Reply to Sidewalk in Bethesda to keep kids and adults safe.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

There are some excellent educational resources at this link for teaching students safe pedestrian and biking practices: https://www.saferoutespartnership.org/safe-routes-school/srts-program/basics. We can all do a lot more to work with our own kids on these safety tips, and probably more via PTAs and other school forums.[/quote]

I'll tell you what's endangering kids in my neighborhood: drivers. Drivers driving way too fast, drivers on phones, drivers disobeying the law by not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks (note that ALL intersections are crosswalks, including intersections where there aren't painted crosswalks), drivers rolling through stop signs, drivers barely even slowing down to turn right on red.

Until that changes, "safe pedestrian and biking practices" basically boils down to: Try really, really hard to stay out of the way of drivers, so that they don't hit you.[/quote]

Well the first thing you or your kids need to do is make sure you aren't dealing with one of the drivers you described. LOOK AT THE DRIVER. I never enter the street without looking at the driver. I can't understand people who just walk into the street lost in thought. MAKE EYE CONTACT. I do this as a driver, as ell -- I look at the pedestrians and make contact. I also look at the other drivers before I go. I'm paying attention. Make sure I am -- and you can bitch all you want about how unfair it is that you HAVE to do this, but I dont get the complaining. It takes a split second. It is ingrained in me, and I am making sure it is ingrained in my kids as well.

Really not that hard and not worth complaining about something this simple.[/quote]

A Walter Johnson High School student is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries this morning because a driver broke two laws - not stopping for a stopped school bus, and not stopping for a vehicle that's stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

But sure, let's keep talking about kids' behavior and how they have to focus and behave perfectly at all times if they don't want to be killed.[/quote]

Or, we can just let kids continue to be killed until drivers change. How is that any better?

[b]Teach your children to be in charge of their own safety.[/b] It is not a benefit to think others will continue to coddle your little ducklings. They clearly won't, whether they should or not.[/quote]

Like those Kennedy HS kids standing on the sidewalk were in charge of their own safety?

As long as we make it the child's responsibility to not get killed by drivers, drivers are going to keep killing children.[/quote]

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