I completely understand that the pedestrian has the right of way. I was taught that from a very young age. I remember as a young boy walking across a couple of busy intersections. In school they used to teach us to look both ways before crossing. Now maybe it's just me, but doesn't a little common sense have to come into play here? After you check both ways, shouldn't you also ensure that the way is clear before crossing? I don't undestand a bunch of school kids who look, and seeing a barrage of cars......cross anyway. Do they not realize that some cars are paying as little attention as they themselves are? Is it really gonna matter who has the right of way, if somebody gets splattered all over the road? On the headstone it will read "Here lies little Jimmy...... He had the right of way".

The reason for this little tantrum, is because of this afternoon on the way home.
I had sorta finished early and decided to come on home. I pass through a couple of small towns before I get to my small town, and decided to stop in one of them for a quick lunch. I hit a bad time since school was recently out. All the school kids were walking down the sidewalk. I noticed that they were crossing the street up ahead of me in little groups. Now instead of walking an extra half a block and crossing at the light, the kids were crossing at a crosswalk with no light. First of all what kind of backward town has crosswalks in the middle of the busiest street in the whole dang town? I am if nothing else a good ol' boy, but even I see how senseless it is too have a crosswalk in the middle of the street and then at the traffic light. This goes on through the whole street, which by the way is about 2 1/2 to 3 miles long. So anyways, I'm noticing these kids crossing in little groups, and they are for the most part waiting for traffic to calm before attempting the cross. Enter my group of kids. I say my group because these are the adorable little children who chose to cross as I was appoaching the middle of the street. About 4 of them were joking and laughing and they just started walking. Now I knew that I would pass well before they got to me, but the cars on the others side of the road slammed on their brakes. These kids didn't even look at the cars that nearly had an accident avoiding them. I stopped right in the middle of the cross walk. They almost ran into my truck because they couldn't even look far enough in front of themselves to see that a truck was parked in their way. Finally one of them looked up and then looked at me. He just stood there, didn't try to go around me or back up. Just staring at me with who knows what on his mind. I rolled down the window and proceeded to expalin to him that he was asking for a large helping of hurt if he didn't pay a little more attention to what he was doing (maybe not as G rated as that). He flipped me off. Yeah this 14 or 15 year old kid flipped me off. then he started to walk around my truck. I was sort of stunned that this kid thought it was acceptable to nearly cause an accident and then flip off the guy that warned him of what he did. So I pulled forward a little bit as he was going around me (he wasn't smart enough to go behind the vehicle). At that point he got the idea that maybe I wasn't the best person to flip off. He sort of trotted across the street with his friends quickly following him. I rolled down the other window and explained to him that I would be back tomorrow to see if he wanted to offer up that finger to me again. Only this time I was bringing my under 18 son with me. Now I know that I got down to his level on this one, but I can't understand the throught process here. Can someone please tell me, who is teaching our kids that it's ok to show a complete and utter lack of respect to everyone and everything around them? Now I'm starting to sound like the old farmer that used to cuss me all the time when I was a kid. Of course when I was getting yelled at I stood there and took it then I apologized for doing whatever dumb thing I was doing when I got caught....

Ok I feel a little better now. But I'm still going to go back there tomorrow with my boy and see if this kid is really brave or really dumb. Either way, he and I are going to have us another chat....