46 of the 154 total.
As García interpreted those numbers, “Any time you cross without a crosswalk or traffic light, you are risking your life.”
Here are my qualifications on this topic: about a year ago, I published an entire book based on walking around this city. I haven’t gone more than a day or two in somewhere around five years without going on a long walk, usually of at least an hour. And based on the depth of my research in this field, I can tell you that, the truth is, you are in danger whether you cross at a crosswalk/traffic light or not.
(I won’t even get into the fact that the city is woefully short on crosswalks in general, especially in areas where more people are on foot, or that we are missing 2,046 miles of sidewalks. Read this great Mark Lamster piece for more on that.)
A few years ago, less than a block from our office, I crossed the street at a crosswalk, when I had the light. Perfectly legal in every way. Textbook. It was around lunchtime on a sun-filled day. Perfect light. Anyway, when I was halfway across, a truck trying to make a left against traffic only saw me at the very last moment, screeching to a halt about six inches away from my legs. I calmly pointed to the white stick figure indicating I had the right of way and kept walking. The driver, a man probably in his 50s, completed his left, and then screeched to a halt again. He opened the door of his truck and leaned out: “If you’re going to act like that, next time I’ll just hit you!” He drove on.
Is that egregious? Only slightly. I have been waiting at crosswalks, watching drivers trying to turn right at a red, just waiting for their first opportunity to go, never once looking if someone was standing there waiting to walk across the street. I only wasn’t hit because I saw they were probably going to go without checking to see if I (or anyone) was there. I have been walking through a crosswalk and someone waiting to go left hasn’t fully let me clear the space and almost clipped me because they were impatient. This kind of thing happens almost every day, and almost every time, the driver angrily yells at me or gestures at me in some way.
Earlier this year, I very narrowly avoided getting hit by a car turning right on a red, and then watched as the driver sped around the block to confront me for touching his car. He called me a gay slur. This was on a Saturday morning.
In most cases, the driver wasn’t doing anything that would fall into the category of “driver malfeasance.” They were just being assholes.
And what I am talking about is normal drivers, not even street racers. Grigsby’s column is framed like there were two people who could have done better on that Saturday afternoon when Linda Pearson was struck and killed: the driver of the racing car, and Pearson for crossing in the wrong place, something her friends had warned her about. Grigsby takes two other unrelated incidents involving pedestrians being killed and turns it into a column about paying better attention and following the rules, about how nothing can be done about the cars so watch out for yourself.
And I’m sorry, no. Linda Pearson’s death isn’t something to “both sides” about. You want to write about street racing, OK. You want to write about how this city fails its pedestrians? I’m here for it. You want to do a column about how so much of this city is not built at human scale, that we have prioritized cars above all else, that roads like Columbia Avenue and, yes, Ferguson Road are designed for cars to go fast, that they have too many lanes to safely cross at any point? I will read pretty much as many words as you can produce on the topic.
You want to remind people to be careful, to be hyper-aware? Point your finger at drivers, instead.
