The One Thing in Rockford That Drives Me Crazy

One of my biggest pet peeves in Rockford is when people are outside exercising, but don't utilize sidewalks.  There's one person I've almost hit a couple times because of where she's walking.

It blows my mind that people aren't willing to use the sidewalks built for walking.  Like, it's right there!  It's waiting for you to walk, run, and you're totally out of traffic.  You'd think more people would use them, but not as far as I can see in Rockford.

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There's this woman I see all the time on Madison Street walking in the middle of the train tracks.  When I'm driving down Madison, pedestrians are pretty much all I have on my mind.  I want to make sure I'm safe, they're safe, and we all get to our destinations in one piece.  But whenever this woman is in the middle of the tracks, she's so hard to see.  Sometimes, I have to swerve from bicycles but she's right there obstructing my flow.  It really is a safety hazard to walk directly in the middle of a road, honestly.

With all the construction, one-way streets, and random detours, that's already enough to worry about.  I guess it's just a huge pet peeve I have right now because it's just another thing to worry about that could be avoided if we just used the sidewalks given to us!

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It's such a small thing, I know.  If you're out walking and there's a sidewalk, please, please, please use them!  I love that there are so many residents out and about, but to keep all of us extra safe, let's not be the next news story about a pedestrian hit by a car.  There's already enough of that around here.