Walking out in front of cars in modern, and old-time Phoenix, Arizona

As someone who grew up in a tiny old-fashioned neighborhood in Minneapolis, I really wasn't prepared for how dangerous Phoenix would be for humans on foot.

Back in 1977, when I was nineteen, my only experience had been driving on the little streets of my hometown, most of which didn't even have stop signs. They were called "uncontrolled intersections", and you looked to see what was around you, and yielded as necessary. Yes, of course the major streets had street lights, and there were stop signs, but mostly you just had to watch what you were doing. Most of the year you couldn't see the lines on the road because of snow, or slush, and often the signs were just completely covered with snow. Like I say, you had to look.

When I got to Phoenix, I found that cars really didn't have to look. There were clearly marked lines on the road, and every intersection had either a stop sign or a traffic light. And the streets, like the major streets near where I lived, 7th Street and Indian School Road, had traffic traveling at what looked to me as freeway speed, just inches away from where the sidewalk was. And stepping out in front of cars was something that really was taking your life in your hands.

Of course, a lot of Phoenix didn't even have sidewalks along the major streets, so cars could just pull up anywhere. I remember a lot of telephone poles lying on the ground, which were put there to discourage cars.

No sidewalks, no curbs, along McDowell Road at 52nd Street in the early 1970s

And really, people thought nothing of it, and laughed off the carnage, just like seeing cars wreck with no one wearing seat belts. I didn't think that it was funny, and I still don't. Back then I was considered kinda eccentric, and nowadays I'm seeing more and more things that can help make crossing a street in Phoenix on foot less of a death sentence.

I've been rehabbing a bad ankle for a long time now, and this morning as I walked to the McDonalds, which is about a half-mile from me, I made a special point of noticing the bumps on the sidewalk, which one of my friends on Facebook identified as tactile paving. You also see this as you leave a grocery store to go into the parking lot, and your cart goes bumpity-bumpity-bumpity. The tactile paving tells people with visual impairments that they're about to walk out in front of cars.

Yes, I know that the cars should look out for the people, but it really hasn't worked out that way. And I really don't completely blame the cars, they're used to following lines on the road, and signs, and lights. I can remember the first time I saw little tiny stop signs at the end of each row in a parking lot in Home Depot, and it told me everything I needed to know. The cars need to be told what to do. Well, the drivers do, but you see what I mean.

The 100+ years experiment of having people drive cars has been a terrible failure, and I'm hopeful that the future will be better. In the meantime, the tactile pavement will help blind people not get hit by cars.