Its called a pedestrian crossing - LADY!

I started work yesterday with my beautiful two girls in Amaroo - C and A.

C's mum took her up to school for her first day of Kindy in the morning so A and I headed into Gunghalin town centre for a wander around the shops, a trip to McDonald's and to buy C a special "starting school" present - to help A understand that her world was going to be a little different nowadays - but that it was something to be celebrated - so we chose matching pens for the girls so that when C came home from school in the afternoons, the girls could sit there and draw together - something to look forward to for A!

A was so perfectly behaved all morning!

When I arrived at 8am, C was champing at the bit to get to school, so her mum and dad (who was on his way to Sydney - guess who gets to be part of the Edinburgh Tattoo at Moore Park - SO jealous!!) bundled her into the car and headed up to the school before 8:30am - A (who had been promised a bus ride) was desperate to catch the bus so we headed off too....

We got to Gunghalin just before 9am and went to Gloria Jean's for a strawberry chiller and a babycino... then we wandered around the shops for a while. A scored a balloon from the shop attendant at Millers which was great because I knew that C would be coming home from school in the afternoon with a balloon as well (an aide to help the kindy's stay together in their classes initially - they each get given a particular coloured balloon - their teacher has the same colour and they just need to follow that balloon or colour around for the morning - how clever - and necessary in a school with 8 kindy's!)

So we window shopped for a while and then bought the special pens for C and A and headed across to McDonald's which was very exciting because by then A trusted me enough to let me hold her hand ALL the way across the car park, across the road and ALL the way to McDonald's - we'd spent the morning building up to that!

As A and I headed across the road there was a car in the distance. We weren't jay-walking, we had crossed at a traffic island. As the car roared up the street, the driver was forced to slow down as by the time she got to us we still had 5 - 6 steps to take to make it to the median refuge point. A 2 year old toddling along at toddler speed and me limping on the remains of my broken leg...

She pulled a face and as I looked back at her as she roared past she screamed out "LEARN TO CROSS THE ROAD SAFELY LADY!"

So me, in all of my poised gracefullness, replied, "Its called a pedestrian crossing - LADY!"

As A and I headed off for her well-earned ice-cream I realised that this poor woman must have arrived at her destination perhaps 30 seconds late, possibly flustered, and more possibly in a bad mood.

And I realised all of a sudden (having been primarily a driver of late) that there was ALOT of value in the recent RTA pedestrian campaigns. We really DO need to slow down on the road and accept that pedestrians have just as much right to be on the road as we do.

It also highlighted a long-term sticking point for me - which is that you cannot judge a book by its cover and nor can you truly relate to some unless you have (harkening back to my Girl Guide days here) "walked a mile in another girl's shoes".

That lady had NO concept of how long it took a toddler to cross a road or (quite obviously) how long it would take a limping person to cross the road. And while perhaps I could have waited for her to pass, my judgement wasn't all that off - I just hadn't wanted to rush A across the road or helped to facilitate an unnecessary fear of cars or the road...

So yes - please - when you next pass a pedestrian crossing the road - smile and wave at them! Please don't dish out tomes of abuse!