I must say that I am pleasantly surprised with the way many motorists follow traffic laws in Tallinn — although the photograph at the top of this article shows a vehicle speeding through a yellow light.
Wow — Motorists in Tallinn Stop For Pedestrians If They Even Think They Are Going to Cross the Street
I found that every single time I approached a crosswalk — and there are plenty of them in Tallinn — if a motorist even thought that I was about to cross the street, he or she would stop. This includes bus drivers.
This was especially true at crosswalks with no traffic control devices. Sometimes I had to turn away and pretend I was doing something else so that they would not have to stop unnecessarily.
Conversely, pedestrians rarely ignored the signal for them to walk or don’t walk — even if there are no vehicles or trams in sight.
Summary
Although there are other locations around the world which follows similar policies and laws, I cannot think of one to which I have been which exceeds what both pedestrians and motorists in Tallinn do.
I was born and raised in New York. I am used to motorists who seemed to speed up their vehicles whenever pedestrians were in the paths of their vehicles — almost as though they were actually trying to run them over.
Just last week in the United States, a woman who paid no attention to the fact that I was walking in a crosswalk with the green light as she turned left and almost ran me over to get into the entrance of a shopping center. There was no sense of remorse or embarrassment on her part. I suppose she really had to get her shopping done.
Yes, I have witnessed motorists in Tallinn who barreled down Viru like they were driving at the Indianapolis 500 — one of them was driving a Bentley, which tended to contradict some of the leftovers of the Soviet Union — but for the most part, I felt quite safe every time I crossed a street in Tallinn…
…no matter how busy…
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
