Quote:

Interestingly, I was recently pulled over by some cops while driving along Merseles St after I honked my horn at two pedestrians who decided to run across it (it's four lanes wide!) It was dark outside (about 8 PM?) and I had the green light in my favor. The cops didn't ticket me, but insisted that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way, even when the light is against them. I vaguely remember reading the applicable legal codes and I am fairly certain the cops were wrong, but I wasn't about to get into an argument with the officers and I could tell they just wanted to give me a warning, so I let it go and continued on my way after our brief exchange. My point? If cops don't know or understand the applicable laws, it is a bit of a stretch to expect civilians to know and follow the laws.

Work?! I would have asked to be taken to the Trolley Car Bar for a stiff drink.

While drivers can be bad, aggressive and obviously far more dangerous than pedestrians, pedestrians themselves can be very, very careless.

I have this pet idea for improving pedestrian safety. The white bars for a crosswalk and the crossing zone at a traffic light (controlled intersection), need to look wildly different. There are so many confused pedestrians I encounter who think if they are walking on a crosswalk, that they have right of way. They do, if it is an uncontrolled intersection, they don't if it is controlled and they don't have the light. The road surface for these two cases needs to be markedly different for today's distracted peds.

It's not clear, but the way I'm reading it the pedestrian was crossing against the red 'hand' when the driver had the green arrow to cross left onto westbound Manhattan from northbound JFK. You see this all over JC, and it screws up traffic flow.

The Good Slamaritan

Patrick Villanova | The Jersey Journal

A 19-year-old Jersey City man was hit by a car while crossing the street yesterday in the Heights and then driven to work in the vehicle that struck him, police said.

The bizarre series of events began when the Vroom Street resident was crossing Manhattan Avenue at Kennedy Boulevard shortly before 6:20 p.m. The man was in the crosswalk while the light was red when an Infiniti G35 made a left turn onto Manhattan Avenue and struck the right side of his body, according to a police accident report.

After the accident, the occupants of the car drove the man down the street to his place of employment on the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Routes 1&9. However, the car then fled before police arrived, the report stated.

More