Slow Down! Children Playing

At some point, I think I became that old guy down the street. For a while I lived on 20 acres. If I didn't feel like putting on pants for 2 weeks, well that was just between me and the UPS man who delivered my wine. (Actually this really happened, I was in the yard talking to a friend of my girlfriend for about 10 minutes before it dawned on me that I was in my underwear. You know that dream.)
I came home one night to find the house gone, which was a blessing in terms of the rat I had taken to hunting at night with infrared goggles since he would fall to none of the "guaranteed" poisons or traps on the market, but rather depressing in terms of having to return to society. At the beginning of the year, I moved into a bedroom community. Overall I like the people, mostly because I've never had to talk to them, except for the neighbor who came over when I was putting shelves in my garage and said "You build stuff?" I digress. They do, as a whole have one annoying behavior that I cannot abide.
When the desperate housewives have been coouped up too long, they put these signs up in the street "Slow Down! Children Playing" and turn it into a playground. I already admitted I'm "that guy" but let's see how I got here.
First, I just have to ask how I can respect people who actually teach their children to play in the street. I admit, this probably has something to do with my own upbringing on a sleepy street in upstate Vermont, where my mom had to put signs in front of the house shaped and painted like stop signs saying "STOP JON" to shame me from running under cars like an ill-bred dog. My parents still have that sign in their garage, and honestly, I would probably dead or hurt if they hadn't put them up. The point here is that ultimately, the choice was mine: run into the street and die, or figure it out and take responsibility for it.
Second, how is it that people can shamelessly put other people in charge of their children's well being? This violates Tobey's first postulate of safety: Do not trust your life to a stranger's reflexes, at least not as a general rule. How is it that they think a sign is going to protect their kids and absolve them from doing it? Just the other day, a mom was on one side of the street with a pod of kids milling about her apron strings when one of them darted just about under my wheels across the street. Fortunately, I had just backed out of my yard and was barely moving, but had I been going any normal speed, even 10 MPH, that child would be two-dimensional. Mom didn't even blink when this happened so sure was she about the security of the environment. This brings us to Tobey's second postulate of safety: Folks, if it's predictable, it's not a tragedy.
Third, and now I feel really old, we are steeping these kids in a sense of entitlement that I feel is one of the underlying problems in today's world. First you play in the street, then you dress like a goth and walk down the middle of the road with your friends in the rain, ignoring oncoming traffic. Then you are ramming me with your shopping cart as you stroll along looking at steaks in the freezer, uncomprehending that your progress is impeded, too self-absorbed to look up.
The silliest thing is that there are parks and schools within walking, let alone minivan, distance.

But, why fight it. Even as I write this I'm waiting for the sign company to deliver my new sign "Men Drinking in Street," after all, if you learn to play in the street when you are little why stop when you grow up?