Common Sense for Pedestrians

I was riding my bike to work today and I cut through downtown to avoid the windy corridor of Oak Street and Taste of Chicago. It was a pain to bike through downtown because of all the stoplights, mostly. There was also an annoying pedestrian, a guy walking with his nose buried in the Wall Street Journal. In general, I don't have a problem with people walking and reading as long as they are will to be slow and kind of passive. In other words, they are fine as long as they follow the traffic signals and make it easy for people to go around them.

So I passed WSJ dude on my bike and then had to wait at a light. He proceeded to walk and stand directly in front of my bike at the street corner, only to begin reading his paper again. WTF?!

I had another similar issue with a pedestrian when I was visiting Chapel Hill last week. Some dude was standing on the street corner with his head buried in a map. The light turned green and there he was, buried in his map, not moving. I began to make a right turn, and lo and behold he stepped off the curb (not paying attention) and I had to swerve out of the way. "It's okay! I'll wait!" he yelled after my car angrily.

In these situations, both people have a responsibility to be attentive to their surroundings. Pedestrians certainly have the right-of-way, except when they are being total bozos and not paying attention.