To the drivers at the North Park St/Cogswell/etc intersection by Citadel High and the Commons: when you continue to make left turns after your advance green light has finished, giving no thought to pedestrians waiting to cross, you leave us sprinting across the intersection – the crossing light is short enough as is – to make it before the lights change again. This is especially difficult – and unsafe – with a stroller! Please, wait your turn. —Frustrated nanny
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.
the lights in this city are really fucked, everyone already knows this. and even if they weren’t, most drivers in hrm are just accidents, waiting to happen. drivers remember one thing, you are the accident, that has not happened yet, take an extra couple seconds, and watch out for everything, not just the sexy micro mini skirted honey on the sidewalk.
I’m pretty sure the whole “with a stroller” part is going to completely invalidate this bitch. We’re a baby-hating bunch around here, yo 😛
Seriously though, if you think crossing is bad in hfx try coming to Quebec. Even the busses try and run you over. It’s some sort of sick game to see how much ped roadkill they can collect. I don’t even know why they even have traffic lights here because no one pays attention to them. I’m probably going to end up coming back to hfx as a hood ornament.
I take this route everyday and this is such a pet peve of mine! Sometimes my light turns green and 3 or 4 more cars try and sneak through in front of me.. grr
After I heard the story from Toronto where a new mom had to sacrifice herself to push her stroller (containing her 3 week old baby) out of the way of the car that struck and killed her at a crosswalk, I’ve been especially vigilant crossing with my son. It doesn’t guarantee anything of course, but I give any car creeping toward me as I’m crossing the dirtiest look I can muster. I’m tempted to carry something I can throw at them if they get too close – paint in a bottle, maybe – but I know that would just escalate things. Try yelling at them, maybe that will put them off.
I agree, the lights here are weird. Some intersections have the so called “smart” traffic lights, the rest have the “when the fuck is this light going to change” lights.
Hey Lifesucks; Is your new avatar from that mid-70’s James Brolin epic “The Car”. I preferred Deathrace 2000 myself (not the pissy remake).
Note to Mod 4.0: staying on topic in a retro kinda way.
I almost got one crossing on a red signal at Portland Street 5 corners.
I had the right of way & he stepped out without even pausing nevermind bothering to look, I didn’t stop, I wasn’t risking the people right behind me rear ending me (I was driving my little 4 cylinder pontiac). He was amazingly fast when I hit the horn, he actually realised that he was in the wrong as well !
Cross walks are to be STOPPED AT ,before you proceed out onto the road…& yes I know that makes it really ,really hard for you to find that special song your looking for on your I-pod while you walk oblivious to the world around you…but those rolling metal crates that are on all the roadways, you might want to pay a bit more attention to. Unless being a hood ornament is something you really want to try out !
Ooola la,.
So you have yellow light left turners taking the last chance to turn, and you have pedestrians also taking the last chance to cross… problem is, pedestrians bounce off cars.
The lesson learned is: pedestrians beware, don’t try to run across the street when the traffic light is yellow, you might get a love bump.
Instead, wait for the golden rule, the one your mom taught you: “Look both ways and cross when no one is coming.” You can do this ANYTIME, not just when the light says you can.
Pedestrians, should have a brain before taking to the sidewalks. YOU WEIGH NOTHING compared to a car. Don’t think you deserve to cross because you’re on a crosswalk. If its flashing no cross/yellow light, stay off crosswalk, its the vehicles turn to “cross the street”.
May I just add that after writing that post, it appears I am a selfish driver.
In fact, I walk or cycle more than I drive, but I do drive and am generally appalled at how vehicles yield too often to pedestrians when not in designated crossing areas. This needs to stop.
I even saw a bus stop on 4 lane Robie Street to allow pedestrians to cross. He waved them across the street as if giving them the A-OK signal, not even realising, a bus in the curbside lane blocks the pedestrians view of the other lane, and trust me, drivers about to pass that bus in the other lane don’t know there are pedestrians about to be waved across the street by a bus driver.
cptstubing…that’s just the bus drivers way of attempting to increase the intelligence of the gene pool.
After all if your stupid enough to cross a 4 lane road ,when your view is blocked by a bus…we’re probably better of as a species, without that level of intelligence passing on their DNA.
are we referencing a darwinian bus driver?
how very odd…..
and perhaps we should just start handing out cyanide pills… label them as poisonous and see how many idiots still take them.
More – brilliant, if this is what it takes, I encourage it.
zzz – the pills might just work also.
someone should push a stroller filled with high impact explosives in it, and wait for just the right second to let go and let vehicle hit it.
Good ideal LS, I’ll be the first to test it! The other day I was crossing an intersection with my baby where the female driver was completely blocking the crosswalk with her suv. I had the right of way, and whereas most people who block the intersetion like this usually give an apologetic wave and/or try to reverse out of the way, this woman just sat there with her nose out so far it would have been a risk to pass around front. I dont like walking behind cars in this situation either- what if her foot slipped off the clutch nd she slipped backwards? So I said to her passenger friend who had her window open: ‘Excuse me, you are blocking the crosswalk’ in a calm manner, which made her and the driver incredulous for some reason. The driver (who was on her phone) told me off. All i could do was tell her she was the type of driver who gets people killed. If I had a carton of eggs (or a large rock), I would have hurled it at her winshield.
celphone you say, damn, wish i was would have been there, take my phone, take a nice pic of her using hers and forward to the cops,oh yes, and the second pic, would have had her license tag on it. z, hon, i hope you told them both to get fucked with a rusty dildo, with jagged edges.
Excellent idea, LS. I will try to remember to do this next time it happens to me.