Brianna Loven walks past the blood stain in the middle of the 168th Street and 60th Avenue crosswalk every day on her way to work. It’s the spot where her friend, Emily Sanregret, was fatally struck on June 23.
Loven had known Sanregret for 14 years, attending the same church and spending most of their teen years together. They both worked at Kidz Rock Daycare, and Loven is now taking care of the kids Sanregret had been watching before she passed away.
“Just working here, it has its moments,” the 20-year-old Loven said. “Because I have her room, the room with all of her preschoolers. It’s been quite the experience, not having her around and not being able to talk to her.
“Even the crosswalk (is difficult), because there’s still the bloodstain in the middle of the crosswalk,” she added. “It’s hard. It’s been hard.”
It’s not just hard because every day Loven walks past the place where her friend was hit. It’s difficult because she’s almost been hit twice since Sanregret passed away.
“It definitely shakes me up every single time,” she said. “After it happens, I shake and my jaw’s going. I have jitters. It makes crossing the street scarier.”
The first time, Loven was nearly struck in the same spot as Sanregret.
“The sun wasn’t entirely on the crosswalk, but I was exactly where Emily had been hit, and this guy starts turning,” she said. “And I’m screaming at him. And he’s like, ‘I didn’t see you.'”
The second time was on Tuesday, July 11, when a car cut in front of her to make a left turn.
“We all worry about this,” Loven said about the intersection. “It’s not just me, it’s all the coworkers there that worry about this crosswalk because it’s such a busy intersection.”
Loven thinks the city should put in a delayed left turn signal for drivers on 60th Avenue wanting to turn onto 168th Street. There is already a turn signal on 168th Street turning onto 60th Avenue.
“It would be the first step to making this a better intersection,” she said.
“Then even in the morning, when the sun is on that side of the road, they still can’t go until … the green arrow’s there.”
Surrey’s manager of transportation, Jaime Boan, said the city isn’t currently planning to alter the intersection.
The city hasn’t received the RCMP’s investigation into Sanregret’s death yet, and therefore don’t know what the RCMP believes may have caused the accident.
However, the city completed their own safety assessment of the intersection in mid-July and found no issues with the intersection.
Boan did note that because the crash happened early in the morning the sun may have been in the driver’s eyes, but “short of that we don’t see any other engineering reason for the incident.”
For now, it’ll be up to the drivers to make the intersection a safer place. But Loven doesn’t see that happening.
“They know someone died here,” she said. “They know someone died here recently, and no one seems to care, because everyone is too busy getting to where they need to be.”
