The snow bricks are shrinking, the berm crud is thinning, and the road is widening. But not enough. Motorists still hesitate to cross the yellow line. Sometimes they can’t, because there’s a car on the other side. Other times, they just don’t.

Walking in the suburbs has never been more fraught. The trails I frequent are a slick, icy mess. Which means I’m forced to do all my walking in the neighborhood, along the side of the road. Some drivers seem reluctant to move over to give me a safe-enough berth.

I think it’s just rule-following, of which I’ve been guilty, too. But as a walker in the suburbs, I’m hoping cars cut us more slack these winter days. The gravelly stuff along the road is like quicksand, and walkers can’t exactly hop out of the way when they’re striding alongside a five-foot-tall mountain of snowcrete.

The cars that do cross the line have my fervent thanks and appreciation. As for the rest of them, I’ll paraphrase Robert McCloskey and say … make way for walkers.

(The cover of Make Way for Ducklings, from which I borrowed the title of this post.)