Enhanced Safety for Pedestrians If They Establish Eye Contact With Motorist Before Crossing In front of or near his vehicle.

As a pedestrian in Austin, Texas, each day, I find it very helpful, including during the evening and at nighttime, to myself establish polite eye contact with a motor vehicle's driver before I attempt to walk on a crosswalk directly in front of that motor vehicle when his vehicle is stopped at a streetlight. Sometimes the motorist will give me a thumbs-up sign or wave toward me to indicate that he has a "pedestrian-friendly" style and is aware that I am about to cross the street there. I also have a habit of attempting to make polite eye contact with the driver of a vehicle at a time when the driver is preparing to leave a parking lot and merge onto motor-vehicle traffic on a roadway. Attempting to establish polite eye-contact with a motorist when he is behind the wheel can truly be a life-saver for a pedestrian. If, for instance, a motorist is himself preparing to turn right on either a green light or a red light at a street intersection in Austin, many times that motorist is not checking to see if any pedestrians at that same moment are preparing to cross the crosswalk to the right of his vehicle. Some very alarming statistics about fatal injuries to pedestrians that occurred in a recent prior year here in Austin, according to a current official City of Austin webpage: "Of the fatal pedestrian crashes (in Austin, Texas) in 2015, 83% occurred after dark (between 6 PM and 6 AM), 83% involved a pedestrian crossing when or where prohibited, and 86% of those at fault had prior APD involvement". It is not clear from this webpage what the term "prior APD involvement" means, but I sense that the term may refer to the fact that APD on at least one prior occasion had arrested that person and charged that individual with a misdemeanor or felony crime. https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/Traffic-Fatalities-per-100-000-Population/s7yr-fsrb/