Here’s a particularly interesting take on the age old suggestion that one hold their arm out in front of themselves when crossing the street. In Lemoyne, Pennsylvania, that arm is now grasping a traffic-cone orange flag to increase pedestrian visibility.
I would be fine with this as an option for pedestrians (especially kids), were it not for this:
…there have been no recent major pedestrian accidents in those areas, Judson said. [PennLive]
Ah. Good. So the city council and police department are busy creating solutions for problems that don’t exist.
This example makes me think of the school buses in Winnipeg. I’m not sure what they’re like wherever you are, but here they are an agglomeration of mechanized arms (that stop kids from crossing the street in front of the bus), flashing & pivoting stop signs, strobe lights (a big one on top of the bus), and so on. Does all of this have an impact on school bus related accidents? Would drilling into kids commonsense rules of behaviour do the same, and instill some sense of personal responsibility?
That’s the most insidious evil of the Nanny State – the abdication of personal responsibility in favour government hand-holding.
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