Pedestrians

The US Transportation Research Board has published the Summary of the 10th University Transportation Centers Spotlight Conference focusing on Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety held on December 1, 2016. This may be of interest to those of us in Canada as our regulatory agencies tend to follow the US lead.

Some incidents encountered during a career in policing stick with you for life and sometimes resurface later on as lessons learned. This memory involved a mother dropping her young son off for a birthday party by pulling over and stopping on the right side of the street. He exited the car and excited to join the festivities, ran to the back and darted across the street. He was struck and killed by a passing vehicle.

On this site and elsewhere, it is sometimes asserted that under BC law, no one ever "has the right of way" -- that right of way can only be yielded. That is contradicted by the following from the Act:

Our provincial driving manual Learn to Drive Smart devotes an entire chapter to the concept of See - Think - Do Method. See: The pedestrian waiting to cross the street in the intersection. Think: There are no lines painted on the pavement, but it is an unmarked crosswalk and I have to stop for the pedestrian. Do: Yield the right of way to the pedestrian and allow them to cross the street.

I had a bit of a scare the other day when I tried to back out of a space in a busy parking lot. There was a large van beside me blocking my view so I scanned as completely as I could and began to let up on the clutch. No sooner had I started to roll than a woman paying more attention to her smart phone than where she was walking appeared from behind the van. We both slammed on the brakes and after looking at each other for a moment, she continued on her way.

I received a very detailed e-mail this week from a lady who described walking beside Willingdon Road southbound, facing in North Saanich during the early morning darkness. She paused, looked both ways for traffic and continued to the point where Willingdon begins and Canora Road diverges to the northeast.

She stopped and checked for traffic again from the small island that is present between lanes. Finding none, she began to cross the single lane. At this point, a vehicle approached from the south began to accelerate and the driver switched from low to high beam headlights.

Had a nice policeman come talk to me today and give me a violation ticket for driving without consideration 144 (1)(b). The offence allegedly happened over 2 months ago in another town 4 hours north of me.

We have an intersection at Bertram and Bernard in Kelowna that has a pedestrian controlled light on one side that stop Bernard traffic for pedestrians.

Drivers coming south on Bertram can only take a right at Bernard and arrive at a stop sign.

This case concerns liability for a collision between a driver and a pedestrian at a traffic circle. The pedestrian was using a cellphone as she approached the traffic circle and began to cross in the marked crosswalk. The driver failed to see the pedestrian who was visible and collided with her.

I had the pleasure of visiting Banff, Alberta as a tourist this spring. The downtown area of the city has been remade with pedestrians in mind. The sidewalks are wide, speed limits are reduced and the three pedestrian scrambles move a lot of people more safely than the conventional intersection. Clearly, pedestrians are a welcome part of traffic in the core area.