Drive-Thru Throwdown

     I don't know the statistics as to how many pedestrians are injured or killed in parking lots, but I would guess that the number must be fairly high.
     The other day at Clifton Park Center, a car drove around the corner and directly past the entrance of Boscov's Department Store with no regard for any patrons who may have been entering or leaving the store as he, while not speeding at 60 miles per hour, was driving at least 30 mph right through the designated crosswalk area.  And anyone who has ever visited that particular store knows it is a haven for senior citizens, who are often accompanied by canes, even walkers.  Apparently the driver has trust in his own reflexes and his ability to stop in time, but he seems unaware that others may not be up to his standards.  Or maybe he's just an idiot.
      Last week, I was preparing to step out of the Shop N' Save parking lot to cross the lane to enter the store just as a young man with a shopping cart was exiting the store.  A driver, maybe cutting the stoplight, drove directly down the lane in front of the store as if he had the open road to himself.  I saw him as he was in the further lane, where the young man had just started to push his cart.  We both abruptly stopped, with the young man pulling his cart back, saying, "He just wasn't going to stop, was he?"  I can't figure out if these drivers are ignorant, careless, or just don't care about others.  Even so, filling out an accident report would be more time consuming than slowing down, it would seem.
    Individual instances of such are one thing, but I could never understand how architects and traffic pattern planners at places like McDonald's could construct their businesses so that people, including lots of kids,  enter and exit directly into the flow of traffic, not only to the parking lots, but, even worse, right into the path of Drive-Thru traffic.  Walk out the door with your Happy Meal, and hold on tight to dodge the cars lining up for the window.  One of the local McD's has altered the original design, diverting the Drive Thru traffic away from the main door, but I guess the public will never know why, whether accidents or near-accidents precipitated the change, the need for which should have been apparent from the start.
       I find it hard to believe that there would not have been scores of accidents or near misses there just as I find it almost impossible to believe that there is not at least one accident a day in the Price Chopper parking lot.  With passenger cars attempting to back out between 2 SUV's or vans, drivers who can not bend their necks, see into a rear-view mirror, or even know how to use one------it's a jungle out there.