Michael Marsland Photo
But Peter Salovey has usurped his spot on Abbey Road.
Salovey, Yale’s president and a bluegrass bassist, joined three other university honchos to suit up as the Beatles (circa 1969) for a campaign to keep pedestrians safe.
The Ivy Four donned the outfits warn by the Fab Four on the cover of their 11th and final studio album, Abbey Road, and crossed College Street at the intersection of Wall. Their message: “PLEASE USE THE CROSSWALK.” The way they did. (So you don’t get run over.)
Yale’s Office of Environmental Health & Safety (EHS), which used the photo for a cautionary poster, drove home the point in a release: “Pedestrian fatalities account for 12 percent of motor vehicle fatalities per year. Nationally, on average, one pedestrian is injured every eight minutes, and one is killed approximately every two hours. In 2006 in Connecticut, 44% of the accidents involving pedestrians were due to “unsafe use of the highway by the pedestrian,” meaning the pedestrian was at fault in nearly half of all these accidents.” Besides crossing the street at the crosswalk, pedestrians should check traffic in all directions and obey “Walk” signals (including not crossing when “Don’t Walk” is flashing), EHS advises.
For the photo shoot Salovey removed his shoes and socks, just as McCartney did for Abbey Road; but instead of holding a cigarette, as McCartney did, Salovey aimed his right pointer finger toward the ground. Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins ditched his uniform to dress as George Harrison; Associate Professor and Traffic Safety Committee Chair Kristen Bechtel stood in for Ringo Starr; and Provost Benjamin Polak portrayed John Lennon, in all-white garb.
Iain Macmillan Photo
The original.
Cute, but seems dreadfully out of touch, as people are much more likely to die inside the crosswalk than outside it. "Jaywalking" is a term that the automobile industry invented in the 1920s. Instead, the emphasis at Yale needs to be on reducing the speeds of vehicles. Someone hit at 30 is 10 times more likely to die than someone hit at 20 miles per hour.
In most communities and universities with the density of a place like Yale, speeds around the area are much more restricted. At Yale, you regularly have people driving up Grove Street - which has lanes that are wider than Interstate 95 - at speeds of 60 miles per hour.
As additional students and staff are killed each year, especially with the opening of the new residential colleges, it will continue to be as a result of Yale's negligence for not pushing for the common sense policy reforms that are found in most other communities.