The Prudent Pedestrian & The Diligent Driver

Over the five years ending with 2012 B.C. saw an average of 2,300 pedestrian involved collisions with 2,400 injuries and 60 fatalities. Almost 42% of these were aged 61 or over. Males tend to be involved more often with 35 deaths each year compared to 25 female deaths. While the majority of collision causes are driver related, over 20% of contributing factors were attributed to pedestrians.

It's probably a risky choice to start an article with a paragraph of statistics. People see numbers, not their community members at risk or the significance of their chances of colliding with a pedestrian. If there is no personal impact (pun intended), readers will skip along to something more interesting. I'm hoping that I still have your attention.

If you are a pedestrian, you can use the sidewalk, walk on the left if there isn't, cross at crosswalks, look both ways, point your way to safety and wear reflective clothing or use lights. If you are a driver, realize that you must exercise care at all times to avoid colliding with a pedestrian. Think pedestrian when the car adjacent to you slows and stops in an unexpected place and when you approach residential areas, crosswalks, school and playground zones.

Whew! That's a lot of thoughts in only a few paragraphs. Please try to keep them all in mind, both of you.

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Pedestrians

You had a similar post a while back.

My comment then was that it is not safe to cross at crosswalks -- primarily due to drivers making turns through them without regard for walk/don't walk signals.

I'll amend that somewhat.

It is ONLY EVER safe to cross at crosswalks if you wait until the traffic is lear in ALL FOUR DIRECTIONS.

The most dangerous situation is when you are on the right-hand sidewalk.

Drivers turning right are thus behind you to your left, and they are looking to their left. In most cases, they have already had a glance to the right, and in their mind they are safe since there are no cars. You however are definitely not safe. In these caes the pedestrian must assume control and take whatever steps are necessary to gain the driver's attention -- or just wait and enter the crosswalk behind them. Try to make eye contact.

Until law enforcement makes an issue out of enforcing traffic laws other than speeding your statistics will get worse and worse.

Peace and long live,
--BM

Pedestrians