By RYAN SHUMAKER
Columnist
After a morning of sitting through classes, contemplating life, and wishing I was on the golf course, I finally made it: the end of my school day. A glorious time for all college kids, the time of day when you realize you have no classes the rest of the day and can spend the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely whatever your heart desires.
I rushed down to the student center for some pre-Netflix-watching lunch, then headed off to my car to begin my afternoon.
However, one giant obstacle stood in my way: the crosswalk across a major road just to the east of campus.
Every day students push the stop sign button to make the little, seemingly invisible, yellow buttons flash, hoping that these small, blinking lights slow down the speeding cars so the student can make it across safely. However, on this particular day, I was about to be reminded just how useless those little blinking lights are.
With lunch in hand, I scooted across campus to make my journey back home, and as I approached the dreaded crosswalk, I noticed a few of my friends behind me so I stopped to chat for a while.
Unbeknownst to me, this small pause for casual conversation is what ultimately almost led to my downfall.
After a brief conversation, I pressed the stop button, relying on those lights to protect me as I crossed the road and started to make my way across towards my vehicle. It was in that moment that I realized just how unprotected I was.
Cars come flying down that road everyday from outside of Alva; the drivers have no clue that students cross right there, and as they travel 35 miles per hour, they aren’t looking off the side of the road for yellow flashing lights, which is exactly what happened during my journey across the road.
I had made it about half way across the road when my friend behind me yelled something at me, and as I turned around and began responded, I heard the screeching of brakes. Now this wasn’t just your average I’m going 20 over the speed limit and I see a cop so I have to slow down brake, it was a going from 35 to a complete dead stop because I’m about to nail this poor little short kid with what appears to be a sack lunch that his mom prepared for him.
After hearing the squealing of tires and feeling a gust of wind down my back, I turned around in the middle of the road and came face-to-face with an Oklahoma license plate. It was in that moment that I realized those puny flashing yellow lights did not have my back. If it wasn’t for that driver’s quality brakes I was done for, a victim of the crosswalk.
After it was all said and done, the driver was not very happy with me but was obviously relieved he stopped just in the nick of time not to nail me.
This near tragic experience made me think, “are blinking lights the best thing this university can provide for us as far as protection from the crosswalk?” Sure, you should look both ways, but I took my eyes off of the road for maybe 15 seconds before I was almost wiped out.
In my humble opinion, I think the university should either provide us with more parking so we don’t have to park across the street or give us some sort of better protection as we journey across the street just hoping to make it to our vehicles so we can enjoy the rest of our day.