Tonight Kiddo and I were nearly run down right outside her school. An SUV was doing 80 on Hawthorn street. Kiddo and I were standing trying to cross, she as always hand in hand standing and waiting and they came so close it nearly touched her bag I was holding.
They were going so fast I couldn’t see the driver or model, just that it was a reddish burgundy colour. They were going so fast that by the time we jumped back to avoid being hit, they were gone, around the corner on to Portland Street.
Kiddo immediately started to cry. It scared her. I was enraged. She turned to me and was bawling, “daddy he tried to kill us, what if he killed you?”
To that driver, was it worth driving so recklessly down a snow covered narrow street? Did you get home a minute earlier? At what cost? How dare you be so thoughtless, so selfish, despicable person.
Then I thought, how many people have been hit in Halifax by cars in the last three months? TOO MANY.
I ask you spread this message to your friends and families. Remind them to take it easy. Take it easy yourself. Slow down. Put your cells away. Watch. REALLY watch for others. Drive slower. We are such a small community here. We can make a difference.
For now I await a night of nightmares for my little one.
—For the love of pedestrians
This article appears in Feb 6-12, 2014.
I think i know who you are talking about. Middle aged brunnette with sunglasses on? If so I can provide you with her email address.
Just visit her shop on SGR. lol ^^^
In all seriousness, I’m glad you’re both ok, OB! I almost got smooshed like that by a geriatric douche on Wyse Rd outside Met Place and it shook me up — can’t imagine how scared your little one was/is. 🙁
Lets get this straight first…I am NOT condoning this type of driving but…
It strikes me as weird that it doesn’t say you were at a crosswalk, which means you are teaching your child the wrong way to cross the street. How about you teach your kid to stand well back, look both ways and cross the street ONLY when it is safe to do so. Teach your child some responsibility FFS!!! You were standing with your child, so close to the road that someone almost hit the bag you had in your hand. This is the reckless and irresponsible behaviour that is plaguing todays youth, thinking that a vehicle, regardless of how fast it is travelling, has the ability to a) see you and b) is able to stop for you no matter what. Why not teach your child this one very important lesson my father taught me “only stupid people walk out into a street in front of a vehicle with the expectation they are going to stop”.
the ob did not mention whether it was a crosswalk, just that they were trying to cross. hyper vigilance at all times, teach your kid
PMK, it’s not her shop, it’s her very successful shop.
Two issues, firstly it was in Dartmouth, secondly it was either a dealer late for a drug deal or a concerned dog owner heading to Preston to check on the welfare of their chained dog (sarcasm)?
My bad, BT.
Always watch SUV drivers, like a hawk. They have an aura of lead-footed entitlement around them. Remember that Kiddo!!
The only crosswalk on Hawthorne is north of the school, hundreds of feet from the intersection with Portland. If the driver turned onto Portland as quickly as OP describes, I think StephenHarper is right and OP was nowhere near the crosswalk, but was trying to escort his kiddo straight across the street from the school.
Way too many close calls as well as car-pedestrian accidents….personally I would have gotten licence plate, then home to get baseball bat , then go visiting. Good thing it wasn’t my daughter.
I’m seriously considering a dashcam, any thoughts?
I don’t think jay walking rules apply in a school zone.
Great Value, you’re kidding, right?
Spike strips.
maybe trying to cross to get to their own car parked on the other side of the street. no one would walk up to the corner, cross then walk all the way back again unless its a major street ( is it? I don’t know Dartmouth)
someone in a school zone has reasonable expectation that cars will be going slower than usual. so should be able to cross the road after looking both ways and seeing no one IN SIGHT.
but some jackass barrelling along at 80 is going to come out of nowhere and be on them in a second.
post sounds legit and reasonable to me.
what I find really odd about this bitch & is why I believe a lot of the blame is on the OB…why would they be using a radar gun while trying to cross the street with their child ?
Its the only explanation for knowing they were traveling at 80kms in a 30km zone !
C’mon do 1 or the other, like play with your radar gun & then put it away & then cross the street with your child …. standing on the side of the street instead of on the sidewalk’s a bit iffy looking to cross the road as well …IMO.
aren’t there any other streets connecting to it closer than the designated crosswalk?
Under HRM bylaws, a t-junction is an ‘intersection’ and every intersection whether marked or not is a crosswalk.
I know this because
a. I live on a street with this exact scenario and
b. no-one ever fucking stops to let me cross.
The crosswalk is as I described it. There are no closer intersections that would create an unmarked crosswalk. It seems clear the OB was trying to jaywalk and the fact it is so inconvenient to walk all that distance to cross legally (as Good Dog Molly points out) does not make it okay.
I did a google street view on this one, Hawthorne approaching Portland. I was curious. school on one side of a 15-20 foot wide street, houses on the other. this kind of street beckons for a 15-20 km speed limit, with or without kiddies. it’s not even remotely major thoroughfare. large leafy trees, older homes, lovely place.
it would never occur to me to go to the end of the block to cross such a street. even with a little one in hand. there’s the letter of the law and then there’s the spirit of the law. a person has reasonable expectation to be able to cross that leafy lane during school hours in safety.
I judge harshly idiots with headphones on and eyes glued to phones dashing across bayers road at rush hour. that is stupid behaviour. even at a crosswalk. ‘right’ does not always mean correct.
A 15-20km speed limit, you have to be kidding!!!! Fuck sakes, joggers would get pulled over for speeding.
See, this is exactly why we have so many pedestrian/vehicle accidents here. No matter what you say to people, it all equates to…driver bad, pedestrian is always right. You can’t even suggest that someone teach their child to watch out and respect the fact that vehicles will kill you if they don’t see you. It really makes no difference how people drive. Fast, slow, reckless, etc…its a moot point. If you walk out into a street in front of a moving vehicle, you are trusting your life to someone who could be drunk, texting , hell, even masturbating for all you know. You know why I’m 40 years old and have never even so much as had a close call on a crosswalk, road, parking lot? Cause I respect the fact that if I’m wrong, I get squished. You are the fly, the vehicle is the fly swatter. Dislike my opinion all you want…
oh ostrich fluffers harper.
I ended my comment with my opinion of stupid pedestrians. one of my pet peeves, their self entitled bleatings about their legal right to get jammed into a front grill.
THIS situation, which is why I looked at the street view, is different. my driving instructor many moons ago (who was also the tester and the mayor) said ‘I don’t care if you stay legal, as long as you drive safely.”. we were at a stop sign, clear view in all directions. he didn’t care if I came to a full stop.
now I understand we have to have laws spelled out because 98 % of the population is of minimal intelligence. one size doesn’t have to fit all.
this street has house on one side of it, and a school on the other. nothing else. the school yard stretches the entire block. it didn’t suddenly jump out at the speeding driver. it’s large, made of bricks, has paintings on it of a school type nature. chain link fence. it screams I AM A SCHOOL. its presence is obvious.
there are homes on the other side of the street. people tend to buy homes close to elementary schools, so their kids are close to school.
any sane intelligent person who doesn’t drive with their head up their own ass would crawl down that street anytime between 8am and 9pm because any sane and reasonably intelligent person would anticipate kids running across that road. this is what I meant by beckoning 15-20.
if the legal speed limit is 50 for that street so? again, ‘right’ doesn’t guarantee correct. as with stupid peds who dash out into traffic.
(I don’t use the like/dislike button and won’t until it carries ones name with it. )
Simmer down, the only part of that comment that was directed at you was the sarcastic comment about the 15-20 km speed limit. The rest was just social commentary.
Hawthorne?
spike strips set to release for any car going over the speed limit in a school zone…pretty hard to explain that one away to the police when they come. should be a bin with stones to throw at the car as well when they get spiked. reminds me of a lady my father pulled over one time doing 80 in a 40km/h school zone. she was so shocked and told my father she was late picking up her kids at another school down the road….people like that need to be publicly fucked with a 2×4 with rusty 6 inch nails up the ass for their stupidity. worth a child’s life to go that fast?