I’ll always be a pedestrian at heart. It’s probably due to the fact that the two good’old limbs were my only mode of transportation for quite some time – and they’re still my favorite (thank you God for the blessing of healthy walking :)
But at the same time I have to admit: the moment you start commuting by car you automatically start to resent pedestrians.
Forget the nonchalant walking in front of you or the quick Mission-Impossible-like dash; what especially irritates me is that there is no attention whatsoever to the pedestrian traffic lights. You would expect people on foot to respect the “red and green” in similar fashion to the people within the four-wheeled metal boxes, no?
Anyway, not expecting Lebanese pedestrians to patiently wait for their turn like people in Tokyo – especially in Hamra where, let’s face it: the pedestrian is king (and I’ll continue enjoying that royalty feeling myself)
In the meantime, check out the below creative examples of cross walk advertising (you know, the white strips where pedestrians are supposed to cross the street at…)
Enjoy!
Dar El Akhdar
Ahhh! The good’old limbs… love walking too. Great post – I didn’t know such pedestrian crossings existed :-)
Posted by Mich | January 12, 2011, 1:59 PMWhaat?? You’ve got it all wrong! It’s drivers who don’t respect the cross walking signals! Take it from someone who walks: if I was to sit there and wait for all of the cars to stop for me – even when they are supposed to according to the cross signals, I’d never ever cross a street! The Lebanese don’t understand the concept of pedestrian right of way – many times, I’ve almost been knocked down. Seriously.
On a different note, nice find – although I have to wonder: are the point of these cross walk ads for people in high rises – coz they might just distract pedestrians (especially ones who work in advertising/branding) and might just cause an accident! :D Great find!
Posted by Danielle | January 13, 2011, 1:55 PMBut Dani – if drivers respect the traffic lights, then they’d automatically be respecting the cross walking lights, no? :) The whole signals system is based on mutual benefit i.e. when the cars are idle, pedestrians can cross the street
Though you’re absolutely right: taking into account how both drivers and pedestrians fail to mutually respect the signals here, pedestrians should continue thinking of themselves first (like all of us do in Hamra for instance)
My problem with this only lies when pedestrians lack common sense or courtesy i.e. if the light has just turned green for a driving line that is congested like crazy – pedestrians then ought to wait for the most appropriate time to cross (whether their pedestrian lights are green or not :)
And I think such ambient media is done to attract attention, period. It could be for the actual pedestrians (like the Mr. Clean example), people in neighboring buildings (probably like the McDonalds example), or even the local news channel making a report about it!
Hope you had a blast with your folks in town!
Posted by Dar El Akhdar | January 13, 2011, 2:38 PMI am a pedestrian at heart… I love it. I love walking everywhere mainly because you never miss the sights and sounds around you and I really treasure that.
The pedestrian crossings like that are really awesome. We had some awesome ones like that here in Canada… Wish they’d do more of them!
Posted by SeifAndBeirut | January 16, 2011, 4:55 AM