The white lines to not actually prevent cars from plowing into you…as a pedestrian I 100% of the time wait until I am certain the driver can see me crossing before I walk. Those that feel they can just push that light and walk and go out of their way to not look…feeling like “I know that car has to stop and I am walking no matter what”…will die. Seriously though, does your sense of rightnousness prevent 3000 lbs of metal from driving through you? The stop being so pretentious and just make sure we see you. God help you if you get one of the cellphone drivers from the other threads…you be dead yo!
—wickety whack don’t cross back
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.
stupid pedestrians!
Indeed.
It reminds me of the kayakers in False Creek/English Bay. Years ago I used to run charter boats and dinner cruises out of there, and they would paddle furiously, as hard as they could, to get directly in your path, and then slow down – forcing you to go full astern to avoid mowing them down…
The funny part is, they were STILL in violation of the collision regs, even as a hand-powered craft…but you could lterally see the tendons on their scrawny malnourished vegan necks as they paddled like mad…all the while refusing to glance over at us, as if they hadn’t noticed the 100 foot boat making her way up the creek!
Hilarious – like a bad Canadian actor that tries so hard to not look at the camera, that their head swivels around, wild-eyed and willy nilly, but never focuses, lmao…
kayakers/careless pedestrians- two variations of the same flightless bird…
I felt like I wrote this myself. I’m always saying that people must think that the mere fact of being in the crosswalk makes them invincible. YES you do have the right away BUT that won’t make the car more likely to see you or to be able to get stopped, which brings me to the next part of what I hate about cross walkers, that they are speedwalking straight forward, they pick up the crosswalk in their peripheral and with no hesitation just turn on their heel and start marching across the street. uhhhh
of course I hate some drivers just as bad, the other day I’m stopped along with four other cars in different directions (three way stop with two sides having two lanes) and this guy on the outside lane of one of the two lanes who is totally oblivious to everyone else stopped and doesn’t stop to think gee that’s weird or notice the flashing crosswalk signs plows right through almost clipping two kids on their way to school. The crackup about it is that he was driving a truck that had that skin that they put on the bus that said traffic control. Brilliant
wow, I never really expected that crossover but alright.
Say, I know some Canadian geese that were flyin all V like and some rogue sparrows got in their path….
they were all like “GAAAAAAAAWWWKKKKKKK, I’m flyin’ here”….
damn sparrows.
I find it’s mainly out of province drivers who are the worst drivers in this city. Whether they be asshole Ontario drivers or hillbilly PEI drivers, they just don’t seem to know or care how to properly drive in this city. Seriously, next time you get cut off or almost run over in a crosswalk, check the license plates. You’ll be surpised at how many are not from Nova Scotia, and even some that do have Nova Scotia plates are rental cars, too.
I just moved to Ottawa from Halifax, and quickly learned that Ontario drivers DO NOT put up with jaywalkers/ stupid pedestrians. YOu wanna cross the road? Use a crosswalk, or run like hell!
I think Haligonian walkers are spoiled.