A pair of cautionary jaywalking tales

I tend to have a fairly libertarian view of jaywalking, though leavened with "Don't be an idiot" kind of caveats (see http://goo.gl/X4hL2).  But a couple of incidents I saw today, within seconds of each other, provide further cautionary notes.

This was at the intersection of 17th and Stout. 17th is one-way southeast;  Stout is one-way northeast.  The light rail runs on Stout the opposite direction, SW.

(Picture/diagram below.)

A. With the traffic signal favoring 17th, guy crosses against the walk/don'twalk signal from the S corner to the W corner of the intersection, across 17th. He's glanced up the street, seen the traffic is far enough away for him to jog across, so no worries, right?

Except he drops his cigarette before making it. A rational person, fully in command of himself, would continue across.  His quick time calculation didn't include stopping and picking up the cigarette.

But, like most of us, he reacts to the immediate problem. He stops, backtracks, grabs the cigarette — then has to run to avoid being hit by a car and a bike.

B. The signal changes the other direction.  Another guy, crossing from S to E across Stout, knows the he can saunter-jog across the couple of lanes before the traffic on Stout can go from a stop, cross 17th, and hit him.

So he saunter-jogs into the street … and then hears the ding-ding of the light rail train coming SW on Stout, which he didn't see (because he only looked at the one-way traffic that would be coming NE.

At least he doesn't try to outrace the train (since I would likely have been spattered by the impact, standing on the E corner myself).  But he doesn't have time to make it back to the curb before the cars arrive.

Fortunately, there is a (very narrow) raised margin between the LTR tracks and the street lanes, and he is able to hop up on it before the (slowing) cars would run into him. I can't imagine it was comfortable with cars whizzing past one way, the train whizzing past the other, but once the train passed I saw him make it to the sidewalk.

…

So, cautionary notes.

1. Your time estimate of how long it will take you to jaywalk or cross against the signal shouldn't be "if everything goes according to plan."  If you drop something (perhaps something more important than a cigarette), or if you slip or trip … will you still be able to make it?

2. Your assumptions should always be challenged.  Like, which way threats may be coming along the street. Even on a one-way, you could have a bicycle, or a drunken driver, or, well, a train.

3. Waiting for the signal takes time, is inconvenient, and doesn't absolutely guarantee safety (cars plow through intersections all the time).  But it's certainly much safer and has a wider margin for error.