Dear haligonian pedestrians, although the overly defensive drivers of our fair city have taught you otherwise, YOU DON’T ALWAYS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. Too many times I’ve almost killed someone due to their blindly walking out into the street, crosswalk or not. Apparently you think cars can stop instantaneously because your glorious self graces the pavement with your presence. Try doing this in any other city and see how long you remain non-road kill. Do the world a favour and pay attention to traffic. —Someone Who Doesn’t Want to go to Jail Because You’re an Idiot
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2011.
Actually I think cars will stop because of the stop sign.
Jesus, if you think haliwood’s bad, try driving in Wolfville. (yes I do KNOW how to drive and yes I HAVE driven in wolfvegas)
The first three times we had to deal with someone’s insurance company to fix our rear-ended car was annoying but whatever. The fourth and fifth times were just bullshit.
Jesus, pretty sure no one was paying attention when their parents taught them that looking both ways and CROSSING AT A FUCKING CROSS WALK was a good idea.
And at least no dumbass students ended up a hood ornament on a volvo. *shrug*
OP. If I hit a pedestrian because of their negligence, I will back up over them to finish the job. I see this all the time, especially on SGR.
I agree , we learned it in elementary. Look both ways before we cross and make sure traffic is stopped before crossing. Seems simple enough, but alot of people just don’t do it.
Dear haligonian drivers, although the overly defensive walkers of our fair city have taught you otherwise, YOU DON’T ALWAYS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. Too many times I’ve almost been killed by someone due to their blindly driving through a crosswalk while they text/chat/eat in their car. Apparently you think pedestrians have no rights and must leap out of the way because your glorious self graces the pavement with your presence. Try doing this in any other city and see how long your car remains unscratched or dented by a wayward grocery bag. Do the world a favour and pay attention to your driving.
/fixed
What I love are peds who don’t bother pressing the button for the lights and just step out in the cross walk. Cars can’t stop on a dime, people! I worked in the office building at HSC and my FUCK, there were like 4 people hit during the 5 months I worked there in the cross walk by the lower parking garage.
At the same time, there are some asshole drivers out there. They’re cutting busses off (and would be the first to bitch on here if a bus hit them because they tried to cut them off), driving through cross walks….frig. I saw a nasty ass accident on Lacewood this morning on the way to work. One car clearly looked totalled — t-boned another car trying to turn. And in the past year there’ve been tons of accidents on that stretch.
I’ll say though, the intersections of willett/lacewood and parkland/lacewood are NIGHTMARES to deal with. It’s actually safer, I find, to jay walk further up parkland to my building than to bother with that intersection. It’s like drivers in CP are assholes on purpose. And you get all the nimrods coming from Tim’s at the LW/Willet intersection — too busy trying to open the top of their sludge they call coffee to OH HAY make sure they don’t cream a ped with the right-of-way.
They say LOVE is a battlefield? Pfft, love ain’t got SHIT on crossing the street in CP.
Oh and I just love it when you’re crossing the Bedford Hwy by MSVU and a car clips you off in the cross walk and is LOOKING AT YOU instead of ahead all “huhh? durrrr?” I’m convinced licenses are handed out by cereal companies these days.
I usually only ever drive 30 around the city now because of all the oblivious pedestrians as well as other drivers … Yes pedo, you’re at a crosswalk, but you just ran out from behind a building/pole into the street and expect I can stop on a dime which I can’t, so don’t give me the finger or glare at me!
For Fuck Sakes, drivers – WHEN THERE’S A GODDAMN STOP SIGN STOP AT THE SIGN OR AT THE STOP LINE.
You do NOT have the authority to roll through a crosswalk and THEN stop at the very edge of the intersecting street.
This pisses me off like nothing else. I run over 30km/week and walk 30km/week in this fair city and I see it EVERY SINGLE Time I’m out – several times a day, on roads all around the city. Drivers not looking right, just looking for oncoming traffic then getting all pissy when I tap on the windows to point out the fact THEY ARE BLOCKING A CROSSWALK and didn’t even look. If I had a stroller, my baby would have been dead.
oh my god. I’m usually so laid back but this is an awful, awful habit that has GOT to stop. I think police should be more strict on the whole rolling stop thing.
It annoys me to no end when someone doesn’t stop at the line at an intersection and get pissy when the bus blocks them in trying to turn because they couldn’t clear the intersection because of the asshat in the car in the way.
If it annoys ME that much, i can’t even imagine how badly some drivers want to scream at these dumbfucks.
Speaking of police and stop signs, I remember a joke about such a thing. It’s not very good, just to warn. A car came to a stop sign and slowed down but did not stop, then just drove on through. A cop saw this and pulled the person over. The cop got out of his car and walked up to the offender’s car. The cop did not stop at his window and continued on to the hood. He took out his night stick and began to bash the car’s hood. The driver yelled, ‘What the fuck are you doing!?’ to which the police officer replied, ‘Would you like me to slow down, or stop?’ Teehee. They should be allowed to do things like that :D! Oh and I’m terrible with joke delivery, especially when typing it out so sorry for the waste of time.
Actually, from what I recall when studying my manual only a few years ago, YES, pedestrians DO have the right of way…
And I don’t mean that they have the right to just leap out into traffic and expect you to not hit them. That’s obviously ridiculous. But I mean, I’m not the one in the wrong if I stop at the crosswalk, look both ways, go, and then you start to drive toward me. Drivers, yes, it is YOUR responsibility, as bad as it is, to make sure no one leaps out in front of you. It’s stupid, but considering you’re the one driving the heavy box of metal that’s going to heavily injure/kill someone if you run into them, I think the burden is on you, not the pedestrian.
My take: there is responsibility on both parties to ensure the safety of everyone.
Pedestrians: please, for the love of god, stop and look both ways before you just dart across the street. I’m pretty sure this was a lesson taught to us when we were all of 4 years old. It still applies. You can’t just approach a street and go for it and assume that the approaching vehicle can instantaneously stop. News flash: it can’t. Oh, and just a thought: if you can’t see me from around that big bus odds are I can’t see you either.
Drivers: for the love of god, slow down and pay more attention. Put your cell phones away, put your mocha-frappa-latte-ccino down and reduce your speed. Where are you going in such a rush anyway? You know this city has a fairly strong pedestrian population, keep your eyes peeled. Just a few weeks ago I witnessed a narrow miss of a mother with two young children in a cross walk. All the vehicles in the righthand lane stopped to allow her to cross as did the people coming in the opposite direction. However the idiot is the Volvo coming up in the lefthand lane ignored the line up of stopped traffic and the flashing crosswalk lights and just narrowly missed bowling the family over at a rather high rate of speed.
So, pedestrians, pay more attention. And drivers, pay more attention.
OP, pedestrians can be charged with “failing to provide sufficient stopping distance for a vehicle” before walking out onto the street. I don’t both stopping for people who are not at a marked crosswalk, or at an intersection.
Peds don’t have the right of way in cross walks in some other provinces, FYI. You could be walking on a green light through a cross walk and you could get cut off or even hit and the driver wouldn’t be at fault as long as they had a green light. However, it’s also not legal to turn right on a red light in some other provinces as well.
Go figure.
I’ll wait for a few cars to pass through the crosswalk while I am patiently waiting (as the inevitably do, every time) – perhaps for those drivers there was not enough time to stop.
After that point, there was _clearly_ time to stop, but you are just hoping I’ll keep waiting there so that you can get to your destination a few seconds faster. You know what? Fuck you.
After the first few cars is when I start walking. Don’t like it? Try and run me over. You’ll enjoy the hole in your windshield from the brick I keep in my book bag. It will look nice next to the hole in your head.
i want to know where these fucking idiots are buying their force fields from? because when they get killed, i want to be able to say to their families, that hey, he/she should have gotten a better deal elsewhere.
too many fucking fools, and not enough cars to run them down. it’s a shame, that some poor fuck driving, would have to have an idiots fault sense of security, and death, on their minds, forever.
remember lukes, and lukettes, the force deffinately isn’t with you, when you walk in front of that car or truck, or whatever.
I watched a lady not be an aggressive enough pedestrian at one of those non-lighted crosswalks on SGR (the one near the Lawton’s) she was hysterically enraged that cars wouldn’t stop but I really don’t think any motorist knew she was trying to cross the street, she was so far away from the side of the road. She was yelling and stuff, pretty funny.
for your info people, obtained easily from access n.s. site.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/rmv/handbook/DH…
Every day I have to break before I almost hit someone walking across SGR at the roots and shoppers – I have the green coming down Dresden – they have the Orange hand, I have the Green light – and yet everyday someone walks out without even looking. And if no one does there – someone always walks out on Clyde and Dresden without looking. Never fails!
i love how people talk about “who has the right of way” it may will be your right of way to cross at the crosswalk mr/s pedo however when your brains are splattered all over the street because you just walked out into traffic, it wont really matter much how right you were.
At the end of the day physics rules out in this argument, and although i agree that there are way too many inattentive drivers out there, at the end of the day if you are on foot, you must be aware of your surroundings and understand that being right doesn’t count for jack shit if you are dead.
The “physics rules out” argument works a lot of the time, but sometimes cars appeal practically ex nihilo. I am a pedestrian who does not cross intersections blindly, ever. I know the rules of the road and don’t jay-walk (unless there are no cars in sight or anywhere near me). When I cross at Robie and Welsford or any other marked or unmarked crosswalk, I always wait until I know all cars have seen me and slowed down. Even though I am cautious, I am regularly almost hit by cars. The worst intersection for me by far is the one at South Park and Bell (CBC Radio building); I am regularly crossing, have looked carefully both ways, have the walkie-man, and some douchebag revvs it through the intersection because suddenly nothing was coming in the other direction. A green light does NOT mean “Gun it, biatch!” I – the pedestrian – have the right of way here (the white man tells me I can go); cars always have to yield to the peds in this situation in the whole country, not just in Nova Scotia. There have been many times when cars come out of nowhere and drivers just aren’t paying attention.
This being said, however, I’m aware that there are stupid people in all walks (ha ha) of life, drivers AND pedestrians alike – I just wish I would see fewer drivers on their cell phones (especially texting, which I see pretty much every day on my walks to & from work) and more of them not almost running me over.
Oh well, it could be worse; at least it’s not like in Cairo: real-life Frogger, baby.
jees do i have to get the hedgehog commercials out for everyone again, when will canada just follow the UK and make cars have right of way.
Hey Luthor. No relation to Lex? I drive and do not participate in any other activity but driving. I do not have a neck like an owl or eyeballs like a Felix the Cat clock. These fuckers can jump out of nowheres and expect you brake and shit yourself at the same time.
I’ve been (in a few instances) passing thru a crosswalk and a ped had started walking. Yes I felt like shit but I would mouth to them “Sorry!” as opposed to the motorists that pretend you’re not there.
I’m also a pedestrian (and Aquarius) and I make damn sure before crossing the street to make eye contact with drivers coming both ways.
Si Senor!!!!
srdg df