Do not yield to pedestrians

Having now walked to my place of work from my place of residence every (business) day for the past two months, I have noticed a disturbing fact about motorists: they yield to pedestrians!

Now, this is not a bad thing, if I am, say, in a crosswalk.

However, I, like oh, so many other pedestrians, often try to take the most efficient path when walking, because walking is slow! This often includes walking across the street illegally, jaywalking, if you will. Now, I have never seen anyone just walk out into the street blindly (outside of a movie, anyhow); we pedestrians tend to plot out courses that will put us ahead of the car coming from the left in the near-lane¹, and behind the SUV coming from the right in the far-lane. This is a standard maneuver²! But for some reason, the peon in the SUV deems it necessary to slow down - not enough for me to walk in front of him/her³, of course, but enough to force me to stand in the middle of the road, while all the traffic which I would have conveniently dodged comes roaring by.

It's exasperating, verily it is...

So the next time you see someone crossing the road, and you feel tempted to slow down, DON'T!

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¹How ethnocentric of me! If you don't happen to live in the U.S., "ahead of the car coming from the right in the near-lane, and behind the SUV coming from the left in the far-lane" would be the correct sentence
²curses! my enthnocentricity strikes again! "A standard maneuvre". There, how's that?
³Note that I was going to pick "her", rather than "him" here, but decided that that would cause me no end of pain by perpetuating the myth(?) the women drivers are terrible, and I would certainly not want to do that...

I agree with bis, don't yield to pedestrians (unless they're in a crosswalk). Think about all the positive things that can come from hitting every pedestrian that you see who is not in a crosswalk!

First of all, if you hit illegal pedestrians, there will be less and less of them. This will not only keep you from having to slow down every time you see a pedestrian, it will also free up more time for police officers. Instead of writing tickets to illegal pedestrians, they will be able to go out and fight bigger and better crimes!

Hitting illegal pedestrians will also improve the traffic situation. If there are fewer people to slow down for, then there will be a steady speed for drivers when driving down the road. In other words, less pedestrians, means less slowing down, which allows a steady speed.

So, to sum up, not only would hitting pedestrians help bring an end to crime, it will also end traffic problems. This also goes for anyone on a bike, skates, or skateboarding. Hitting pedestrians is not only fun, but also beneficial.