When traffic and pedestrians get in a fight, the traffic generally wins.

It happens every time Grandpa and Grandma come to visit. We walk downtown for dinner. I walk this route all the time. I know the traffic, know the lights, know the drills. I have long Aukeman legs. Grandpa has long Aukeman legs. Grandma got the shorter end of the Dutch stick, but has been walking with Aukemans for a very long time. We take long strides. I watch the traffic, walk against the light, and win the game.

"Don't you pay attention to the signals?" Grandma asks (present tense--she always asks).

"No. I pay attention to the traffic."

She accepts this answer. She has no choice--my long Aukeman legs are halfway down the block already. (I'm kidding--I walk slower when I'm with Grandma. Come on, I'm not that mean.)

There's a general rule of thumb to crossing against the light. (I learned this in Bolivia, where lots of intersections just don't have lights.) When you start walking, you do NOT make eye contact with the driver. If you do, you have to stop. If you don't, they have to stop. (Please use peripheral vision, here, though. Be aware that the driver just might not stop. Form a contingency plan--stop walking. [Not Stop, Drop, Roll--that's for fire.])

Pittsburgh intersections are just weird. Some of them have little pedestrian push-buttons, some of them don't. Most of them have pedestrian walk signs, but generally, you can't walk with the white hand because some impatient person is pulling a Pittsburgh left or someone else is turning right and by the time they have it figured out who is going first, the light is half over and the red hand is already blinking. It is best to walk when you have the chance--especially if you have the ability to do it.

Sometimes I wonder if this makes Sissy, the crossing guard wearing flourescent yellow, mad at me. But then I watch her herd a flock of school children across the street (for whom I just set a bad example--oops), and remember that it's not me she's generally concerned about.

It's that lady--right there. So tiny she's hidden by the shadow of the lamppost holding the pedestrian button, the white-haired lady with no Dutch blood in her waits, cowering a bit. The traffic is not moving. Someone has a green left-turn arrow, and I can't tell who. I hate this corner--even with long Dutch legs. Even with the white hands, it is always impossible to cross this intersection.

The traffic is still not moving. I look at Lady, she looks at me.

"How long will it last?" she asks.

"I don't know," I say, but I step into the street. She steps into the street. I match my step with hers, and slowly we venture across. When we reach the left turn lane, the light turns green. Oops. But no one is moving because they can definitely see tall Dutch me and then they see her and they're not going to run us over. We reach the other side.

"Thanks," she says.

Later, at home, I find a headline: "Injured good Samaritan ticketed." Basically, the guy was nice, helping these two ladies across the street and pushing them out of the way when the pick-up truck barrelled down on them and hit him instead. But when he woke up in intensive care, the policeman had ticketed him for jaywalking, saying that the jaywalking was part of the accident. Oops.

You just can't win.