Downtown Mountain View is a perfect storm of asininity. First, there are far too many crosswalks. There is no need for all of them, and having so many desensitizes people to their presence. Second, you have idiot drivers like this one who don't stop for pedestrians in the crosswalks. Last, you have moron pedestrian after moron pedestrian just plodding right across the street in front of traffic, not even using the crosswalks.

I do know what you mean -- when I'm a pedestrian, I try to be considerate of car drivers; for instance, if a car has already stopped for pedestrians in the crosswalk but they're most of the way across, I don't start in after them, because that would require the driver to wait through two sets of pedestrians, so to speak. I think pedestrians should think in terms of turn-taking, as drivers at intersections do; even if pedestrians aren't required by law to do that, it's only considerate.

In this case, the guy blew right through a stop sign without slowing down; the presence of pedestrians was just gravy. So actually, it was quite a performance: 4 violations at once -- the stop sign, speeding, the cellphone, and failure to yield to pedestrians. This was on Castro St. in downtown Mountain View.

Well, of course it was! The stretch of Castro from El Camino to Central has 20 marked crosswalks. 20. Every time I drive through that area, some nitwit is jaywalking between them anyway. You'd think it would be tough to do, given the overabundance of crosswalks, but people are oblivious. The drivers, of course, are even worse. Whenever I am on foot at one of these crosswalks, I end up waiting for a gap, because you WILL get run over if you try to assert your right to use the crosswalks.