A note to Saint Pedestrian

Let me understand this: We have a pedestrian who bolts out against the red light into a large oncoming truck, she gets totaled, and some brain surgeon writes that the solution is to ticket more motorists. Amazing (“70-year-old woman struck by delivery truck in Glendale,” Sept. 7).

His other “remedy” is to jaywalk in mid block. There’s nothing like jumping out between two parked vehicles into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

Other than driving in Rome, I have not witnessed more offensively aggressive, or brainless, pedestrians than in Glendale — we could teach New Yorkers a real lesson. The pedestrian problem is citywide, and at all levels.

Some of the worst are in shopping malls, which are beyond the range of police control. One classic example is the Vons-Rite Aide center on North Glendale Avenue, where the kamikaze shoppers bolt out from between those massive stone columns, which are set right at the curb and provide zero visibility. They either wind up as a trash pile in front of a passing car or slam into the side of one (a neighbor had to spend more than $300 to get the side of her car repaired after one of these human cape buffaloes charged into her).

Some of the worst are the “Old Glendalians,” the grand dames, mostly in their 80s, who put on their makeup with a putty knife and cling to their Betty Hutton hairdos. They wobble out into the middle of the street, stop dead in their tracks, and give you this, “I dare you to hit me, you S.O.B.,” glare.

When I last reviewed my Lives of the Saints and Index of the Saints tomes, I failed to find any Saint Pedestrian listed. Cars/trucks may be big, but they do not have the ability to think; that is up to the pedestrian.

Think, assuming you have the capacity to do so, about what you are about to do.

Jim Weling

Glendale