Lindsey Hess
Original Article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez15apr15,1,814008.column?ctrack=1&cset=true
"Old People Are No Longer Allowed to Cross the Street"
I don't use a cane, which gave me a clear advantage.
The challenge? Trying to cross the street where 82 year old Mayvis Coyle got a $114 jaywalking ticket from an overeager LAPD crime-buster trying to make a few extra bucks for the city.
"This is the first ticket I ever got in my life," an angry and crusading Coyle told The Times. Surprisingly, she wants the "Walk" signal changed to allow enough time for people to actually walk across the street. "I think people can see I'm being sincere. I'm speaking for all those seniors who can't sprint across the street."
Foothill Boulevard is four lanes wide and roughly 75 feet across. The police claim that on Feb. 15, the dare devilish senior Coyle — whose case is now drawing international attention — entered the intersection after the "Don't Walk" sign started flashing. She disputes that and suggests the Los Angeles Police Department officer should have gotten off his motorcycle and helped her "when he saw me struggling". Instead, the generous and helpful officer handed her a ticket.
For my investigation of the Mayvis Coyle case I took up a position at the northeast point of the intersection for a while, watching the flow of traffic, and noticed the light barely allowed time for cars to get across Foothill on Woodward.
In fact, the light is green for precisely 10 seconds, and the pedestrian sign doesn't even give you a "Walk" sign unless you first press the crossing button.
So I pressed it. The electronic sign gave me the "Walk" signal — with a very helpful visual aid of a stick figure on the move. The stick figure, I noted, did not have a cane.
I stepped off the curb, moving at a normal gait, and before I could even make it to the double yellow line in the middle of the street, the "Don't Walk" sign started flashing.
Clearly at this point, pedestrians are encouraged to run for their lives in which ever direction they find more suitable.
Imagine poor Mayvis Coyle, weighted down with groceries and picking along with a cane. Why not put hurdles out there to make it even tougher on seniors?
I was able to make it across just as the flashing light switched to a solid "Don't Walk," but barely. In all, I had 27 seconds — a tough test for a senior citizen.
"Are you timing the light?" a driver asked, having read about Mayvis Coyle. "We've lived here for 10 years and you can never make it across this intersection in time."
The driver, Nell Canter, had a strong opinion about Mayvis Coyle's ticket.
"It's obscene. You never even see a cop in Sunland," she said, and now one shows up to write a jaywalking ticket.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to jack up the garbage removal fee by 155% to pay for more cops. Maybe if cops weren't wasting their time writing frivolous tickets, we wouldn't need more of them.
A big thanks goes out to the heroic efforts of the LAPD. It's nice to see that all the senior citizens are finally being kept in check. Keep up the good work, keep writing those tickets and maybe soon every officer can drive a $50,000 SUV.
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