As the nights get longer, Steve Schnabl writes about pedestrian safety in Oxford when the sun sets before 6 p.m.
The Winter Solstice gives us the longest darkness of any day of the year. For those of us who drive Oxford Streets at night, especially near the campus or Uptown, I WARN YOU.
A few nights ago, I drove home from Dayton, arriving about 6:45 p.m. I turned south on Patterson from 73 by the Pulley Bells and went beyond the first official crosswalk without seeing any pedestrians or robots. Approaching the second, I happened to barely notice a person stepping off the far side curb, phone in face with dark exercise pants, a dark hoodie covering the head. I had time to brake as the walker continued into my lane, never once looking in both directions.
I became old-man irate. The crosswalk was equipped with an activation button to turn on the bright flashing yellow lights around the perimeter of large crosswalk signs on both sides of the street. My walker may have been able to text with two thumbs, but did not take the time or minor effort to use a pinkie on that light button, regardless of the improved safety it provides.
This time, I only blew off steam inside the car with my windows up.
I want to note that the flashing crosswalk lights by McDonald’s and the one crossing College Corner Pike do get activated with some regularity, but drivers simply ignore the flashing lights — night or day. Unfortunately, that far away from campus, I guesstimate that it is more of us residents than students who drive illegally through the crosswalk. In the process, these drivers ignore mothers pushing strollers with a toddler in the other hand, middle school students with a fresh cup of Coke or a McFlurry, old folks walking and college students having left the bus on the corner to walk across to their off-campus apartments.
And passing a stopped school bus (rather noticeable by size) with flashing lights all over the rear and a flashing stop sign by the driver window? Parents often write in Oxford Talk on Facebook after seeing their children endangered by such illegal passing.
We have some idiot drivers. But once again, I have digressed.
Long before solar-powered warning lights on street signs, my wife walked across Spring Street from Elm toward what is now the parking lot by Patterson’s, Stewart School at that time. It was about 7 p.m., Sunday night Dec. 14, 1997, and dark. She was recovering from hip surgery and wore her favorite purple paisley ski jacket with the big white fur trim on the hood, blue jeans and white running shoes to exercise the new hip. Two or three steps from the south curb, her right leg was met below her knee by the front bumper of a Saturn, throwing her onto the hood, head busting the windshield, then her body slipped off the hood into the gutter. A student from the closest rental ran to her side, and she was coherent enough to give him our home phone number; I got the call and raced from Brookview Court to the site.
That night negatively influenced every day of our family members’ lives until wife’s death early this year; some days far worse than others.
Several years after that, black quilted hoodie North Face coats reaching down past the knee became a rage, especially hitting college campuses. Combined with jeans or black yoga pants, the white North Face logo was far too small to give enough reflection to protect walkers. Of course, being invisible at night in crosswalks, popping out between cars, crossing at an alley and the ever-popular jaywalking made me quiver in fear of accidents.
Today the long black coats, and to some degree North Face in general, are no longer en vogue. Yet a dark hoodie, blue jeans and earbuds are still a dangerous combination.
When I urge utmost caution to avoid a 1000+ pound vehicle at any rate of speed coming into even the slightest contact with a person, it’s from experience that I wish I’d never had.
Let the light return, even slowly, after Solstice.
Steve Schnabl moved to Oxford in 1985. He retired in 2023 from Oxford Seniors after a 40-year career directing nonprofits.
