Chicago "Be Safe, Be Alert" Campaign

A sign on the ground, at a downtown Chicago intersection

That's eight to nine people a day, on average, being hit by cars.  Obviously pedestrians, motorists and cyclists all have be more careful.

On one of my first trips to Bahrain in the Middle East, two friends and I visited the souq (markets).  These are mostly street merchants and tiny shops, crowded together in a small swath of Bahrain.  The streets were so narrow, that you could barely fit two cars side by side.  Still they accommodated two-way traffic.  One friend was a local (i.e., Bahrani), and he had absolutely no qualms walking on the street, right in front of cars.  They weren't driving very fast, mind you.  But to me they were going fast enough to make me feel tense just following my friend.  The other friend was Russian, and her comfort level seemed midway between his and mine.  

What was even worse was Cairo.  I was there only for a day to deliver a workshop, but en route to-and-from the airport and the venue, pedestrians crossed the streets left and right and seemingly everywhere.  Thankfully I was not among them, but as I sat in the taxi, I noticed myself pressing an imaginary brake with my right foot, from the backseat.  We must've been going at a clip of 35 - 40 MPH, so not really slow at all.  But pedestrians hardly looked left and right, in the way that we Americans are accustomed to doing, since we were children.  All I could do was pray that everyone stayed safe.  

It was as if people in Bahrain and Cairo, and other Middle Eastern cities I traveled to, were still living in, and thus had the mindset of, olden times.  They were largely aware of the dangers of present day city life, it seemed.  One time in Dubai, I saw a family walking on the median, during afternoon rush hour, amid traffic to-and-from Mall of the Emirates.  The parents walked, as their three young children raced ahead and played along with each other.  I shuddered.  My wife and I have a daughter, and either we held her hands together or I carried her myself, as we crossed busy streets.  

www.ChicagoPedSafety.org 

All I can say is, Thank goodness Chicago has a campaign like this.