Traffic engineers such as Harold Marks expressed distrust of parents’ demands for safer walking conditions for schoolchildren. To resist them, engineers claimed objectivity and warned of the “false sense of security” that protection measures could instill in pedestrians.
Yet much of the hazard children faced was due to the false sense of security that traffic engineering had instilled in drivers. Under orders to accommodate drivers everywhere, and to work with rising speed limits, engineers looked for and found ways to deter walking.
Meanwhile, safety messages to children were sometimes contradictory: Children were instructed not to trust their own judgment, but to obey signs, signals, and street markings. Yet children were also never to trust signs, signals and street markings, but exercise judgment.
Modern day advice is the same - look at a driver's face so you try to see what he's going to do, but don't make eye contact because that might be perceived as threatening and provoke a response.
