VIEWPOINT - Rights of Pedestrians

ICBC is encouraging people to give the wave. I believe that there is another far more important topic that needs to be addressed to the public and that is the rights of pedestrians crossing at unmarked crosswalks.

There have been several incidents where I have tried to cross the road at an intersection where there is no marked crosswalk. This has occurred particularly along a road where there are no crosswalks for several blocks. There are no safe times to cross the road because the cars just don't stop coming. I have stepped off the sidewalk and put out my arm to show that I want to cross the road and people just give me glares to say "what are you doing?" - and they DON'T stop!!

So I started quizzing people that I know and found that the majority of them thought that a person had to cross only at a crosswalk and that if a pedestrian wanted to cross anywhere else they had to wait until there were no cars coming. I was blown away and have had to prove it to them by pulling the information off the internet. Surprisingly, it's not even easy to find on the net, and in particular, your website.

My request would be that you publicize the fact that pedestrians really do have the right to cross at unmarked crosswalks.

Lots of Material on Pedestrians and Unmarked Crosswalks Here

This site has a search box in the upper left of every page. Searching on "unmarked crosswalk" (with the quotes to search for a phrase instead of individual words) results in a collection of articles on the topic.

Site Content by Category

You can also use the Content by Category link in the left column which leads to a tag cloud. The larger the size of the tag, the more popular the content. Click on Pedestrians there to see all articles on the site tagged to contain content on pedestrians.

Please Share This Information

I am not surprised that you found out drivers did not know what was required of them and this entire site is my attempt to counter that. Please feel free to link to articles from the site in your social media posts to illustrate your point.

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