I am a mother of two small children under the age of five. My girls are experiencing the largest growth of information they will ever achieve in life, learning from examples set by everyone they see.
I am trying to teach them that the road is a dangerous place and that safety is always our first concern. I can only hope they will never learn the bad habits that I see so many pedestrians exercise every day. I am writing in response to all the submissions in the past regarding pedestrian safety in the face of so-called dangerous, reckless and ignorant drivers. Yes, in some instances, the driver is at fault, but in some cases, the pedestrians who fail to take their safety into their own hands are the reckless ones.
I am appalled by the bad habits adult pedestrians use and are modelling for our children. I have seen five-year-olds with better road crossing habits than most adult pedestrians. Think about it — we are taught as early as kindergarten, to stop, look and listen and to signal your intent to cross by holding out your arm. Too often I see people entering the crosswalk without pausing or without even turning their head to look for approaching vehicles.
Here is something to think about — drivers are faced with distractions in and out of the vehicle, are visually and auditorily impaired, negotiate with pedestrians, motor vehicles and bicycles and are responsible for adhering to hundreds of traffic laws, all the while travelling an average of 10 times the speed of a pedestrian. Pedestrians have an unobstructed field of vision, can hear motor vehicles from great distances, need only to worry about an occasional street crossing, have very few distractions and very few laws to adhere to. Given a pedestrian's far greater ability to avoid a collision than that of a motor vehicle's in conjunction with the vastly skewed effect on each other in the unfortunate event of a collision, it makes me wonder why pedestrians even have the right of way.
It also makes me wonder why a pedestrian would fail to practice good road crossing habits, to stop, look and listen and signal their intent to cross. Where did we go wrong? What prevents us from adhering to this guidance we received in elementary school? Is it embarrassing to point across a road? Is it a desire to prove your correctness in pedestrians having the right of way? With the amount of snow we have received lately, I think that it is more important than ever for pedestrians to practice good habits. Before you briskly emerge from a seven-foot-tall snow pile, consider that the driver of the 6,000-pound vehicle travelling 50 km/h on the icy road may not see you.
Next time, before you cross the road, ask yourself this question: do you want to prove your right of way or do you want to be alive?
Lauren Baril, St. Albert
