Slow Down, Brake for Pedestrians

To the Editor: 
At about 12:25 p.m. April 20 I got off a bus on Townbank Road and started to cross to the building where I live, a United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) facility for low-income seniors. There was a van a block away heading toward me. Plenty of time. Before I had crossed all the way, I saw and heard it coming close without reducing speed. I walked faster and made it without getting hit. Content that I hadn’t been struck I continued walking, until I heard a female voice yelling to me. I turned to see a sheriff’s or police van, a woman officer at the wheel. She was reprimanding me for not being careful. The dialog went like this, pretty much verbatim:
She: “You should be more careful!”
I: “You were a block away when I started to cross.”
She: “But I was doing 45 miles per hour.”
I: “Slow down.”
She: “I drive the speed limit — 45.”
I: “When there’s a pedestrian crossing in front of you?”
She: “I was driving the speed limit; you shouldn’t have crossed.
A few more words and I gave it up. But I’ve been driving for 66 years and early in those years I realized that when there’s a pedestrian crossing in front of me to ease up on the accelerator, or, if necessary, to use the brake pedal. Not to look at the speed limit sign and bore ahead. Even if the walker is wrong!
I spent about 30 years in Los Angeles where if someone steps off the curb all traffic stops! I know, that’s California; they’re all crazy out there. Well, if drivers don’t stop, the tickets are hefty. Also, pedestrians crossing against a “don’t walk” signal will be ticketed.
Another thing I learned early was not to engage in disputes with cops. To shut up! But sometimes things become too absurd.
I’ve been a passenger in cars where drivers creep up on people trying to cross in front of them and I’m the one yelling, stop the car! But a driver who hasn’t learned this should go back to driver-training school.