First, let me spread the love…I love cyclists, I love pedestrians. Clearly, they are doing the right thing, the green thing, the thing I wish I was doing. But I’m not. At least, not all the time. However, when I’m not, I really have no intention to run a pedestrian over. I want them to keep doing their thing. However, something about the mechanics of a car going 50km/hour and its’ brake system can cause problems. Especially when pedestrians think that it’s ok to JUMP INTO TRAFFIC when they’re at a crosswalk. Believe me, in cities all over the world, people do not start crossing without making sure that all of the cars around had sufficient time to stop safely. Wake up Haligonians… this is a city!
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2008.
Yeah, I never get why people don’t care about their personal safety by looking right and left twice, stepping enough for traffic to see your intention and then advancing when you are certain that cars are not going to mow you over. Especially in a region where every corner is a crosswalk (which is stupid because some people think they are freakin’ invincible) you have to be extra careful because while you are in the right, walker, it’s better to be alive.
I’m a crosswalk guard at the corner of Lacewood and Bayview. I wear a uniform consisting of a hunter orange ball cap, hunter orange vest with florescent yellow strips, and I hold a stop sign. I do my job correctly, holding my stop sign at a 45 deg. angle, before stepping onto the crosswalk, holding the folks at the curb until everyone has stopped, then holding my sign straight up while people cross. The policy says we are to stay where we are, until everyone is off the curb on the other side. It AMAZES me that for 2 mornings in a row now, people turning left onto Bayview from Lacewood, have almost hit me. I’m doing my job the way I was told, but these 2 drivers seemingly came out of nowhere. All the other drivers had stopped, but these 2 just weren’t paying attention. They manage to stop, and say, “Sorry, I didn’t see you…” HOW CAN YOU MISS THE BIG CHICK IN HUNTER ORANGE, HOLDING A FREAKIN’ STOP SIGN?!?!?!?! Boggles the mind… Pay attention in school zones, people!!! The folks dressed in orange are there for a GOOD reason…SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!!
my favorite is when they’re jaywalking. I was coming down by the commons the other day, on one of those super busy streets, and this group of people start crossing, not four feet from TWO different crosswalks! but no, they just HAD to cross int he middle. I slowed a bit, because it looked like they weren’;t going to stop at the centre line or go back or anything…but then when I realized they’d seen me and paused on the centre line, and the taxi behind me wasn’t slowing down, I proceeded along, so as not to get rear ended, or have those jaywalkers wapped by the taxi behind me who ahdn’t seen them.for my trouble I got the finger and this ‘oh gee thanks’ yell from the lady crossing.Fuck you. I’m not getting rear ended so you can save 3 seconds and cross in the middle of a busy road! And if I’d hit her, it would have been HER fault, NOT mine!
I see this so many times. People with a Superman complex walking right out in front of oncoming traffic. Why, because they have the right away. Holy shit man, if there is a car or truck or vehicle with more mass and velocity than you, do not step in front of it. Children from very young ages know this. You do not have to be that good at math or physics to figure this out. I am not keen on seeing any animal getting injured. These humans that walk right in to oncoming traffic need to be hood ornaments. Survival of the fittest, sort of thing. As humans, we do not need these stupid people breeding.
i think that crazy bylaw must have changed because atleast once a week or every two weeks i see a story in the herald about pedestrians getting ticketed for failing to yield to the vehicle that hit them
To Hedgyhog — the ridiculous part of it is that if you had hit her, it still would have been considered your fault, even though she was ‘in the wrong’. Halifax still has, I believe, some strange bylaw on the books that says that pedestrians have the right of way even when they’re jay-walking. It has something to do with the Halifax Explosion leaving so many people blind and deaf. Personally, I think that’s stupid now, as I can’t imagine that anyone affected by the Halifax Explosion is up and about, jaywalking all over the place.
I don’t understand the mentality of some people who think because they have the “right of way” they can just walk out in the middle of the road without looking. The “right of way” isn’t going to matter when you’re 6 feet under! PLEASE look before you cross! I don’t want to be the one who puts you underground.