Unless you’ve been living underground with your hands over your eyes and rabbit crap in your ears, you’ve seen or heard something about the new stoplights in place at the intersection of Annie Glidden Road and Stadium Drive.

For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, go get a Q-Tip and continue reading.

The new lights were installed as a suggestion from the Annie Glidden Task Force to increase pedestrian safety on Annie Glidden Road. And, to my surprise, they actually are pretty cool. The pedestrian crossing signs were designed to accommodate the illiterate college student.

Those pesky “walk” and “don’t walk” signs have been replaced with a man walking and a hand making a stopping motion. It’s great; it totally takes the thinking out of crossing the street.

Which brings me to my point.

I recently spoke to Ralph Tompkins about the new lights. Now for those of you who don’t study the phone book, Ralph Tompkins is the director of public works for DeKalb. He told me a bunch of things about lights and safety and things like that, but he also said something that made me think.

Tompkins said the lights will increase safety on Annie Glidden, but only if students obey the walk and don’t walk signs. He went on to shock me by saying that students tend to ignore the “don’t walk” signals.

Actually, I wasn’t the least bit surprised, but I decided to test his theory anyway. So the other day, I parked my car near that intersection and I watched as students crossed. Amazingly, only 10 minutes into my experiment, I already had finished my third box of Junior Mints and was left with no motivation to stick around. So I left. But, luckily, I had seen enough.

Turns out he was right. Students don’t obey the hand. The hand clearly is instructing students to wait, but most cross as soon as they see an opening in traffic. Now I wonder why Annie Glidden has a reputation of being unsafe. Maybe it’s the carelessness of the students.

The Annie Glidden Task Force has gone out of its way to help accommodate students’ safety, and most don’t take the time to use the resources. It‘s simple. In fact, I will recite the poem that taught me how to safely cross the street.

“Stop look and listen before you cross the street/ first use your eyes and ears then use your feet … and it helps to push the damn button.” OK so I made up that last part, but my kindergarten teacher would be rolling over in her grave if she knew college students couldn’t cross the street properly.

A few days ago, I also spoke to Bob Albanese, NIU’s associate vice president of finance and facilities. He’s in charge of things like new lights.

While talking to him, I found out about some things planned in the future to further improve safety on Annie Glidden; like a countdown timer that would be added to the walk signals so pedestrians know how much time they have to cross the street. I also was told about the possibility of lights being embedded into the crosswalks to illuminate them while students cross at night.

Sure, these all will slightly improve safety issues, but Albanese said it himself. It’s the students responsibility to make everything work.

So, I guess I’m challenging this entire community to make crossing the road safer. This goes for drivers, too, but especially pedestrians.

NIU already is making pedestrian safety measures. Now all students should do the same. If everyone attempts to be a little safer when crossing the street, the school won’t have to catch any heat from students complaining about their feet being run over. If you are a negligent pedestrian, the problems you encounter are nobody’s fault but your own.

Remember you can’t get mad at the toilet paper company if you forget to wipe your butt.