PROTECTING OUR PEDESTRIANS,
Why aren’t we more angry about fatalities?
Idid what you should never do. I followed a driver home to let them know they had run a red light and a stop sign.
It was last fall, and I’d forgotten about it until I read the latest figures released in Toronto showing one pedestrian a week is being killed on that city’s streets. But instead of outrage over that, get ready for a springtime flood of headlines of people being angry that “their” streets are getting bike lanes and traffic-calming.
Where is the outrage, as happened in the Netherlands, to the death and injury of our citizens who aren’t in their cars? Holland hit the reset. One program was actually called Stop de Kindermoord — stop murdering the children. The difference in that country? The movement began with people no longer accepting the danger on their streets. Forget the politicians — why aren’t we more upset?
For years we’ve been hearing about adopting trafficcalming measures, lowered speed limits, car- free areas and programs such as Vision Zero. Vision Zero is a Swedish invention that simply states that when it comes to road safety, no death is acceptable. Pedestrians and cyclists must be able to use our common streets and be able to safely navigate them with cars, not in spite of them.
The program was quickly adopted in North America, including Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver. Other jurisdictions, in the program or not, are enhancing trafficcalming, with speed bumps and stop signs, traffic lights and lowered speed limits.
And yet, in the mayor’s words, the carnage continues.
I wrote a couple of years back that artificially lowered speed limits — those at 30 km/ h that aren’t around school zones — won’t work without intense enforcement. I got a lot of blowback, mostly from those who confused my words with the car- driving warriors who want to see all pedestrians and cyclists removed from “their” streets.
I believe if a street was built to accommodate 60 km/ h, drivers will see that speed as logical. We obey laws that make sense. Posting 30 km/ h on a street engineered to be driven at 60 km/h without finding a way to make that lowered limit seem reasonable will simply give pedestrians a false sense of security.
My city hasn’t officially adopted Vision Zero, but they sure have embraced speed bumps and stop signs. I woke up one morning and it was like the speed bump bunnies had been reproducing. The idea was to push traffic from smaller arteries onto major ones. I don’t know if it has, but it’s annoyed the hell out of anyone who drives. They also seem to forget SUVS and CUVS can pretty much jam over those speed bumps and barely notice.
I want traffic- calming to work, but mostly it just makes drivers i rritated. Angry drivers are not good for pedestrians or cyclists. I also want pedestrians and cyclists to be visible at night, to cross at crosswalks, and get their minds off their phones.
Mostly I want people to stop dying in our streets because a driver is travelling too fast, or is distracted, or has run a red light. Our most vulnerable — seniors and children — are at the most risk. There is no instance where steel meets flesh that flesh wins. None.
Studies over the years and insurance company stats point out that you’re more likely to be involved in a collision close to home. It makes sense; you flip to autopilot when everything is familiar, and your attention may be lax as you think ahead to other things. Your ability to respond to something out of the ordinary is compromised.
It’s why I followed after the driver I saw. She turned right on a red light without even looking up. I was at the intersection, coming out of my dead- end street, where all of us who live on the street are used to being cut off repeatedly by people who think we’re invisible. She continued straight through a stop sign without pausing. Why her? Because it was three o’clock in the afternoon, there are three schools in the area, and kids were everywhere. I’d had enough.
I was polite but pointed. I told her she’d run a red light and a stop sign. She denied it, but she didn’t sound too certain. I told her the intersections. She told me there wasn’t even a stop sign there. I told her there was.
High horse? Not really. I care about my neighbours, and I care about the kids who walk to school. Nobody wants to hit someone with their car. If that means they need a reminder to stay focused, especially in areas they consider so familiar as to require less attention, so be it.
Most people I know drive differently after they’ve been in a collision, and many adjust their habits if they’ve had a ticket. I have no idea if my red-light lady will pay better attention or not, but it was worth a shot. It’s a reminder that the only way to make our streets safer is to act as a community, and remember we are all pedestrians, and we all care about our family.
Slowing down cars, making drivers more engaged, teaching pedestrian road safety from an early age and valuing all of our road users is proactive, not punishment.
The Dutch did more than pay lip service to wanting to protect their citizens. Are we willing to do the same?