PEDESTRIAN / AUTO COLLISIONS

Peter Shawn Taylor has an excellent opinion piece in yesterday's Waterloo Region Record titled "Solution to pedestrian deaths lies underfoot". In one sense we could suggest that this is a case of blaming the victim. Which he does. However he also backs it up with some very interesting statistics. Apparently over half of pedestrian deaths occur either mid block where the pedestrian has no business crossing or they occur while pedestrians are crossing against the light or even while walking on roads rather than the shoulder. Make no mistake while pedestrians are to blame just slightly over 50% of the time, drivers are clearly to blame all the rest.

None of this is of the slightest surprise to me. Once as a very young teenager I got my bicycle clipped by a car and once while jogging across a street on the green light as a nineteen year old I went up over the hood of a car rather than get my legs taken out from under me. Both times I was very lucky although both times I was paying a hell of a lot more attention than the driver and thus took last second evasive manoevres.

Since then I have driven for over fourty years both privately and commercially. I have driven little tiny four cylinder cars and tri-axle dumptrucks while pulling a float with heavy equipment on it. This I can categorically say: The Ontario Ministry of Transport are the world's biggest idiots. They haven't the foggiest idea how to improve safety on or off the roads. Secondly our traffic police and senior bureaucrats including politicians should all be fired and or thrown in jail. This focusing on the extremely few drivers who actually drive at speeds disproportionate to traffic volume, road capability and weather and visibility continues to cost lives. What they should long ago have been focusing on is the majority of drivers who can't or won't focus and pay attention to what they are doing. The driving habits of 50% of our drivers are less than pathetic and our police ignore them. Last second turn signals, wandering from lane to lane while going through roundabouts, stepping on the brakes on high speed highways when there is absolutely nothing in front of you, failure to pull over into the right hand lane when there is traffic behind you; the list goes on and on. This includes drivers on bare roads in broad daylight with perfect driving conditions driving five km/hour under the already generally ridiculously slow speed limits.

All this being said, I am also a pedestrian. Whether on my own or walking our black lab I am fully aware of the general stupidity and incompetence out there. How stupid would I have to be to step out in front of even a slow moving approaching car; even while having the right of way? Apparently pedestrians assume all the time that approaching cars are only driven by attentive, focused, wide awake individuals. Even a light car weighs 2,500 pounds. Pedestrians "insisting" on the right of way aren't going to "win" anything if the driver has his head up his ass. I have long referred to this as driving HUA and it is the norm. Only when our police ever get their heads out of their asses and start enforcing laws other than speeding; will HUA drivers ever start to learn that they are obliged to pay attention when driving. Then accidents and deaths of drivers, cyclists and pedestrians will plummet. Not before.