If you are now or have ever been a pedestrian, this has happened to you: You’re walking. You stop at an intersection to wait for a break in traffic. Cars are coming and going. You observe, “It’s cool that they’re all taking the ‘20 Is Plenty’ yard signs seriously.” As the last car in the line approaches, it slows. It stops. You look around. Are they picking up a rideshare client? Is there a child capering dangerously nearby? NO. They’re doing the little half-hand wave like the fucking Queen of England. This magnanimous regent of the road has deigned to upend the rules of ordinary traffic flow and give you the inappropriate right-of-way!
In Portland I encounter the inappropriate right-of-way DAILY. At lunch there was an Acura covered in mountain bikes that STOPPED at a GREEN LIGHT, waiting for me to jaywalk. I offered a gamut of incredulous expressions before I just gave up and looked at my phone. They left at some point. I’m still standing at that street corner because I’m afraid of getting run over.
You see, in a situation such as this, as soon as you begin to cross the road, the car in question—this half rebel/half regent—will start easing into the intersection. They wanted to give you the road, but they didn’t think it would TAKE SO LONG. You stop. They wave again. Their eyebrows form a severe “V.” You wiggle your fingers like, “You’re the big car that can do murder/manslaughter. Why don’t you go first?” And sure, that was the original idea. But I’m not trying to bruise the ego of a three-ton metal battering ram. Sometimes, at this juncture, they just go. OR THEY RAISE THEIR TINY ARMS IN CONSTERNATION AND ROAR “GO GO GO GO” like a small, red-faced king of the lizards.
So you step into the road. And they do a start-stop that sounds like a coach’s whistle farted. “I want to hug my family once more before I die!” you shout. “I don’t like your shoooes!” they scream back. As you parkour over their hood, flipping them off, a different car passes them on the left and creams you good.
The inappropriate right of way is an unusual traffic problem because it’s not rooted in impatience. It feels very Portland-specific—our city’s notorious flakiness and overwrought examination of social situations is on full display. (Guilty as charged!) Another contributing factor: Most of Portland has 200-square-foot blocks. This makes us a walkable city with lots of retail space, but also gives people more intersections to traverse. I feel bad for anyone trying to drive downtown at lunch, after work, or—the true gauntlet—around a sports game.
On one memorable occasion I was in a crosswalk, and a car screeched to a halt. “Make eye contact with me!” the driver shouted. “Sir, I am married,” I said, but he was right. Communication between cars and drivers is like a mini cotillion and as impossible as it feels to have 100 meet-cutes with drivers at intersections, the best approach is probably to calm down and communicate. But cars—oh my god—just go already!
Counterpoint:
When Driving:
Under Oregon law (OR 811.028) every intersection is a legal crosswalk. You must
stop for people showing intent to cross the street at a marked or unmarked
crosswalk or at a marked mid-block crosswalk.
https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Safety/Documents/2-sidedPostcard.pdf
Let us talk instead of the people who refuse to pull into the intersection while waiting for oncoming traffic to present the chance to take an unsheltered left hand turn. I have, on multiple occasions, had to sit through an additional red light because the person trying to make a left in front of me didn’t go when the light turned yellow, which would have been fine if they had pulled into the intersection when they had the green light like they do literally anywhere else in this country.
Irritatingly this also means that when you’re in the left hand turn lane cars making a left from the perpendicular light end up veering into your lane because, as they started the turn from behind the crosswalk rather than a car length into the intersection, their left hand turn was too wide. Once I actually had to back my car up five feet so someone doing this could get by me.
This is, as far as I can tell, specifically a Portland thing.
I can’t believe an article about pedestrian right-of-way manages to ramble on for 7 paragraphs and not actually mention the pedestrian right-of-way state law.
I get what you’re saying, Suzette, how truly embarrassing it must have been to have a car try to yield to you at a green light. But encouraging readers (drivers) to disregard the traffic law? Worse yet, not even mentioning the existence of said traffic law in your article… tone deaf and foolish.
You guys can say every intervention is a legal all you want but according to ORS 814.010 you are encouraging the pedestrian to break the law by waving them across a controlled intersection.
4) A pedestrian facing a traffic control device with a steady red light shall not enter the roadway unless otherwise directed by a pedestrian control signal.
To be clear, I’m not defending any driver that stops at a green light to yield to a pedestrian awaiting a walk signal. But let’s get real, how often does that even happen? I’ve never seen that happen. Has anyone besides the author of this article ever seen that happen? Anyone? I think it’s safe to say drivers attempting to give right-of-way to peds at green lights is a solid non-issue.
I’m talking about drivers that fail to yield to peds at both marked and unmarked crosswalks, which account for the vast majority of intersections. The author appears to think drivers should ignore peds waiting to cross (and you know, the law) so as not to disturb traffic flow (or something).
Pedestrians in Portland are almost as bad as the drivers. Everyday I see a walker, eyes on their cell phone, walk straight into the path of oncoming cars, runners – too far up the street to be seen by the drivers entering the intersection – bolt into the crosswalk right in front of moving vehicles. Regardless of the law the old saying – whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone its going to be bad for the pitcher – is true. And we didn’t even talk about bicyclists who want to be both vehicles and pedestrians as well as ignore every stop sign they come to. I’m old and have a bad knee so I drive. Daily, cars ahead of me on through streets simply stop for no reason. Maybe there are looking to see where they are but perhaps it would have been good to find out ahead of time where they are going rather than sort of feeling their way along like they are hiking trailess through an unknown forest. One more thing I hope someone can help me with: why do cars slow down and sometimes stop half way through a turn? I’m ready to stop driving in NW Portland – perhaps I should for my mental health.
Finally somebody says what I experience all the time in Portland. As a cyclist this happens to me daily. Usually I’m at a stop sign coming from a smaller neighborhood street, waiting for a break in traffic to cross a larger Ave. I’m not a pedestrian on a sidewalk jaywalking across the middle of the street. Aren’t I like anyone sharing the roads & obeying the traffic laws?
Usually I’m also mentally timing when it’s safe for me to cross. Just like the driver of a car in the same situation would. The oncoming car stops in the middle of the Ave. They don’t have a stop sign & I’m not at a crosswalk. They proceed to waves me on. But I’m at a stop sign. No driver would ever do this for a car attempting to cross. Unless they where just cutting someone off dangerously. Now if I choose to take them up on this gracious offer, I have to hope the oncoming traffic on the other side decides to follow suit & stop too. But I’m waiting, puzzled as to why they stopped at all? My timing has totally thrown off. Cars are now stopped behind them. Safety is out of the equation…As the driver, why not just go, never stopping at all on a busy avenue? Then I cross when it’s safe, no disruptions in traffic flow, no pretense of being considerate while actually disrupting the whole process?