Store Owner Has a Crosswalk to Bear

By STEVE CHAWKINS

March 21, 2001 12 AM PT

A few truck-drivin’ men stood around the CB radio innards at Avenue TV & Communications, discussing a favorite truckers’ topic: stupid drivers. Imbeciles behind the wheel. Inconsiderate, unrepentant, might-as-well-be-blind threats to the public good.

They talked about bicyclists who weave in front of big rigs as though they’re immortal, about motorists in little compact cars darting into the paths of monster trucks as if they can even be seen by a driver high in a cab over a hood hiding an engine the size of a municipal power plant.

But the most urgent stories came from J.R., who runs the shop. J.R.--more formally known as William Davison--installs and repairs CBs in the store his father started nearly 30 years ago. When he’s not buried in the dash of a semi, he’s standing behind the counter, looking out on a crosswalk spanning busy Ventura Avenue--a set of parallel stripes seen by so many drivers only as an interesting art treatment for the asphalt.

“No respect!” J.R. said as cars thundered past.

You got that right, the truckers said.

“They just don’t care,” J.R. said. “They won’t stop for kids, and they won’t stop for old people.”

Some years ago--J.R. can’t remember exactly how many--it got so bad that he took matters into his own hands, Boy Scout-style.

He started helping people across the street, staring traffic down as he shepherded kids on their way home after school.

“I’ve seen more near-misses than you can believe,” he said. “You ought to set up a video camera right here on this corner and keep it going all day. You’d be amazed.”

As he spoke, a man across the street gingerly set foot on the crosswalk. Three cars barreled through before he could make his way across.

“You ought to carry some rocks to throw,” J.R. joked.

“Hey, I got a pallet of bricks,” one of the truck-drivin’ men said.

In fact, J.R. employs subtler tools for what the planners like to call “traffic-calming.”

A while back, he acquired a hand-held stop sign. And a few months ago, he donned an official-looking orange neon vest. Several times a week, depending on the press of business, he wades into the crosswalk, fully loaded, a self-appointed crossing guard.

“I had to do it,” he said. “One time I was out there asking kids why they had to keep crossing the street all the time. Then I thought: ‘What am I turning into?’ ”

J.R.’s public-spirited venture might not live up to the letter of the law. In east Ventura, parents volunteering as school crossing guards were told by police that they had to desist until they could go through special training.

But J.R. said nobody from the world of officialdom has told him to stop. In fact, he said, it was a Ventura police officer who advised him to get the orange vest. In any event, the need seems clear, and if J.R. doesn’t meet it, who will?

“A little girl was hit right here three or four years ago,” he said. “And a few months ago, I was taking a group of four kids across the street when this little white pickup came so close I had to yank a girl out of the way by her collar and her hair. My heart was going a mile a minute, I couldn’t catch my breath, I was stuttering . . . .”

As we gazed out on Ventura Avenue, a car made a quick right turn down a street marked DO NOT ENTER.

“No respect,” J.R. said.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at [email protected] or at 653-7561.