Runners - who do they think they are?

When you walk across the road as a pedestrian, there are certain unwritten rules you know you should abide by. The first is obvious, if there's a car coming, STOP! Seems like common sense, so why is it that as soon as a presumably intelligent person dons a pair of shorts, a flourescent top and quickens that walk into a quick jog, do they suddenly think those rules no longer apply.

How many times has a prat, most likely dressed as above, ran in front of your car, held there hand up at you without looking (presumably so they can't see you frantically swearing and making hand gestures at them after you've had to perform an emergency stop) only to be follwed by 40 clones ensuring you can't continue that journey for a full five minutes? How do these people get through life? Do they just waltz into the middle of the road when dressed in civilian attire? Do they tell their kids that it's not only safe to walk in front of cars but you can run in front of them as well? Or has natural selection saved us all the headache and prevented them from having children?

Of course they've got a very good reason for not stopping havn't they...THEY MIGHT GET COLD!!!! Well f*ck me you'd better carry on running in front of cars on a main road without looking, you might catch a chill otherwise and us motororist wouldn't want that on our conscience would we...