Let’s be honest, shouldn’t runners ALWAYS have the right of way? 😉
**I’ll put my disclaimer here at the onset so as to avoid any emails or comments reminding me about how important runner road safety is: ALL RUNNERS on the road need to be incredibly safe and conscientious of their surroundings. Awareness is imperative because most drivers not all drivers pay attention. I got hit by a car, it wasn’t fun, but I also know I wound up lucky because these accidents are far too common.
That said, I’ve professed my love of sarcasm and snarkidtude.
There should be a special kind of light that senses oncoming runners and automatically configures the stop lights accordingly. I mean they do it for fire trucks and ambulances, right?
That goes exponentially when it comes to actual hard workouts and tempo runs if you’re not blessed with a bike trail or a track to run them on. “I’m sorry, YOU are going to have to just honk away because if I stop now my heart rate will dip, thus negating the point of this tempo run.”
If I started just putting this random sign up do you think people would mind? It’s not tagging, and I mean runners would sort of be a ‘friendly gang’ if it were considered as such anyways.
Alas, alas, where’s the respect? Apparently getting to their jobs, making it to Starbucks for their fix, and Driving Miss Daisy has got people too impatient to give every runner, every time, everywhere the right of way. 😉
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Revisit my post on Road Running Safety.
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1) Ever had a driver actually stop to let you pass when the didn’t have to.
Actually the STRANGEST thing happened to me once running in Seattle. There was no enforced traffic signs on a road, I saw a bus coming so started to stop to let it pass by, but the driver caught my eye, put on the breaks, STOPPED, and waved me forward. It was surreal, I’m sure I could almost hear the passengers complain, but I waved a big thanks! Haha.
2) Do you do much of your running on the road and around traffic? How do you stay aware and safe?
3) Do you run with an iPod or music when you’re on the road?
No, but I never run with music
4) If I put up this sign how fast do you think other people would take it down? 😉
I have had people stop to let me cross the road before, and it is always a complete surprise! I do a lot of my running on 35-40 MPH roads (that people tend to go 45-55 MPH on) that has no shoulder and for the most part has a sharply slanted ditch on the side. Really safe, I know. I think they would be considered “back country roads” and they wind through the rural area where I live, but that doesn’t mean there’s not at least 10 vehicles going by while I run. I try and run right on the white line or in the grass/ditch area if possible when drivers go by. Most slow down if they see me (these roads are also curvy and have a lot of blind curves… the safety level goes down even more haha) and some even cross the double yellow if there’s no oncoming traffic. However, others speed up and some even seem to try and pass me as close as they can.
I never run with music on the road, but sometimes I run with music on the trail. I always keep one earbud out so I can hear what’s going on around me, though.
Put the sign up and let’s see how it does!! 🙂
sounds like a plan, i’ll start making ’em, i’ll ship u a few so we can do this teamwork style. 😉
YES! I HATE stopping for cars. Don’t they know I’m tracking my times?!
seriously, no respect for heart rate and splits! 😉
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