“Not everybody crosses the road using a zebra crossing or a pelican or any of those other crossings. I’m sure you have crossed the road to catch a bus, to go to the shops, to catch up with a friend, without using one of those crossings.
So, when you’re driving, when you’re behind the wheel, look out for people who are just randomly crossing the road for whatever reason and not on a crossing. So, watch out for that.
But, let’s have a look at the most common pedestrian crossing and that’s a zebra. It’s a zebra crossing because it’s got black and white stripes, just like a zebra. And another feature is that it’s got those flashing orange lights. Those flashing orange lights are called Belisha Beacons and they’re at the top of poles that are also black and white and you can see them from miles away. Driving along, you can see thos eflashing lights way ahead of you. That means you’ve got plenty of time to plan your approach to a pedestrian crossing, the zebra crossing with the flashing lights.
It’s the big flashing lights that give the game away here. So, there’s no excuse for you to be saying “Oh, a zeba crossing appeared all of a suddenly” or “Suddenly a pedestrian appeared on a zebra crossing. There is plenty of notice of a zebra crossing.
Either side of a zebra crossing are white painted zigzag lines on the road. They are to keep that area clear so that you can see the pedestrians who are near the crossing and the pedestrian can see to the left and right up the street to see for cars and other vehicles approaching. So, you don’t park on zigzag lines.
If there’s stationary traffic, if there’s a queue, you don’t be overtaking traffic on the zigzag lanes either.
There are some variations of the zebra crossing as well. If there’s a central reservation on the zebra crossing that allows people to get halfway across and wait for the next lot of traffic to clear before they go across. That is two zebra crossings for the sake of the rules of the road.
If you have got people crossing in front of you on your side of the road, let them cross. Let them clear you completely. That means they’ve now gone from right to left and they’re now on th path of they’ve gone from left to right and they are now on the central reservation or beyond.
What they do beyond the central reservation to the right hand side of the road, that is a separate crossing.
So, keep the crossing clear, keep the zigzag lines clear and appreciate that a central reservation means you’ve got two crossings.
Another variation of a zebra crossing is the tiger crossing. The tiger crossing has a separate track across the road parallel to the black and white stripes and it’s sometimes called a parallel crossing as well. That is where you have a cycle way coming to where the crossing is that is to allow cyclists to cross the crossing whilst ridingng their bikes.
So, if you see a tiger crossing, then you know you’re in an area where there’s a predominance of cyclists and again a cyclist is right there at the bottom of the most vulnerable road users. Now, in any events, you absolutely must stop if there’s a cyclist and that applies to the tiger crossing or a pedestrian on the crossing, you must stop.
If there’s somebody waiting at the pavement, waiting to cross, you should pull up. You’ve got plenty of notice. You’ve seen the crossing from a way back, you’ve been able to see somebody waiting, so yes you’re checking your mirrors and you pull up appropriately. It shouldn’t be an emergency. It shouldn’t be a panic. It shouldn’t be an emegency stop.
It should be a controlled, nice, sensible stop because you’ve looked well ahead and you’re looking after other people on the road.”
