Have you been driving in Danbury observing the rules of the road when suddenly, a homo sapien emerges in the center of the street?

These instances can be frightening -- the danger for everyone just got real after all, and it's extremely avoidable. You can avoid these troubles by looking for, and using, the white lines put in place just for you.

Also, for what it's worth, I used the crosswalk to get in place to take these photos:

Lou's phone
Lou's phone
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I'm out on the "skreets" of Danbury on a daily basis -- sometimes I'm walking, most times I'm driving, and I've found a disturbing trend in the Hat City. Jaywalking has reached epidemic levels.

Once a week in Danbury, I experience a mini heart attack when driving. Why? These tiny little heart attacks happen when I am driving down Main Street and someone appears in the middle of the road like psycho magic.

The crosswalk is there for your safety, this is a designated zone for pedestrians that tells me, as a driver, to look for you, even if you are not there. When I am operating a motor vehicle and I see a crosswalk, I look at the middle of it, both ends of it, I slow down, and I look as carefully as I can, assuming nothing. So if a parked car is obscuring my view, and you are behind it, and then suddenly appear, I'm ready for you because you used the designated crosswalk.

If I had to estimate how many pedestrians in Danbury are actually using the crosswalk based on my personal experience, I'd put that number at 11%. That's not an awesome metric.

If you leap out from behind a Hyundai Sonata on Main Street and are nowhere near a crosswalk, you've just put yourself in serious danger. Fun fact about me, I don't want to hit a human being with my car -- it's not what I am into, so let's please get it together.

I reached out to my pal, Danbury Police Lieutenant Vincent Daniello to ask him about the importance of using crosswalks in Danbury, and here is what he had to say:

Pedestrian use of crosswalks are extremely important for safety, especially in a downtown area where vehicle use can be very congested and limit a vehicle operators line of sight. Using a crosswalk can save your life, motorists are supposed to yield for people using crosswalks and are more likely to expect pedestrians at or in a crosswalk rather than randomly crossing a street.

I wrote this in a funny kind of way to get it extra attention but there will be nothing funny about a real incident, should someone be seriously injured or killed. There is a system in place for a reason, public safety.

WARNING: This clip contains profanity. 

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