New York City Traffic: Playing a Real-Life Game of Frogger

While I've never been a great fan of the old computer game Frogger, you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise as I play this dangerous game on a regular basis in real life along with thousands, if not millions, of others in New York City when trying to cross two-lane roads where the traffic flows in both directions. This is caused, in part, by the generally atrocious driving skills and poor driving etiquette of most New York drivers. In Manhattan, you expect homicidal taxi cabs, impatient delivery vans and visually impaired messenger bikers to try to run you down. But in the boroughs, too, the drivers are impatient, aggressive and oftentimes stupid. The other half of the equation involves the timing set up of (most) of the traffic lights I see during the course of my dangerous vehicle-dodging days.

The main problem is that the pedestrian is definitely treated as a second class citizen when it comes to crossing 2-way traffic. At no time does he/she have the luxury of walking across 2 way traffic lanes without having to worry about watching for cars trying to run him/her down from some direction. Although the welcoming green-man blinking light beckons for the pedestrian to cross, the cars coming up from the cross-streets are trying their best to beat that light before it changes back to red and swerve at ridiculously tight angles into the main street with little or no regard for the pedestrian. Indeed if they do stop it's as if they're doing you a favor, sometimes they'll even honk you across; these are times when my middle finger (sometimes fingers plural) comes into play.

What there should be is at least a few seconds where no cars can move at all, either on the main road obviously but also on the side roads that run into it. Say 3 or 4 seconds to at least give the pedestrian a fighting chance to cross or at the very least get half way across the street without having to watch what's coming around the corner to blind-side them. Some lights only give you about 3 seconds of green blink age before flashing violently ,threatening to revert to the don't walk sign. Many is the time I've seen older personages panicking trying to figure just how they can traverse roads that don't seem to be giving them a fighting chance to get across. God knows how blind people get around. The blinking green man image should I feel be replaced with a 'good luck' image because it's only good luck and being ultra-aware that's enabled me to survive to the age I am now.

Curiously enough, on some of the bigger wider streets the safest time to cross may well be when the red light is showing. If you have good visibility at least ½ mile in either direction you will find it far safer and less stressful to cross when the light is actually against you. This is simply for the fact that you won't get side-swiped from any merging cross-street vehicles that are forced stop. Certainly some roads are better than others and this is not always advisable. The visibility of merging traffic and timing differs depending on where you are. But certainly roads that show a higher accident rate than others should be re-evaluated and the timings of the lights altered in order to save lives, which I think is a good enough reason. It would be interesting to discover just how many pedestrians are killed at traffic junction lights that are red as against those that are green. In any case perhaps some day I will be able to cross on green without becoming froggy road kill.