Crossing Spotting
A new type of road crossing with push button controls for pedestrians was introduced. The new crossings consisted of triangular black and white stripes (hence panda)- instead of the rectangular stripes at zebra crossings. There was a push button on either side of the road which controlled a set of flashing lights which stated wait and walk. The scheme later had to be abandoned as people complained it was too confusing. The pelican crossing was introduced in 1969 and proved more successful, maybe it was the reliable and friendly green man. In the 1990s pelicans were succeeded by puffin crossings (why the birds?) - which uses sensors to detect the passage of people and cars.
I once made an inventory of every single pedestrian crossing in Shropshire, my knowledge of them runs deep, too deep. Did you know that crossings with a cycle lane are called Toucans (because two can cross)? Did you also know that as well as the beeps and the red and green men using light and sounds as there medium, under many Pelican button boxes are small cylinders with ridges for texture that spin when it is safe to cross? These are for Deaf-Blind people whose only available sense is touch. The knobbly paving is so that blind people can feel underfoot that a crossing is near and a dropped curb for wheelchair users can be no more than 0.6 centimetres off the ground to be usable.
I was telling one of my friends Chris this fascinating story and he was saying, wow that’s really amazing, how interesting and unusual etc etc. I felt quite taken aback but pleased at his enthusiasm. But it turned out that he thought I was doing it as a hobby or kind of conceptual art piece, less interestingly it was my job. More interestingly I was telling someone else about my friend Chris’s amusing (?) mistake (it was the Christmas office party, I was strapped for some common ground with the 50 year old Dad of two). Paul thought it was an amazing idea for a hobby and declared that he was to take his daughters on a trip for a bit of Crossing Spotting. I didn’t believe him, so when he did go, he asked his fourteen year old daughter write a short essay on the experience and brought it in for me as evidence. He didn’t tell her why she was writing it, but did say she would be allowed to skip her drum practice (generous). Paul said that he had to interrupt her when she was still writing it at 10 o’ clock, and was irked that she had misunderstood the instructions of a short piece describing her opinion of the experience, when what she had produced was a long descriptive piece of the events (harsh).
Extracts of said essay are:
“I was in the car the other day with my Dad and he said that he was going to take me Cross Watching. I did not know what he meant and looked at him as if he was mad”
“We found twirly buttons for deaf blind people and a box that holds the electronics”
“I found Crossing Spotting interesting and different, I learnt a lot”
I hope you have learnt a lot too.