Forum Overview :: Tansin A. Darcos's Alter Ego
 
California v. Arizona drivers, a look back at 1977 by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 06/06/2018, 6:39pm PDT
I first learned to drive in and was licensed in California around 1977. I, of course, having walked, taken a bus or rode a bicycle everywhere was a professional pedestrian. Robert A. Heinlein, the science fiction author who had lived in Los Angeles in the 1960s, said that there are only two classes of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

So basically, if you needed to cross a street at an intersection not protected by a traffic light, you stood at the corner and waited until there were no cars coming. Cars stopping foir a pedestrian in a marked crossing? Ha ha ha hee hee hee oh whoever heard of such a ridiculous thing. So I was used to this.

Flash forward a few years and our family decided to move from Long Beach to Texas. This will take one through Arizona, specifically Phoenix and Tucson.

One day I was parked either in a lot or on the street in Phoenix and I was going to cross a major street, very busy. So I walked up to the corner, and was watching the traffic. In the space of perhaps five seconds, something amazing happened. The cars stopped! Because I was standing at the corner and wanted to cross, cars on both sides of the street stopped so I'd be able to cross.

I was so amazed at this I realized it must be standard practice outside of California and adopted it when I was driving past a crosswalk.
REPLY QUOTE
 
California v. Arizona drivers, a look back at 1977 by Commander Tansin A. Darcos 06/06/2018, 6:39pm PDT NEW
 
powered by pointy