Crosswalks

Pedestrians crossing at crosswalks are a real nuisance. You drive a mile down a city street and the only person you see will the be one who wants to cross the street right in front of you so you have to stop to let them cross. I've noticed that if you stop as soon as you see the pedestrian, rather then driving all the way up to the crosswalk, you can save yourself, and the pedestrian, precious seconds.

The average width of a residential street is about 50 feet. Walking at 3 MPH, it will take the pedestrian 4.4 seconds to cross the street. If you are driving at 25 MPH (37 feet per second) it will take you about 2 seconds and 40 feet to ease to a stop. If you are 80 feet away when you see them it will take you one second to drive half the distance before you need to start slowing down. If you start slowing immediately, you can save that one second. OK, it's only one second. It could be two if you spotted them when you were 120 feet away. One second may not seem like much, but if you are anything at all like me, one second when you are in gear (mentally) and going places can seem like an awfully long time.

This will only work in an area without much traffic. You would probably cause more trouble than relief is you tried this downtown during  rush hour.

Note on the picture: I found it on PaintingHere.com, which evidently produces paintings on demand. You pick a picture, any picture, and they paint it and ship it to you. Not all that expensive either. This Abbey Road picture was less than $150. I imagine they come from some sweat shop in Asia. Their website is not exactly forthcoming, and their Engrish is not quite perfect.