The Daily News reported today that a child walking home from school with his aunt was hit and killed by a vehicle making a right hand turn on Third Avenue in Brooklyn. That is the second time in recent memory that a child has been killed by a vehicle making a right turn on that very street. Such a tragedy is every parent’s worst nightmare, and when my children were younger, it was one of my greatest fears. Not child abduction. Not sexual predators. Not terror attacks. Right turns, and left turns from narrow one-way streets.
People need to realize that it is turning cars that are most likely to run over pedestrians and cyclists. The streetscape of New York City makes it difficult for drivers to see pedestrians coming out from the corners — especially if an SUV or other large vehicle is parked there. The risk of running over a child is something I often think about when getting behind the wheel. And many drivers are more concerned about being hit themselves by other vehicles — a threat to them — than running over children. Particularly if they are driving a sedan and could be hit by an SUV — with a bumper designed to crash through the driver-side window. They are looking left — for another vehicle — not right — for a pedestrian as they move around the corner. And if they do it too slowly, they might get the horn from a vehicle behind them.
When my children were five, and were first permitted to travel by themselves around the neighborhood, I disregarded 40 years of advertising encouraging people to “cross at the green, not in between” and told my children to cross in the middle of the block, and only if there were no cars within sight. I was worried they would be run over while crossing at the corner. Later, at age 9, I spent quite a bit of time practicing with them before they started walking the mile to school by themselves. While I wanted them to understand the street grid so they wouldn’t be lost, my main concern was teaching them to look back before crossing the street. Because that is where the real danger comes from – from behind, and around the corner.
Even at age 12, when I was teaching them to move around the city by bus or subway, I was focused on this risk. I’d walk behind them and give a yelp every time they moved off the corner without swiveling their heads around to look behind them. If the driver is up high, in an SUV or truck, even a small adult is vulnerable to not being seen. You have to walk defensively. The driver in the most recent incident was given a ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. No one wants to put “my child had the right of way” on their tombstone. It is often safer to cross against traffic, if you can see no traffic is coming, than with the light. At least a red signal will be holding back those who might not see you.
Can anything be done? I can think of two possibilities. First, at the cost of making parking even more difficult, the last parking space on blocks most at risk could be replaced by an extended sidewalk. And second, perhaps a chip could be placed in each motor vehicle to turn on the radio and make a public service announcement each time a driver puts a key in the ignition. The warnings, which could be changed at inspection time to prevent people from tuning them out, could be matched to the clock and vary with the time and day of the week. On Friday and Saturday nights, the warnings could admonish the driver not to drive if they have had more than two drinks. At rush hour, they could warn against driving too closely and cutting people off because they are frustrated with traffic. Later on weekdays, when people might be going home after long days at work, the warnings could be about driving while drowsy. And before and after school, drivers could be warned about running over children while making turns.
Like most of my proposals, these run into vested interests, and are thus impractical. The practical solution is this: remember that in New York the person in the position to inflict the most damage always has the right of way, and the person most at risk had better yield. Children should be told to look backward before crossing the street, and beware of those coming at them from around the corner.