The mindful pedestrian

The other day while driving with the HyWy I noticed something that really annoys me and the HyWy suggested that I blog it.  As I write this I feel like I have written about it before, but I can't find the post.  Anyways I can't stand it when a pedestrian runs to cross at a crosswalk, but then walks at the critical moment.  For example you are stopped at a red light and the crosswalk timer is running out.  Approximately 2-3 seconds from running out a pedestrian runs to the intersection.  In this example the road is say 2 lanes each side and a median so it will take about 10 seconds to cross.  Once in the intersection the pedestrian strolls on through the intersection ignoring the fact that the light has turned green and now cars are waiting to move on.  The pedestrian ran to start crossing the street, but then walked at the critical moment (when the cars were waiting).  Naturally there are plenty of exceptions to this (elderly or disabled people moving slowly through an intersection), but there are a number of situations where this happens just as I have described.  An addendum to this that I see all the time is when a car is waiting to turn right and a pedestrian crosses half the crosswalk in a straight line and then the other half walks diagonally such that they reach a point farther down the sidewalk than if they had continued in a straight line.  I have done this, but try to avoid doing this if there is a car waiting on me so I understand why one would do it.  However, when there is a car waiting the pedestrian is essentially taking the longest route to the sidewalk so the car has to wait the longest time possible. 

Now by no mean am I saying that drivers are always in the right or for that matter that I'm always doing the right thing as a pedestrian or driver.  These are just two situations I encounter regularly enough that they make me pause and think.  They make me think enough that I try to be mindful of the drivers when I'm a pedestrian keeping in mind the things that annoy me.