TRY NEW APPROACH

A recent collision between a vehicle and father and son who were crossing 19th Street at a pedestrian crosswalk prompts me to write.

There is a program called Vision Zero, whose aim is to eliminate all traffic accidents. It has been a national policy in Sweden since 1997, and several American cities are now looking into the program.

Neil Arason, a civil servant in British Columbia and a road safety researcher, says that if Canada adopts Vision Zero we could end all traffic fatalities in Canada by 2035. A Maclean’s article quotes Arason saying our conceptual failure lies a large part in our refusal to think of an accident involving a car separately from its consequences.

He says we should be asking why a particular ac- cident caused such trauma — physical and emotional. A shift of focus to the road system and the dangerous machines we drive is what will make Vision Zero possible. A few of the program’s suggestions are to:

▪ Replace with bright lime yellow markings the current black and white lines at intersections for pedestrians, and for bike lanes because the bright colour will better catch drivers’ attention;

▪ Reduce speed limits in residential areas to 30 km/h;

▪ Provide six-second advantage walk signals to make people more visible. Have pedestrian traffic islands to reduce the number of lanes a person must cross at any one time;

▪ Use the pedestrian scramble system at busy corners. Signal stops all traffic or all pedestrians, with cars and people never moving at the same time. Carl Bungay Saskatoon