The other night after work I went out in my power chair for a walk. I crossed a street at an intersection in a residential area, obeying the traffic laws and waiting for the right time to cross.
It was a very nice night out and I noticed as I approached the curb cut on the other side that there was a bicyclist on it, blocking the curb cut. He didn't appear to be crossing, but was waiting. As I approached him, I asked him to move over so I could get up on the sidewalk and he started to respond, but he was straddling his bike so it took a few seconds and meanwhile I couldn't get up onto the curbcut. The light was still red however.
As this happened, a car whipped behind me to take a right turn on the red light and came within inches of my power chair. I heard the driver shout "Don't stop dead like that!" behind me. All I heard was a pebble from under his car tire zing up and hit my chair.
The bicyclist moved over and apologized profusely for blocking the curb cut and I got up on the sidewalk. He told me that he never thought about the etiquette of sharing curb cuts and asked me if it ever happened before. I explained that, yes, it had and drivers sometimes did not wait until I went up on the sidewalk as pedestrians or carriages or bikes or skateboarders moved to the side, not realizing I couldn't get my chair up on the sidewalk.
I also told him I attribute this to a lack of awareness by drivers that curb cuts may be blocked and, if so, a wheelchair can't immediately go up one.
And I have blogged about it before, but here goes again. Even if a few people see this, maybe it'll help everyone slow down just a bit more.
[visual description: A curbcut is shown at the end of a crosswalk marked in white lines. ]
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