Editor:
I’m sure I speak for many others like me when I plead for drivers to please pay attention and yield to pedestrians and cyclists. I run about three or four times a week and I can’t tell you how many “close calls” I have encountered, including the most recent when a South Portland Police Officer (you know who you are, ma’am) nearly hit me because she was looking only one way (and it wasn’t my way).  And not even so much as an “I’m sorry” for the scare!  Everyone is in such a hurry to get through the stop sign or make that red light that the person on foot or on bicycle is virtually invisible to them.
 Here’s the way I see it: Crosswalks exist to allow for people to cross the street safely. I teach my kids to stay within the crosswalks in order to be safe. But 90 percent of the time, cars are stopped directly on top of the crosswalk making it impossible to cross safely. Please remember this the next time you’re approaching a crosswalk. There may be someone who needs to use it.
Yield means yield. My daughter stood for over five minutes trying to cross from Mahoney to the Pizza Joint because the motorists simply would not yield to let her cross. Please yield.
Stop means stop. Come to a complete stop and look both ways. There very well may be a person coming your way on the sidewalk. Looking to your left on your way to the stop sign and finding it clear to take a right hand turn doesn’t mean you can cruise right through without stopping. Please, please, please. We all need to share the road and with more and more people on foot and on bicycle, I think it’s in our best interest to consider those most vulnerable – and do the right thing.
Ann Mohammad
South Portland