The Green Cross Code – Dead or Alive?

If you were born before the early 90’s, there’s a decent possibility that you will remember, or have been taught about the “Green Cross Code”. A simple set of instructions on how to cross the road safely. Stop at the edge of the kerb, look both ways, allow any traffic to pass and continue to look for traffic while crossing. These are very simple steps to keep yourself and road users safe, yet I feel that this code has all but disappeared in the modern world.

I remember in the early 2000’s a series of campaigns began putting the responsibility into the hands of drivers rather than pedestrians, using cleverly edited, and often graphic, footage to convince drivers to lower their speeds. However now, in 2015, I can’t really think of much in the way of road awareness messages.

I got my driving licence in 2007, and since then I have seen some frightening behaviour on the part of pedestrians. I have seen teenagers walk out into the street without any attempt to check the traffic, and I have seen people cross the road knowing a car was coming behind them, assuming that I would slow down. But the single most frightening case was two adults physically dragging a young boy across the road at a busy round about, which brought traffic to a halt, without any consideration to either their own safety or the safety of the drivers. I couldn’t count how many times I have had to brake or swerve to avoid someone who has blindly stepped out into the street.

I don’t have any children of my own, but when the day comes that I am teaching my future offspring how to cross the road, you can rest assured that I will be all but engraving the Green Cross Code into their minds.

The main thing I wonder about however is that with technology going the way that it is, this could become a very serious issue. The smart phone is doing an effective job of turning the general populous into robots, prioritising their communication device over many daily functions (such as watching where they are walking). Couple this with the increasing amount of silent electric cars and hybrids with “battery only running” modes, and we could end up with rising casualty rates in the near future.

So, how do we avoid a possible future we may be willingly heading towards? Bringing the old safety campaigns back to the TV could work, or in this modern age of online content, use pre roll adverts on streaming websites such as YouTube. However the message goes out, it really does need to be enforced again. So far a lot of people have been lucky that I’ve been aware enough to brake and compensate for their lack of environmental awareness, but many drivers aren’t as focused, especially thanks to the afore mentioned smartphones. But, that’s another topic for another day.